nium fratrum nostrorum, quos de hoc loco ad te vocare dignatus es. Cunctorumque etiam hujus loci memores fidelium, pariterque parentum nostrorum atque servientium hujus loci, et

pro animabus omnium fidelium famulorum tuorum, vel famularum, ac peregrinorum in pace ecclesiae defunctorum, ut eis tu, Domine Deus noster, peccatorum tribuas veniam et requiem largiaris aeternam; meritis et intercessionibus sanctorum tuorum, Mariae genitricis Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Joannis Baptistae et praecursoris Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Stephani, Petri, Pauli, Joannis, Jacobi, Andreae, Philippi, Thomae, Bartholomaei, Matthaei, Jacobi, Simonis, Judae, Matthiae, Genesii, Symphoriani, Baudilii, Victoris, Hilarii, episcopi et confessoris, Martini episcopi et confessoris, Caesarii episcopi, haec propitius praestare et exaudire digneris, qui vivis et regnas in unitate Spiritus sancti Deus in saecula saeculorum. Amen '.'

The first group of names in this 'deprecatio2' (this title being suggested by the word 'precantes') consists of fathers and founders of the Church of Arles; the second group consists of fifteen saints of Holy Scripture, followed by certain leading Gallican saints, the last of whom is Caesarius Bishop of Arles, died A.D. 542. His name, which appears here on account of a local relation, would probably have been omitted at Iona, and so the name of St. Martin, who was held in special veneration in these islands, would be the last on the list, until on the occasion referred to by Adamnan St. Columba ordered the name of Columbanus to be added to it 3. Two specimens of the 'deprecatio' or 'Collectio post nomina' of the ancient Irish Liturgy have survived in the Stowe Missal1.

This position of the commemoration of the living and the

'Mabillon, de Liturg. Gallic. lib. i. cap. v. sect. 12; Migne, Bib. Pat. Lat. lxviii. 395.

For another liturgical use of the word 'deprecatio,' see Stowe Missal, ch. iii. § 14.

› Transcribed nearly verbatim from Dr. Reeves' note in his edit. of Adamnan, p. 211. For an example of a Deprecatio pro vivis, see Stowe Missal, ch. iii. § 14. • Ch. iii. § 14.

4

dead survives in the Anglican Liturgy, while in the Roman it occupies a different place, being within and a portion of the Canon itself.

There are no instances recorded of the modern practice of praying to departed saints, although there was a strong and devout belief in the efficacy of their prayers for those left on earth. St. Columba's power of prevailing with God by intercession was recognised as continuing to be exercised after his death'. Several instances of it are recorded by Adamnan 2, among them the exemption of the Piets and Scots from a pestilence which devastated the rest of Great Britain and Ireland. Adamnan's belief is expressed in these words: 'Now to what other person can this favour granted them by God be attributed unless to St. Columba, whose monasteries lie within the territories of both these people, and have been regarded by both with the greatest respect up to the present time? But what I am now to say cannot I think be heard without a sigh, that there are very many stupid people in both countries, who in their ignorance that they owe their exemption from the plague to the prayers of the saint, ungratefully and wickedly abuse the patience and the goodness of God.' In a very early collect for St. Patrick's Day preserved in the Corpus Missal God is directly besought to receive St Patrick's intercessions on behalf of His people. $11. PRAYER OF CONSECRATION.-The original Celtic formula of consecration does not survive, but there are allusions to it which imply that, like the rest of the service, it was pronounced * Ib. ii. 44, 45, 46.

1 Adamnan, Vit. S. Col. i. 1.

'Cui alii itaque haec tribuitur gratia a Deo collata, nisi sancto Columbae cujus monasteria, intra utrorumque populorum terminos fundata, ab utrisque ad praesens tempus valde sunt honorificata. Sod hoc quod nunc dicturi sumus, ut arbitramur non sino gomitu audiendum ost, quia sunt plorique in utrisque populis valdo stolidi, qui se sanctorum orationibus a morbis defensos nosciontos, Ingrati Doi patientia malo abutuntur. Ib. i. 46. It is easy to understand how this boliof produced in the course of time the habit of invocation of s saints, as found in the lator Litanios in the Stowo Missal (ch. iii. § 14), St. Gall MS. 1395 (ib. § 10), and in the later lives of tho saints passiin.

Ch. iii. § 15. Similar forms of Collect abound in the Loon. and Gelas. Sacramentarios,

in an audible voice1. The breaking of the bread formed so integral a portion of its ritual that 'frangere panem' is used as an equivalent term for 'missarum sollemnia celebrare?? The use of the words of institution and consecration is sometimes indicated in Celtic MSS., as in surviving Gallican fragments, by the opening words, 'Qui pridie3.' In both cases the Prayer of Consecration seems to have been brief, the introductory clauses up to this point varying with each festival.

