the early roman canon missae (ratcliff e couratin)

8/13/2019 The Early Roman Canon Missae (Ratcliff e Couratin)

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Journal ofEcclesiasticalHistory,Vol. XX, No. s, October

The Early RomanC anon M issaeby the late E. C. RATCLIFFSometime Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge

and A. H. COURATINCanon and Librarian, Durham Cathedral

In 1950 the late Professor Ratcliff published in the first two numbers ofthis JOURNAL an article entitled 'The Sanctus and the Pattern of theEarly Anaphora'. In it he argued that the recitation of the Sanctusformed the climax and doxology of the primitive Eucharistic Prayer. Atthe end of the article he wrote, 'Why, if the pattern of the ancient Ana-phora ever conformed with the reconstruction proposed here, was the pat-tern abandoned? The surviving literature, and not least the historicliturgies, either supply the answers or offer evidence which suggests them.A consideration of the questions and answers, however, must be reservedfor a future article'.

Pressure of work p revented him from writing the sequel for a nu m be r ofyears. But the subject was always at the back of his mind; and in 1963 hepublished 'A Note on the Anaphoras described in the Liturgical Homiliesof Na rsai ' . 1Th is was in effect th e first instalm ent of the future article, an ddeals with the old Syrian, or, as he preferred to call it, the old Easternliturgical usage.2But he was equally interested in the Roman liturgical tradition, as can

be seen from the paper that he read in 1955 on 'The Institution Narrativeof the Roman Canon Missae:its beginnings and early back grou nd'.3 A ndas early as 1957 he had already come to the view, which was to have beenset out in this article, of the R om an, o r rathe r, as he would have p ut it, th eAfrican-Roman, Eucharistic Prayer.The present writer was in communication with him over many years,and discussed the subject by letter and in conversation on a number ofoccasions. As a mere amateur he is incapable of doing more than setting

1 Biblical andPatristic Studies in memoryofRobert PierceCasey,ed. J . H . Birdsall and R . W .Thompson, Freiburg-im-Breisgau 1963, 235-49.2Cf. also 'The Old Syrian Baptismal Tradition and its Resettlement under the Influ-ence of Jerusalem in the Fourth Century',Studies in ChurchH istory, ii, ed.G.J. Cuming,London 1965, 19-37.8 'The Institution Narrative of the Roman Canon Missae: its beginnings and earlybackground',StudiaPatristica,ii, ed. K. Aland and F. L. Cross, Berlin 1957, 64-82.211


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E C R A T C LI F F A N D A H C O U R A T I Nout the main line of Ratcliff's argument, and must ask liturgical scholarsto consider it in the light of the available evidence.

The fragment of Professor Ratcliff's article is printed out first. An out-line of the remainder of the article, as it might have been finished, isappended.

N O B IS Q U O Q U E P E C C A T O R IB U SThe two paragraphs of the Roman Canon Missaewh ich beg in respec-

t ive ly wi th the words Communicantes a n d Nobis quoque peccatoribus a r enotorious for th e problems which they present to the historian of the R om anLiturgy . Each par agr aph has attracted to itself a considerable quan tity ofcom m ent; and the solutions propou nded for its problems have been m any ,various and often conflicting. Probably the problems will never be satis-factorily resolved except by the discovery of a piece, or pieces, of decisiveevidence at present unknown, and contained in a document not yetbrought to light, if such there be. In the meantime it may be permissible,if not to propose another solution, at least to offer some further commentin the form of a note, mainly upon Nobisquoqueand its list of saints.By way of introduction it will be convenient to set out inextenso andsynoptically the two paragraphs of the Canon as they appear in the recen-sion designated by Edmund Bishop 'the Gallic Gelasianum of the eighthcentury' and by Mgr. Andrieu Ordo RomanicsV I P .

C O M M U N I C A N T E S N O B IS Q U O Q U EP E C C A T O R I B U Set m em oriam veneran tes in primis famulis tuis, de m ultitu din e m ise-gloriosae semper virginis M ariae ratio nu m tu aru m speran tibus,genetricis Dei et dom ini nostri Iesu pa rtem aliqu am societatis do nar eCh risti, sed et be ato rum apostolo- digneris, cum tuis sanctis apostolisrum ac m artyrum tuorum et martyribus, cumIohanne, Felicitate,Stephano, Perpetua,Mathia , Agathe ,Barnaba, Lucia,Ignatio, Agne,Alexandra, Cecilia,Marcellino, Anastasia,Petro,

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Petri ,Pauli,Andreae,Iacobi,Iohannis ,Thoma e ,Iacobi ,Philippi,Bartholomei,Mathei ,

Lini,Cleti,d e m e n t i s ,Sixti,Cornelii,Cypriani ,Laurenti i ,Chrisogoni,Iohannis et Pauli,Cosmae et Damiani.Simonis et Thathei.


