others say to expose the like custom among the Heathens, the Council of Eliberis expressly forbids it in a very plain canon 99, though the reason be something dark that is given for the prohibition. Let no one presume to set up lights in the day time in any cemetery or church; for the spirits of the saints are not to be molested.' I shall not now stand to inquire into the meaning of this reason; it is sufficient that the thing was then prohibited in plain terms: from whence it is evident the contrary custom must be new, though prevailing both in the East and West in the time of Paulinus and St. Jerom.

Some also plead hard for the antiquity of censers and incense, deriving them down from apostolical custom and practice. So Cardinal Bona1 and others of the Romish Church. But there are no footsteps of these things in the three first ages of the Church. The Canons under the name of the Apostles 2 indeed mention incense in the time of the oblation: but it still remains a question, whether those canons belong to any of the three first ages? Hippolytus Portuensis is another author produced by a learned person 3 of our own Church in this cause: but besides that his authority is as questionable as the former, all that he says may be interpreted to a spiritual or figurative sense. For, speaking of the times of Antichrist, and the desolations of the Church in those days, he says, the Church shall mourn with a very great mourning, because her oblation and incense are not duly per

99 C. 34. (t. I. p. 974 d.) Cereos per diem placuit in comiterio non incendi. Inquietandi enim sanctorum spiritus non sunt.

1 Rer. Liturg. 1. 1. c. 25. n. 9. (p. 262.) Turibulum sive thymiamaterium, quod etiam suffitorium dicitur ab Anastasio, vas est, in quo tura et varii odores incenduntur in solemni oblatione, idque ex apostolica traditione, et Mosaicæ legis exemplo. Nulla est ecclesiastica cærimonia, cujus crebrior mentio fiat in antiquis et recentioribus omnium gentium liturgiis, quam turis et thymiamatis, quod sæpe inter sacrificandum ado

letur.

2 C. 3. See n. 95, preceding. 3 Vid. Bevereg. Cod. Canon. Vindicat. 1. 2. c. 2. n. 5. (Cotel. v. 2.

5

formed' which may mean no more than that the liturgy or service of the Church will be abolished. For the prayers and worship of the saints are called the Christian incense, (Rev. 5, 8.) and so I think we are to understand those words of St. Ambrose also, who, speaking of the angels appearing to Zacharias, standing on the right side of the altar of incense, says, I wish the angel may stand by us when we incense the altar and offer our sacrifice: Yea, doubtless the angel stands by us, at the time that Christ stands there and is offered upon the altar.' Here, I take it, the sacrificing of Christ, and the incensing of the altar are both of the same nature, that is, spiritual and mystical; and therefore hence nothing can be concluded for the use of incense and censers in the most strict and literal sense as yet in the Christian Church. Neither do we find any mention made of censers in any part of the Constitutions under the name of the Apostles; which is an argument that when the author of those Collections wrote, they were not yet become utensils of the altar, as they were when Evagrius wrote his history; for he mentions golden censers, as well as golden crosses, given by Chosroes to the church of Constantinople. By which we may guess that crosses and censers were the product of one and the same age, and came into the Church together.

Images and relics upon the altar are usages also of later ages. And so are many utensils of the present Greeks, as the lancea, asteriscus, dicerion, tricerion, and cochlear, which Bona 7 says were never known in the Latin Church, much less in the ancient Church. So I shall not stand to explain them;

ignota, nempe lanceam sive gladiolum, lanceæ figuram habentem, quam [leg. qua] hostiam consecrandam ab integra panis massa secant. Asteriscum, qui duobus arcubus constat radiis ad instar stellæ fultis, quo hostias consecrandas cooperiunt, ne vela eas tangant et ordinem particularem turbent. Dicerion, quod est cereus bisulcus; et tricerion, quod est cereus trisulcus, quibus episcopus celebrans sæpe populo benedicit, et utrumque frequenter manibus gestat. Cochlear ab ipsis labida dictum, quo utuntur ad communionem fidelibus porrigendam.

nor say any thing here of the Bible, the diptychs, and their ritual books, which were both utensils and ornaments of the altar, because these will be spoken of in other places.

The altaria portatilia, or moveable altars of the Latins, and the antimensia, or consecrated cloths of the Greeks, to be used in places which have no altars, I omit likewise, as being a modern invention of later ages. Habertus, indeed, is very solicitous to have their portable altars thought as old as St. Basil, because St. Basil, in one of his Epistles, speaks of tdiαι τpátečαi, private tables, in some churches. But he wholly mistakes his author's meaning; for he is only speaking of the rudeness of some heretics, who, according to their usual custom, pulled down the catholic altars, and set up their own altars, or tables, in the room. So that it is not those portable altars he is discoursing of, but heretical altars set up in opposition to the Catholics, which Habertus would hardly own to be the altars of the Romish Church. Durantus 9 and Bona 10 do not pretend to find them in any author before the time of Bede and Charles the Great, and therefore we may conclude they were a modern invention.