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THE EARLY ROMAN CANON MISSAESifuerit natale sanctorum, hie dicat:

Sed et diem natalicii bea ti Illius et cum om nibus sanctis tuis in tracelebrantes et om nium sanctorum qu oru m nos conso rtium non aesti-tuoru m, quo rum meritis precibus- mator m eriti sed veniae, quaesu-qu e concedas, ut in om nibus pro - mu s. Larg itor adm itte. Per C hris-tectionis tuae mu niam ur auxilio. turn dom inum nostru m .2Per Christum dominum nostrum.1

The text exhibited above expresses only one of the two purposes ofCommunicantes, viz., the commemoration of an unvarying sequence ofsaints, to which is added any saint whose anniversary is to be observed,and for the mention of whose name a short stereotyped formula is pro-vided. The other purpose, expressed in variable clauses which, under theheading,Infra adionem,the Sacramentaries insert into theMissaeproper tothe feasts, is to commemorate the great dominical solemnities of the tem-poral cycle, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost. TheEaster clause may be quoted from the Gelasianum in order to exemplify thecharacter of the variable clauses generally and the method of introducingthem into the paragraph,

'Communicantes, et noctem sacratissimam caelebrantes resurrectionisdomini nostri Iesu Christi secundum carnem: sed et memoriam [vene-ran tes in primis gloriosae semper virginis M ari ae . . . sed et b ea to ru mapostolorum &c] ' .3The variable clauses, both temporal and sanctoral,ofCommunicantes recalla passage of the letter sent in A.D. 538 to Profuturus, bishop of Braga, bypope Vigilius in answer to certain inquiries made by Profuturus aboutR om an liturgical usage. Of the prayers connected w ith the consecration ofthe oblations at Mass, Vigilius wrote,

'Ordinem quoque precum in celebritate missarum nullo nos tempore,nulla festivitate significamus habere diversum: sed semper eodem tenoreoblata Deo munera consecrare. Quoties vero Paschalis, aut AscensionisDo mini, vel Pentecostes, et Ep ipha niae , sanctorum que Dei fuerint agen dafestivitas, singula capitula diebus apta subjungimus, quibus commemora-tionem sanctae solemnitatis, aut eorum facimus, quorum natalitia cele-bra m us: caetera vero ordine consueto prosequ itur'.4There can be no doubt that Vigilius is here writing of what is now calledthe Canon Missae,tha t is, of tha t p art of the E ucharistic P rayer whichbegins with the p aragra ph, Teigitur,e tc. Similarly th ere can be no reason-able doubt that the commemorative 'capitula diebus apta' are some formofCommunicantes clauses. The collection ofMissae and other Roman l i tur-gical mater ial, which is know n as theSacramentarium Leonianumo r Veronense,

1M . Andrieu , LesOrdines Roma nidu haulmoyen-age, Lou vain 1948, ii. 29 7-8 .2 Ibid., 301 f.8L. C. Mo hlberg, L . Eizenhofer an d P. Siffrin, Sacramentarium Gelasianum (RerumEcclesiasticarum Documenta, series maior, Fontes iv), Rome 1960, no. 459.4 P.L., lxix. 18 C.2 1 3


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E C R A T C LI F F A N D A H C O U R A TI Nand which may be taken as having been put together during the pontifi-cate of Vigilius (A.D. 537-55), contains four Communicantes clauses, twoeach for Ascension and Pentecost.1 We may assume that clauses forEpiphany and Easter were to be found in the portion of the MS. nowmissing. Comformably with Vigilius's silence about Christmas, the Missaein the Leonianum for that feast contain noCommunicantes clause. As to thecommemoration of saints, it will have been observed that the sanctoralclause ofOrdo Romanics VII, 'sed et diem natalicii beati Illius celebrantes'echoes Vigilius's phrase, 'eo rum . . . natalitia celebram us'. We m ay inferthat the eighth-century clause had its roots in sixth-century usage, andthat in Vigilius's time the phrase ran, 'et beati (orsancti) m artyris tuiIllius natalitia celebrantes'. The phrase does not occur, of course, amongthe Missaeof the Leonianum. We should expect, however, to find it, notamong the Missae,but, as inOrdo Romanus VII, at the appropriate pointof the text of the Canon; and the Canon is wanting from that portion oftheLeonianum which has been preserved. By itself the phrase is somewhatabrupt, and falls short of fully expressing what is intended in celebrating asaint's, specially a martyr's, 'birthday'. In the Leonianum, the Communi-cantes clauses are closed by the opening words of the succeeding clause,'sed et memoriam venerantes'. Here we have the first half of the ideawhich is completed in the phrase, 'natalitia celebrantes'. May we notconclude, then, that in the mid-sixth century the full sanctoral clauseran, '(sed) et memoriam venerantes et beati (or sancti) martyris (orcon-fessoris) tui Illius natalitia celebrantes'? The sanctoral clause, thus con-jecturally reconstructed, complies with the terms of Vigilius's letter toProfuturus. It is, like the temporal clauses, a 'capitulum, aptum' to thecommemoration of a saint's anniversary. Again, the two types of clauseare no more than briefsubjuncta,or, when the sanctoral clause is attachedto a temporal, a single yet still briefsubjunctum,2 to one of the constituentparagraphs of the Canon. If we may take up a clue offered by theBobbio3and Stowe* Missals,we shall see in th e w ordCommunicantesnot the incipitofthesubjunctum, but the normal explicit of the paragraph to which it was tobe subjoined.5 The t rue incipitof the sixth cen tury Communicantes is 'Etdiem' on temporal occasions (as in Bobbio and Stowe),and 'Et (or Sed et)memoriam' on saints ' anniversaries; the word 'communicantes ' is intro-duced into the Sacramentaries to serve as a cue.