8 Archierat. ad Rit. Var. Altar. observ. 2. (p. 664.)... Portatilia illa altaria videntur dici a Basilio idia Tрánea, Epist.72. [al. 251. (ap. Oper. Basil. Paris. 1839. t. 3. part. 2. p. 560.) Tà Baoiλeidov rov Пapλayóvos θυσιαστήρια ἀνέτρεψε παριὼν τὴν Παφλαγονίαν Εὐστάθιος, καὶ ἐπὶ ἰδίων τραπεζῶν ἐλειτούργει. ED.]

9 De Ritibus, &c., l. 1. c. 25. n. 7. (p. 89.) Vitus Amerbachius ad finem Constitutionum Caroli Magni, testatur, se vidisse in monasterio Sancti Emerani altare, quo Carolus Magnus in castris utebatur.

10 Rer. Liturg. l. 1. c. 20. n. 2. (p. 223.) Sunt et alia altaria portatilia et motoria; quæ episcopi iter agentes secum olim ferebant, ut in his possent extra ecclesiam, in locis ab ea remotis, celebrare. Horum meminit Ven. Beda, Hist. c. II., et Hincmarus Remensis, in Capitulis editis anno 12. sui episcopatus, hoc de illis sancivit: Nemo presbyterorum in altari ab episcopo non consecrato cantare præsumat. Quæ propter si necessitas poposcerit, donec ecclesia

vel altaria consecrentur, et in capellis etiam, quæ consecrationem non merentur, tabulam quisque presbyter, cui necessarium fuerit, de marmore vel nigra petra, aut litio honestissimo, secundum suam possibilitatem, honeste afectatam habeat, et nobis ad consecrandum afferat; quam secum, cum expedierit, deferat, in qua sacra mysteria secundum ritum ecclesiasticum agere valeat. Ex hoc decreto palam fit, quinam veteri ritu altaris portatilis usus sit; nimirum cum in altaribus fixis nondum consecratis, vel in oratoriis privatis, quæ consecrari nec solent nec debent, celebrandum est. Ipsa vero privata oratoria in domibus principum et nobilium virorum permittuntur, ut notissimum est: et de iis canonicæ sanctiones insertæ sunt Capitularibus Caroli Magni, 1. 6. c. IOI. et c. 105. et 1. 7. c. 329., prohibetur, ne missæ celebrentur in in locis non consecratis et incongruentibus, nisi causa hostilitatis et longinqui itineris; et id in altaribus, ab episcopo consecratis, &c.

Of the ob

lationarium, or

But the ῥιπίδια, or fabella, are somewhat more ancient, being mentioned by the author of the Constitutions", who makes it one part of the deacons' office, in the time of the oblation, to stand on each side of the altar, and, with these instruments in their hands, (brushes, or fans, we may English them,) to drive away all such little insects as might drop into the cups, or infest the altar. The author of the Fasti Siculi, or Chronicon Alexandrinum 12, calls them τίμια ριπίδια, and reckons them among the holy utensils of the altar, which were laid up among the rest, in the sceuophylacium, or vestry, of the church for which reason I thought it not improper to mention them, whilst we are speaking of the utensils of the altar.

22. In many churches, besides the communion-table, in one of the lesser recesses, or concha of the bema, there was a place prothesis. where the offerings of the people were received, out of which the bread and wine was taken that was consecrated at the altar. In the Liturgies under the names of Chrysostom 13, and St. James 14, and other modern Greek writers, this is called πρόθεσις and παρατράπεζον, the side-table. In the Ordo Romanus 15 it has the name of oblationarium, and prothesis

11 L. 8. c. 12. (Cotel. v. 1. p. 398.) Δύο δὲ διάκονοι ἐξ ἑκατέρων τῶν μετ ρῶν τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου κατεχέτωσαν ἐξ ὑμένων λεπτῶν ῥιπίδιον, ἢ πτερῶν ταῶνος, ἡ ὀθόνης.

12 Al. Paschale, p. 892. [Ed. Paris. p. 390.] (ap. Byzant. Hist. Scriptor. P. 311 a. 5.) Τούτῳ τῷ ἔτει, μηνὶ ̓Αρτεμησίῳ, κατὰ ̔Ρωμαίους Μαίῳ τῆς ιβ' Ινδικτιῶνος, ἐπὶ Σεργίου πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, ἐπενοήθη ψάλλεσθαι μετὰ τὸ μεταλαβείν πάντας τῶν μυστηρίων, ἐν τῷ μέλλειν τοὺς κληρικοὺς ἐπὶ τὸ σκευοφυλάκιον ἀποκαθιστάναι τὰ τίμια ῥιπίδια, δισκάρια, καὶ ποτηρία, καὶ ἄλλα ἱερὰ σκεύη,

κ. τ. λ.

13 Liturg. ap. Bibl. Patr. Gr.-Lat. t. 2. p. 74. (int. Oper. Chrysost. t. 12. p. 788 b.) Πληρωθείσης δὲ τῆς εὐχῆς, εὔχονται ὁμοῦ τὸν χερουβικὸν ὕμνον, καὶ τρὶς ἐν τῷ λέγειν αὐτὸν προσκυνοῦντες· εἶτα καὶ τὸν πεντηκοστὸν ψαλμὸν μυστικῶς καὶ προστ κυνοῦντες τρὲς, ἀπέρχονται ἐν τῇ προθέσει, προπορευομένου τοῦ διακό

νου μετὰ θυμιάματος, κ. τ. λ.

14 Miss. Jacob. ap. Bibl. Gr.-Lat. (t. 2. p. 21 b.) Καὶ ὅτε μέλλει ὁ διάκονος τιθέναι εἰς τὸ παρατράπεζον, λέγει ὁ ἱερεὺς : Εὐλογητὸν τὸ ὄνομα Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν, εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας.—Ibid. (b. 7.) Καὶ πάλιν, ὅτε ἐπαίρει τὸν δίσκον ἀπὸ τοῦ παρατραπέζου, λέγει, Κύριε, εὐλόγησον.

15

[Ap. Bibl. Max. (t. 13. p. 658 g. Deinde archidiaconus suscipit oblatas duas de oblationario et dat pontifici, &c. And again at p. 663 e, and f. But I cannot satisfactorily verify the statement. The term prothesis I do not find at all according to the reference: and Du Fresne (Glossar. Latinitat. 1681. t. 3. col. io.) does not notice oblationarium as a place, but only oblationarius as a person: Subdiaconus, interdum et diaconus; ad cujus ministerium pertinebat oblatas, panem scilicet et vinum, pontifici missam celebranti e patriarchio deferre, et eas archidiacono offerre. He cites the pas

also, for the one is made the explication of the other. And here also it is termed paratorium, because, when the offerings were received, preparation was made out of them for the eucharist. There is little question to be made but that the ancient churches had something answerable to this, but it went under other names; for we never meet with a prothesis, or paratorium, or oblationarium, in express terms, in any ancient writer: but the thing itself we often find. Cyprian 15 seems to speak of it under the borrowed name of the corban, rebuking a rich and wealthy matron for coming to celebrate the eucharist without any regard to the corban, and partaking the Lord's Supper without any sacrifice of her own, but rather eating of the oblations which the poor had brought.' In the fourth Council of Carthage 16 this place goes by the general name of the sacrarium, or sanctuary, as being that

sage from the Ordo Romanus as above in illustration, as well as Anastasius Bibliothecarius in his Life of Gregory the Third and other places, adding, that the official, termed by the Greeks dopéσrikos τῶν ὑποδιακόνων, was by the Latins called oblationarius. From this it would seem that the side-table, which my ancestor terms oblationarium was the patriarchium of the preceding citation, though the phrase e patriarchio, out of, or from within the patriarchium, seems to indicate a closet, or cupboard, or recess out of which the oblations were brought, rather than a table, shelf, or sideboard, from which they were lifted up and removed. Paratorium occurs also in the same context of the Ordo Romanus, viz. at p. 659, thus: Calicem autem subdiaconus accipit sequens et dat acolyto, et ille revocat in paratorium: and at p. 664, thus: Calicem... dat acolyto, quem revocat in paratorium. This surely was a room: Secretarium ecclesiæ, says Du Fresne, (ubi supr. col. 155.) seu locus ubi pontifex et qui sacra facturi sunt sese parant, &c. The πрóBeois, as purely a Greek term and belonging to the early Liturgies, is thus described by Suicer, Thes. Eccles. (t. 2. p.842.) In bemate . . . duo BINGHAM, VOL. III.

erant altaria, quandoque etiam tria. Ubi duo, alterum in medio et majus, et ȧyía rpánea: alterum minus, et ad sinistram ejus et prothesis dicitur, id est, propositio; ideo fortasse, inquit Hervetus, quod panis, qui est a sacerdote consecrandus, in eo primo ponitur. In eo autem sacerdos, quæ sunt ad sacrificandum necessaria præparat. Hujus „рodéσews seu altaris propositionis frequens passim mentio, &c. This seems to justify my ancestor's view of the oblationarium and the paratorium as corresponding terms in the Latin offices: yet I still think that according to Du Fresne's interpretation, coupled with the internal evidence of the context in the Ordo Romanus as cited, the former means an official, and the latter a robing room or vestry, and not a side-altar, which the poléσis surely was, as Suicer shews. ED.]

15 De Oper. et Eleemos. p. 203. (p. 141.) Locuples et dives es; et dominicum celebrare te credis, quæ corbonam omnino non respicis; quæ in dominicum sine sacrificio venis; quæ partem de sacrificio, quod pauper obtulit, sumis?

16 C. 93. (t. 2. p. 1207 b.) Oblationes dissidentium fratrum, neque in sacrario, neque in gazophylacio recipiantur.

I