1 L .C.M ohlb erg , L . Eizenhofer an d P . Siffrin, SacramentariumVeronense(Reru m Ecclesi-astica rum D oc um en ts, series ma ior, Fontes i), Ro m e 1956, nos. 178, 186, 204 and 224.For a classification of the collection and for discussion of its dating, see ibid., lxiv-lxxxv.2Form erly, in cases of 'occur renc e', i.e., of the coincidence of a temp ora l feast wi th a'saint's anniversary, both commemorations were observed, the temporal taking first place.3 TheBobbio Missal (Henry Bradshaw Society, liii), 1917, fol. 12.4 TheStoweMissal (Henry Bradshaw Society, xxxi), 1906, fol. 23'.8 For the original connexion of Communicantes, see L. Eizenhofer, 'Te igituru ndCom-municantes im romischen Messkanon', Sacris Erudiri,viii (1956), 1 4-7 5; see also the N otaby A.P. , 'Questiones de Com mu nican tes ' , Ephemerides Liturgicae, lxviii (1954), 155 f.It may be remarked that in the Latin tradition, the usage of commemorating the mar-tyrs at Mass is older than the time of St. Augustine, to whose testimony A.P. refers. St.

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THE E RLY ROM N C NON MISS E

There is no thing in the letter of Vigilius to exclud e th e possibility ofthe presence, in his Can on, of a catalogue of saints' n am es to be recitedregularly at every Mass. O n the other h an d, the list wh ich app ears in theCommunicantes of Ordo Romanus V I I and ofthe m odern Ro m an Missalclearly could not have been attached to the essentially occasional capitulumto which Vigilius refers. The formation of the list could n ot h ave beenbegun, therefore, before A.D. 538. Fr. V . L. Ke nned y has shown goodreason for thinking that the list, as we have it in Ordo RomanusVII, is theterm ination of a co mplicated process of formation, in the course of whichan originally very short list of names was first considera bly len gthe ned andthen curtailed, though without being reduced to its pr imary number .1Even with the list curtailed to twenty-five names,Communicantescontinuesto suffer what Professor Jungmann has termed an 'unn aturlic he Belas-tung ' ,2 which is more evident in Ordo RomanusV II than in the modernMissal, because, in the former, the names intru de between the twophrases, 'memoriam venerantes ' and 'diem natalicii bea ti Illius cele-brantes ' .3 How could such an intrusion h ave o riginated ? For w antofevidence, an answer to this question can only be conjectural. The text ofthe paragraph, however, suggests a conjecture which accords withth echaracter of the list as a whole. A dom inant factor in the formation of thelist, as Fr. Ke nned y has dem onstrated, was the cu ltus at Rome, andinparticular churches of the city, of the saints named in the list. In this con-nexion, we ma y notice th at the expression, 'm em oria m ven erar i', incontrast with 'diem celebrare', is appropriate to the mention, not only ofa saint upon days other than his anniversary, but also of a saint to whomthe local Roman calendar assigns no anniversary. Chief in the latter class,in the sixth century, was the Blessed Virgin Mary. I t was not untilthesecond half of the seventh century that the R om an C hu rch took over fromByzantine usage the practice of commemorating our Lady by feasts cele-brated in her sole honou r, such as her N ativity and Assum ption. I t hasbeen suggested by some scholars that the 'memoriae veneratio' of Mary

Cyprian, writing of the confessors who, dying in prison, have attained the martyrisgloria',directs that their death-days shall be noted like those of the martyrs, and stateshis intention of celebrating 'Oblationes et sacrificia ob commemorationes eorum'{Ep.,xii).There is every probability in favour of the sanctoral clause being an older feature ofthe Roman Canon than the temporal clauses.1See V. L. Kennedy, C.S.B.,The Saintsofthe CanonoftheMass,(Studi di A ntichitaCristiana pubblicati per cura del Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, xiv), Rome1938,189-99.2SeeJ. A. Jungma nn, S.J., MissarumSollemnia,Vienna 1948, ii. 215.8It must be noted that the group ofMSS.classified asOrdo RomanusVII is the onlyone to preserve the clause, 'et diemnatalicii.. . celebrantes'. Tha t th e clauseisgenuinely'Roman of Rome', however, is indicated not only by Vigilius's reference, but also by thetexto fCommunicantesprescribed by pope Gregory II I (A.D.731-41) for use in an oratorywhich he had founded in St. Peter's and which housed an abundance of saints' relics.Th e textruns,'sed et diem natalicium celebrantes sanctorum tuorum martyrum ac con-fessorum, perfectorum iustorum, quorum solemnitas hodie in conspectu gloriae tuaecelebratur'; see L. Duchesne,L eLiber Pontificalis, Paris 1886,i. 422. 5


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E C RATCLIFF A N D A H COURATINwas introduced into Communicantes as early as the fifth century;1 but theevidence alleged in support of the opinion is not adequate to the weightimposed upon it. It is true that, consequent upon the Council of Ephesus(A.D.431), pope Xystus III (A.D. 432-40) dedicated to the Virgin Mothera church, St. Mary Major, in which he erected an inscription inspired bythe title BCOTOKOS, which the Council had upheld against Nestorian ob-ject ion.2Yet the approval of the title and the dedication of the church didnot necessarily involve the Roman Church in the payment of specificliturgical honour to Mary, and there is no trace of any Marial cultus atRome for more than a century after Xystus's death. In the Leonianum,forinstance, out of thirty-three Christmas formulae only five allude to ourLord's birth of a virgin, and none mention her by name; 3 indeed, theLeonianum names her once only, in a phrase, 'beatae Mariae fructum',occurring in a Preface for the Nataleof St. Jo h n the B aptist.4 It may berecorded, further, that theLeonianum does not exhibit a single instance ofany Latin equivalent of the title, deoroKos.

When we turn again to the Communicantes of Ordo Romanus V II andexamine its description of Mary, we observe that the Latin, 'gloriosaesem per virginis Ma ria e genetricis De i', follows closely th e description con-tained in the initial sentence of the sixth anathema of the second Councilo f C o n s t a n t in o p le (A . D. 5 5 3 ) , El TLS KaraxprjaTiKtijs, aAA' OVK aXrjduisdeoroKov \4yei rrjv aylav evZo^ov aenrapdevov Map iav . . . (6 TOIOVTOSavdOefia earci)).5T he Greek description here employed by th e Councilwas borrowed from the fifth KecfxiXaiov of the emperor Justinian's seconddecree against the 'Three Chapters '.6 The description occurs elsewherein the decree, and also in other documents issued by the emperor; itappears to have been his chosen formula for expressing the uniqueposition of ou r L ad y. Th e La tin description is clearly a version of theGreek. May we then take the insertion of Mary's 'memoriae veneratio'into Communicantes to be a sequel of the affair of the 'Three Chapters'?Apassage in the Profession of Faith drawn up by pope Pelagius I (A.D. 556-561) for circulation am ong the bishops of G au l, favours an affirmativeanswer. Pelagius, who had been Vigilius's deacon and had attended himat Constantinople, had supported Vigilius in his opposition to Justinian'sdecree against the 'T hre e Ch apters '. Later, yielding to Justinia n's persua-sion, Pelagius changed his position, and eventually, like Vigilius himself,accepted the decrees of the Council ofA.D.553. By so doing, he incurredthe anger and mistrust of the western bishops. When, after Vigilius'sdeath, Pelagius was imposed by the emperor upon the Romans as theirpope, he appeared to be both a traitor to Chalcedon and a toady to the

1 See Kennedy, op. cit. , 93.3 For the inscriptionsee F.Cabrol. and H . Leclercq, Dictionnaire d archiologie chritiemeet deliturgie, ar t . Marie-Majeure (Sainte) , x. 2, 2093 f.8Sacramentariwn Veronense, nos. 1239-72.4 Ibid., no. 234.BSee C . J . Hefele-H. Leclercq, Histoire desConciles, Paris 1909, iii. 1, 115 f.8 Ibid., 49.2 l 6


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THE EARLY ROMAN CANON MISSAEimperial will. The Profession of Faith was designed to clear the newpope's reputation in the eyes of the western bishops. The Professionassures its recipients of Pelagius's firm adherence to the Tome of pope LeoI (A.D.440-61) an d to the doctrine of the C ouncil of Ch alcedon (A.D.451) ;at the same time it carefully avoids any reference to the objectionableCouncil ofA.D. 553. Th ere is in the Profession, however . . .

From the fragment printe d above it is possible to gath er Ratcliff'sviews about the section of the Canon from TeigiturtoQuamoblationem.A nattempt will be made, therefore, to set these out in order. But the firstpa rag rap h of his article makes it clear tha t he was not prima rily concernedwith th e opening of the C anon, b ut w ith its conclusion, an d above all withthe prayer Nobisquoquepeccatoribus. The way in which he conceived theCanon to have ended will therefore be described, as far as his views areknown. But it may prove useful to begin by describing the way in whichhe thought the Roman Eucharistic Prayer to have developed, beforetreating of the opening and closing sections of the present Canon.The Prayer at Rome remained fluid, and was constantly being re-touched, up to the time of Gregory the Great. It may be presumed that itoriginally possessed a long beginning, with Creation and Christological

passages; and perhaps the oldest proper prefaces preserve some phrasesof wha t was said on the oldest feasts, as an inset in the wider Christologicalpassage. The interpolation of the Sanctuswith its introdu ction at the begin-ning of the Prayer took place unde r Jerus alem influence, prob ably at somepoint during the fifth century. One may presume that the text given byAmbrose in DeSacramentis is parallel to, though not identical with, con-temporary Roman usage. But his evidence at this point is ambiguous. Heis not interested in the Prayer as a whole, but only in the Dominical wordsand their effect. He writes,1'Na m reliqua omnia quae dicun tur in superi-oribus a sacerdote dicuntur, laus Deo defertur, oratio petitur pro populo,pro regibus, pro caeteris: ubi venitur ut conficiatur venerabile sacra-mentum, iam non suis sermonibus utitur sacerdos, sed utitur sermonibusChristi '. 'Reliqua omnia quae dicuntur in superioribus' presumably refersto the earlier parts of the Eucharistic Prayer, and not to the earlier partsof the rite. In that case 'laus Deo defertur, oratio petitur pro populo etc'refers to opening praise in the Prayer, followed by intercession, as in thelater Canon. But there is nothing to indicate whether this opening praiseconsisted of thanksgiving passages for Creation and Redemption, or of theSanctuswith its introd uctio n, or, indeed, of theSanctuswith its introd uction ,followed by thanksgivings. An indication that this third possibility wasonce current practice at Rome may perhaps be found in TheBobbioSacra-mentarj,2where the Can on is set o ut u nd er the title Missa Romensis

1DeSacramentis,rv. iv. 1 4.2 TheBobbio Missal,no. 4.2 1 7


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E C RATCLIFF A N D A H COURATINCottidiana. This may imply that on 'cottidian' days it was customary atRome to omit the thanksgiving passages, and to recite Te igitur im -mediately after theSanctus.

The opening phrases of the Canon, 'Te igitur, clementissime Pater, perIesum Christum Filium tuum Dominum nostrum supplices rogamus etpetimus, uti accepta habeas et benedicas haec dona, haec munera, haecsancta sacrificia illibata', constitute the petition for the acceptance of thegifts; and, however much remodelled in the interests of style and of doc-trine, were originally directly dependent on the thanksgiving which oncepreceded them. The suggestion of Dom B. Botte,1 that igiturhas h ere ameaning no stronger than the Greek Se, is to be rejected. 'If it be remem-bered that as in the Eastern Liturgies, so in the Roman, the Sanctus is aninterpolation, Teigiturwill be seen to carry on the tho ug ht of the Preface.T h e sequence is V ere dignu m et iustum est tibi gratias agere Te igi-tursupplices rogamusuti accepta habeashaec dona ' . 2 It is meetand right to give thanks through Christ. Therefore through Christ we askyou to accept our thankoffering.

Whether the opening phrases of Te igitur were originally followed byan older form ofQuamoblationem*we do not know. But it seems clear th atit was the offering of the gifts which provided the occasion for introducingintercessory petitions at this point, beginning with the phrase 'in primisqu ae tibi offerimus pro ecclesia tua sancta catho lica', and con tinuing witha prayer for its peace and unity, together with the name of the localbishop, who was the local centre of the Church's unity. It is commonlyheld thatMementoDomine,which follows immediately, is the naming of thenames of the offerers, after the oblations have been commended, referredto by Innocent I in his letter to Decentius in 416. 4 But, in the fragmentprinted above, it will be seen that Ratcliff connects the prayerCommuni-cantes, not with the closing phrase ofMementoDomine, where it has little orno meaning, but with the closing phrase of Te igitur,whe re it makesexcellent sense'una cum famulo tuo papa nostro illocomm unicantes, etmemoriam venerantes et beati illiusna tah tia celebrantes'. W e ask God toaccept the gifts which we offer, being in communion with our father N.,and venerating the memory and celebrating the heavenly birthday ofblessed jV.If such a view is accepted,Memento Dominecan no longer be identifiedwith the recitation of the names referred to in Innoc ent's letter. It m ust b eregarded as a later interpolation, breaking the flow of the original prayer.Some other interpretation must be found for Innocent's statement, 'Priusergo oblationes sunt commendandae, ac tune eorum nomina, quorumsunt edicenda'.5 N o one would wish to dispute Dom Capelle's jud gm en t

1VOrdinairede la Messe,Paris-Louvain 1953, 75, n. 9.2 E. C. Ratcliff; Christian Worship and Liturgy , TheStudyof Theology, ed. K. E.Kirk, London 1939, 443.8 Cf. Ambrose, DeSacramentis, rv. v. a1.* B. Capelle, TravauxLiturgiques, ii ,Louvain 1962, 236-47.5 P.L., xx. 553.2 l 8


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that the commending of the oblations can only be the opening phrases ofTeigitur. But ifMemento Domine is to be regarded asa later interpolation,as Ratcliff suggests, the names must presumably have been recited afterthe oblations had been commended by those who were in comm unionwith their lawful bishop and were celebrating with veneration the com-memoration of the saint's day .In that case one is driven to see inHancigituroblationem the point at which th e name s of the offerers w ere recited .This was certainly RatclifFs view. How he would have argued the pointis not known. But the earlier texts of this praye r, as they are found inLeonianum1and Gelasianum,2as often as not contain the names of those whoare offering the oblations at the pa rticu lar mass, as well as the inte ntionfor which they are offering them. If this practice survived into the middleof the sixth century, when Leonianum and Gelasianum were presumablybeing run together,3 it is not impossible that it was the m ain p urpose ofthe prayer at the beginning of the fifth ce ntury .

But if Hancigituroblationem is the original place in the Ca non for therecitation of the names of the offerers, when and why was MementoDomine added to the Prayer?Hanc igitur oblationem is always regard ed asadifficulty, becauseMemento Domine is thought to be the older prayer, andHanc igitur oblationema later ad dition, which did little mor e tha n redu pli-cate it, untilit was, on most occasions, generalised a nd ren dered otiose byGregory I.* Butif Hancigituroblationem is the older prayer, the tables areturned. Memento Dominebecomes the prayer which reduplicates andisdifficult to explain. And notMemento Domine only, but alsoMementoetiam.F o r in Leonianum a n d Gelasianum Hanc igitur oblationemis equa l ly a n occa-sion for commending the oblations of the living and for making oblationson behalf of the dead.6 The textual history of the twoMemento prayersisdifferent. No text of the Canon exists without Memento Domine, and thereis little more than internal evidence to suggest that it was ever anythingbut an integral part of the Canon. Memento etiam,on the o ther hand ,ismore loosely connected with the Canon in the textual t radi t ion;andalthough it is widely arg ued tha t it was in tegral to the Cano n, an d wasonly later excluded from public masses by Gregory I, 6 sucha position canby no means be regarded as certain.7

The question may therefore, perhaps, be asked, whether both prayersdid not begin life apart from the Canon, and both did not find a place init laterthe one comparatively early, the other within the period of the1Sacramentarium Veronense, nos. 1012, 1107, 1140.2Sacramentarium Gelasianum, nos. 707, 713, 781, 795, 1447, 1660.8 Cyrille Vogel, Introduction aux Sources de PHistoire du Culte Chritien au Moyen Age,Spoleto n.d. For Leonianum (Veronense), 32; for Gelasianum, 5 3 -5 .4Bede, Hist. Eccl., ii. 1 (P.L., xcv. 80).5Sacramentarium Veronense, no. 1140; Gelasianum, nos. 1631, 1646, 1660, 1664, 1669.6 M. Andrieu, 'L'Insertion du Me mento des Morts au Canon Rom aine ' , Revue desSciences Religieuses, i (1921), 151-4; B. Botte,LeCanon de lamesseRomaine, Louvain 1935,6 7 - 9 ; B. Capelle, Travawc Liturgiques, ii, 255-7.7E. Bishop,Liturgica Historica, Oxford 1918, 96- 103 , 109-15 ;G.G. Willis, Essays inEarly Roman Liturgy, London 1964, 131-2.

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E C R A T C L I F F A N D A H C O U R A T I NM SS. Both begin with the same phrase, Memento (etiam) Domine,which isreminiscent of the Greek liturgies.1 From this Ratcliff argued that theirintroduction dates from a period of Greek influence in Rome. At the sametime it is claimed that the language of Memento etiam is archaic,2 and thesame is equally true ofMementoDomine. It is possible that both were olderprayers adapted to a new setting, when they were used in connexion withthe Canon. Why they were so connected, if the Canon already possessedin Hanc igituroblationem an opportunity for naming the offerers and thedead, was never discussed with Ratcliff by the present writer. So far asMemento etiam is concerned, his views are known. He believed that it wasin origin a prayer said aloud by the deacon, while the Canon was recitedsilently by th e celeb ran t.3Wh en the celebrant was not assisted by a de aconand himself recited all those parts of the rite normally taken by his assis-tants,Memento etiam inevitably found its way into the Canon.

It has been suggested that Memento Domine entered the Canon in thesame way; that it, too, began life as a prayer recited while the celebrantwas silently commending the oblations.4 In that case a neat history of thedeve lopm ent of the intercessions in the Ca non can be obtaine d. I n the tim eof Innocent I the Canon is said out loud, and the names of the offerersare heard by all at Hanc igitur oblationem. When the Canon goes silent,the deacon recites the names out loud, first of the offerers and then of thedead, whileHanc igituroblationem is transformed, first into a special inten-tion, as in Leonianum and Gelasianum, and then into a general prayer byGregory I. Finally, both Memento prayers enter the Canon as suggested.But such a history supposes that the Canon was already recited silently inthe sixth century, and for this the evidence is contradictory. On the onehand, in Leonianum, at the mass for the consecration of virgins, the textruns 'H an c et iam oblationem Dne t ibi virginum sacratarum qu arum antesanctum altare tuum oblata nomina recitantur quaesumus placatusaccipias '.5 This implies thatMemento Domine is being recited out loud, atthe same time asHanc igitur {etiam) oblationemis being said silently. On th eother hand, in Gelasianum, at the mass of the scrutinies of Len t I I I ,6 whichbelongs to the earlier stratum in the Gelasian tradition,Memento Domineisread aloud by the celebrant, who stops at the appropriate place, while thenames of the godparents are inserted into the prayer by someone else.Later, Hanc igituroblationem is read, presumably aloud, by the celebrant,and again the names, this time of the candidates, are inserted by someoneelse, before the celebrant concludes the prayer. Again, it does not seemlikely that, while the Anaphora at Constantinople was only beginning to

1 Cf. F. E. Brightman,Liturgies Easternand W estern, Oxford 1896, i. 332-6.2B. Botte, op. cit., 68.3 E. C .Ratclifif, The Study of Theology, 441 .4 I. Schuster,LiberSacramentorum,English tran s., Londo n 1924, i. 27 3- 4; B. Botte, op.cit., 59-6 Sacramentariurn Veronense,n o . 2 8 3 .6Sacramentariurn Gelasianum, no. 195-7. See also M. Andrieu, LesOrdines Rom ani duhautmoyenage,ii, Lou vain 1948, 42 5-6 .


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THE EARLY ROMAN CANON MISSAEbe said silently in 565,1the C anon at R om e had already been silent forsome time before that date. And finally, in Gregory's Canon, whether itwa s said ou t loud or silently,Memento Domineat leastiscertainly an integralpar t of the celebra nt's pr ayer a t all masses, as well asHanc igituroblationem.How Ratcliff was prepared to support his theory of the later insertionof Memento Domine, and how he would have dealt with the evidence, isunknown. But it is clear from the fragment of his article that he was pre-pared to do so, and the question must now be left to other scholars todiscuss.2He certainly accepted the view, as has been seen above, that Mementoetiam was a later addition to the text of the Canon, and remained unim-pressed by the argum ents of those who ha ve m ainta ined that it stood in thepre-Gregorian Canon and was removed from public masses by Gregory I.He was doubtful about the connexion between the prayers Supra quaeandSuppliceste,bu t was inclined to believe tha t the form in which the tw o arecombined in the text of De Sacramentis3 might well represent the olderorder. He was convinced however that their content was ancient. Hepointed out that all three types of the Eucharistic sacrifice contained inSupra quaethe offerings of Abel, Abraham, and Melchizedekbelongedto the pre-Mosaic era. He suggested, therefore, that they entered theliturgical tradition at a time when the Christian Sacrifice could not becompared with the Mosaic sacrifices, because Christian apologists werebusy asserting against their Jewish opp onen ts th at t he Mosaic sacrificeshad been rejected by God,4 as foretold by the pr op he t M alach i.5

He was equally convinced of the antiquity of the Angel and of theAltar in the petition 'iube haec perferri per manus angeli tui in sublimeal tar e tuum in conspectu divinae ma iestatis tu ae '. T he Angel is /xeyaArj?fiovXfjs ayyeXosof Isaiah.6 Ratcliff did not accept th e argum ents ofDom B. Botte in this matter.7 The Christ is referred to as 'Angel' inJus t in ,8 and in the Eucharistic Prayer of ApostolicTradition.9Am brosemisunderstands the tradition, and puts angelorum in place ofangeli.Ra t -cliff rejected the view that the text of the Canon preserved in De Sacra-mentisissimply an older form of the RomanCanonMissae,11an d in this he issuppo rted by a num ber of mo dern scholars.12 So also the Altar is TO1 Cf. E. Bishop, 'Silent recitations in the Mass of the faithful', Th eLiturgical HomiliesofNarsai, ed. R. H. Connolly, Cambridge 1909, 121-6.2Cf. B. Botte, op. cit., 59: 'C'est la un e simple hypothese q ue je soumets au jugem entdes spe'cialistes'.8 rv. vi. 27. 4E.g. Justin, Dialogue,117.6 Mai. i. 11. 6 LXX Isaiah ix. 6.7B. Botte, ' L 'an ge du sacrifice', Cours et conferences des Semaines Liturgiques,vii,Louvain 1929, 209-21 ; 'L'ange du sacrifice et1 epiclesede la messe Rom aine au moyenage ' , Recherchesde Theologie ancienneetmSdUvale, i (1929), 285-308.8/ Apology, 63 . 9Ap. Trad.,iv. 4 .10 De Sacramentis, iv. vi. 27.1 1See 'T he Insti tution Narra tive of the Rom an CanonMissae:its beginnings an d earlybackground ' , in Studia Patristica, ii .1 2E.g. C. V agaggini, The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform, English trans.,Lo ndo n 1967, 30.

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E. C. RATCLIFF AND A. H. COURATINTO xPvao^v T evatmov rod dpovov o f t h e Ap o c a ly p se .1Irenaeus had said: 'Est ergo altare in coelis, illuc enim preces nostrae etoblat iones nostrae diriguntur; et templum, quemadmodum Iohannes inApocalypsi ait '.2 The notion of the presentation of the oblations by theChrist at th e heavenly A ltar is ancient in the West, and is, inde ed, impliedby Clem ent of R om e w hen he calls Jesus Ch rist rov apxtepeaT V irpoa-(f>opcjv rjiuov.3 In the East it w as not introduced into the liturgicaltradition un til a later period,4since the Apocalypse was not accepted ther eas Scripture at an early date.Th e form of the pray erSupplices te has often excited comment.5 It fallsinto three parts, (a) 'Supplices te rogamus omnipotens Deus'. This is apiece of fine writing, and belongs to the latest remodelling of the prayer,probably in the sixth century, (b) 'iube haec perferri per manus angeli tuiin sublime altare tuum in conspectu divinae maiestatis tuae'. This repre-sents the original petition. It asks God to accept at the heavenly altarthrough the mediation of the Christ the Bread and Cup which the HolyPeop le ha ve offered as the me moria l of the Passion inUnde etmem ores,as heaccepted the offerings of his righteous servants under the old dispensa-tion, mentioned in Supra quae.(c) 'u t quo tqu ot ex hac altaris p articip a-tione sacrosanctum filii tui corpus et sanguinem sumpserimus, omni bene-dictione caelesti et gratia repleamur, per Christum Dominum nostrum'.

Dom B. Botte rightly observed that this petition is 'une fin d'epiclese'.6 I tdoes not a pp ear in the text of the C anon inDe Sacram entis,or in the prayersmodelled on a text of the C anon in the M ozarabic Sacra me ntary.7 It doesnot seem to carry on the thought ofiube haecperferri. There is no obviousconnexion between the presentation of the gifts at the heavenly altar andthe reception of grace by those who partake at the earthly altar. On bothexternal and internal grounds, therefore, Ratcliff claimed that the petitionwas a later insertion, made at a time when prayers for the fruits of com-munion, whether epicletic in form or not, were finding their way into theEucharistic Prayer.8 If this is so, it is no longer possible to claim that thewh o le p ra y e r Supplices te rogamus per Christum D ominum nostrum is a la te radd ition because of the presence of a conclusion.9T he presence of the con-clusion need prove nothing more than that the petition utquotquotperChristum Dominum nostrumhas been ad ded la te r .

1 Rev. viii. 3.2AdversusHaereses, ed. W. W. Harvey, Cambridge 1857, i i .a10.8 I Clement xxxvi. 1.4 F. E. Brightman, LiturgiesEasternand Western, i. 23, lines 15-18.6 Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: a Study of theRoman Liturgy,and ed. , Lond on 1926,350.8B. Botte, op. cit., 66.7 The three texts are conveniently set out side by side in B. Botte et C. Mohrmann,VO rdinaire de la tnesse, Texte critique,Traductionet Etudes,Lou vain 1953, 19-2 0.8An in dication of his view abo ut th e origin of such prayers m ay b e found in 'T heSanctus and the P atte rn of the Early Anap hora, I ' , in thisJOURNAL, i (1950), 34, n. 5.9 G. G. Willis, Essays in E arly Roman Liturgy, London 1964, 130-1.2 2 2


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THE EARLY ROMAN CANON MISSAEWe have arrived at last at the prayerNobis quoquepeccatoribus, which itwas the main purpose of Ratcliff 's article to consider. He did not believethat it was a pendant ofMementoetiam,a view maintained by a nu m be r of

scholars.1 He did not believe that Memento etiam had a permanent placein th e C anon a t all un til after th e time of Gregory I. N or did he accept thesuggestion that Nobis quoque continues the general petition for all thecommunicants inutquotquot with a special petition for the clergy, who arereferred to as nos peccatoresfamuli tui.2 He maintained that the petition*Nobis quoque peccatoribus famulis tuispartem aliquam societatisdonare digneris cum tuis sanctis apostolis et martyribus' originally fol-lowed th e phrase 'iub e haec perferri per manu s angeli tui in sublime altaretuum in conspectu divinae maiestatis tuae'. The run of the Canon at thispoint would then have beenCommand that these gifts be borne by thehands of thy Angel to thy heavenly altar, and grant to us also thy sinfulservants some part and fellowship with thy holy apostles and martyrs.Like m ost scholars he m ain tained that the stylised lists of the saints in bo thCommunicantesa ndNobis quoque were later developments in the Canon. Theoriginal insertion in Communicantes, as we can see from the fragmentprinted above, was the name of the saint whose natalitiawas being ob-served. The apostles and martyrs whose names formed the original ofNobisquoquewere the two apostolic martyrs of the city of Ro m e the holyapostles Peter and Paul. Their presence was naturally suggested by themention of the heavenly altar, under which John saw the souls of themartyrs .3 The main thought of the whole petition already appears inPolycarp's Epistle to the Philippians 4'et det vobis sortem et parteminter sanctos suos\

Nobisquoqueis, in fact, th e beginning of the end of the a ncient C an on .5As the mention of the heavenly altar leads on to the martyrs, so the mar-tyrs lead on to the nat ura l denizens of heaven, an d the angels in tur n leadon to theSanctus, which Peter and Paul and the Seraphim singsodaexulta-tione.Th is was certainly Ratcliff's view. It is also true t hat h e believed th atthe Sanctus was subsequently m oved u nde r th e influence of Jeru salem tothe beginning of the Roman Eucharistic Prayer. Ambrose,De Sacramentis,gives no indication as to whether it was included in the laus which appar-ently stood at the beginning of his Prayer, or whether it followed hisreference to the heavenly altar, or whether it found no place in his Prayerat all.6The Mai fragments show that, at the time and place at which theywere composed, the Sanctus did not stand at the beginning of the Canon,bu t they do not indicate w hether or not it stood at the end.7Canon 3 of theCouncil of Vaison distinguishes between the current usage at public andpriv ate masses, and decrees th at in future the Sanctusis to be said in p rivate

1 See above, 219 n. 6.2J . A. Jungman n , MissarumSolemnia, E nglish tra ns., N ew Y ork 1955, ii. 24853.3Rev. vi. 9. xii. 2.6 E. C.Ratcliff, Review in Theology, lxviii (1965), 441-3 .6 rv. iv. 14; rv. vi. 27.7 P.L., cxxxviii. 883 f. 3


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E G RATCLIFF AND A H COURATINmasses eo ordine quomo do ad missas publicas dicitur'.But this doesnotnecessarily mean that, in Gaul in 529, the Sanctus was said at publicmassesbut not at private masses. It could mean that by this timeit hadbeen shifted to thebeginning ofthe Canon in public masses,butstillre-tained itsolder position at the end in private masses.1Be that as it may, by the second halfof the sixth century the Sanctuswas recited at thebeginning of the Canon in allmasses,and the Canonitself had been provided with adoxology, whichmay perhaps incorpo ratesomethingofthe older end ing.2 It was nowcapab le of including on occa-sions theblessingofmilk andhoney3and ofoil4. It no longer conductedthe worshippers, in thespirit ofthanksgiving, by means of the sacrificialsymbolsof the passion, into thecourts ofheaven, where they joined withthe martyrs and theSeraphim in the adoration of theLord of Sabaoth.Intercessions for the living and the dead were now inserted, the greatthanksgiving was omitted, and the whole character of the Canon waschanged.AsRatcliff o nceput it, 'When you giveupregarding theSacri-fice asaPassto theRoy al En closure,andbegin to think of itas aNat ionalHealth card entitling you to full benefit forselfandfriends, an ythin gnotbearingon the benefit becomes irrelevant'.5

1G. G. Willis, op. cit, 124.2A. H. Couratin, The Sanctus and the Pattern of the Early Anaphora: a note onthe Roman Sanctus , in thisJOURNAL, ii (1951), 19-23.3 Sacramentarium Veronense, n o . 205.4Sacramentarium Gelasianum,no .3 8 1 - 2 .6Letter to the present writer, 20 August 1958.

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the early roman canon missae (ratcliff e couratin)

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