If this inference is admitted, we are able to reconstruct the Canon of the Celtic Church, as used on saints' days, in the following form:

'Vere sanctus, vere benedictus, vere mirabilis in sanctis suis, Deus noster Jesus Christus ipse dabit virtutem, et fortitudinem plebi suae; benedictus Deus, quem benedicimus in Apostolis, et in omnibus sanctis suis, qui placuerunt ei ab initio saeculi, per eundem Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum,

Qui pridie quam pateretur, in sanctis manibus suis accepit panem, respexit in coelum ad te, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus, gratias agens, benedixit, fregit, fractumque apostolis suis et discipulis suis tradidit dieens;

Accipite et edite ex hoc omnes; hoc est enim corpus meum, quod pro multis confringetur.

Similiter etiam calicem postquam coenatum est, pridie quam pateretur, accepit, respexit in caelum ad te, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus, gratias agens, benedixit, apostolis suis et discipulis suis tradidit dicens ;

Accipite et bibite ex hoc omnes; hic est enim sanguis meus 4.'

Quondam audiens | resbyterum sacra eucharistiae mysteria conficientem.' Adamnan, Vit. 8. Columbae, 1. 40.

Ib. i. 44. A reference to this passage will show the untenability of Dr. Roovos' suggestion that the expression frango panom' may be an allusion to the distribution of the consecrated broad to the communicants, and not to the fraction in the act of consecration. Stowe Minal, ch. iii. § 14. The first part of this Prayer of Consecration is taken from the Stowe

The absence of the full text of the Consecration Prayer as used in the earliest Liturgies of the Churches of Britain and Gaul has been sometimes accounted for by a theory, supported rather by conjecture than by evidence, that it was supplanted by the Roman Canon before the 'disciplina. arcani' had been altogether abandoned, so that though the rest of the service was written, the Canon was recited by the priest from memory, only its opening words 'Qui pridie' being sometimes indicated in writing.

The presence of the Roman Canon in the Stowe Missal1 proves that it was introduced into at least partial use in Ireland late in the eighth century, the numerous passages interpolated into it being probably survivals of the earlier and now lost Celtic rite.

§ 12. COMMUNION ANTHEMS.-In the ancient Irish Church a hymn was sung after the prayer of consecration, during the communion of the clergy and before that of the people. In the Preface to the Leabhar Breac, a composition assigned to the seventh or eighth century, there is a legend which speaks of a choir of angels being heard in the church of St. Sechnall chanting the hymn 'Sancti Venite,' &c., which hymn, the writer adds, has been sung in the Irish Church while the people were communicating. No trace of such a hymn has been hitherto found in any mediaeval Breviaries or Antiphonaries, but it is preserved in the Antiphonarium Benchorense, where it is entitled Tymnum quando communicarent sacerdotes3.

During the communion of the people anthems were sung, slightly varying forms of which have been preserved in the St. Gall MS. No. 1394, the Antiphonary of Bangor, and the Stowe Missal".

They occupied a position corresponding to that of the

Missal, ch. iii. § 14. Compare the Collectio post Sanctus for Christmas Eve in the Missale Gothicum, p. 33. The second part is taken from the Gallican work known under the title of Ambros. de Sacramentis, lib. iv. cap. v.

Ch. iii. §14.

Ib. § 9.

Liber Hymnorum, p. 44.

Ib. § 13.

Ch. iii. § 12, • Ib. § 14.

anthem called "Transitorium' in the Ambrosian, the "Trecanum' in the Gallican, the anthem 'Gustate et videte' &c. in the Mozarabic, and the Communio' in the Roman rite.

§ 13. THE BENEDICITE.-The 'Song of the Three Children' appears in various forms and occupies a prominent position in the Antiphonary of Bangor1, from which fact we infer that this canticle with its antiphons formed a constituent part of the Celtic, as it did of the Gallican2 and Mozarabic Liturgies3, where it was sung before the Gospel (Gall.), or before the Epistle (Moz.), on all Sundays and saints' days.

We pass on from the service itself to some account of its ritual accessories.

§14. POSITION OF THE PRIEST.-The position of the celebrant was before the altar ('ante altare'), that is to say, facing the altar and with his back to the congregation. This we infer from the expression 'de vertice' in Cuminius' description of the four brothers watching St. Columba celebrate at Iona, and seeing a strange light streaming down upon his head. Gildas speaking of the degenerate character of the British

1 Chap. iii. § 12.

Lectionibus pronuntiatis chorus hymnum trium puerorum decantabat, et quidem ut roor per modum responsorii, quem sane hymnum a Gregorio Turonensi (Hist. Franc. lib. viii. cap. 3) psalmum responsorium dici conjicio,' Germani Parisions. Expos, brevis Antiq. Lit. Gall. sect. vii.

One of the liturgical irregularities which had grown up in Spain in the sixth century was a tendency to omit this canticlo. •Hyinnum quoque trium puerorum in quo universa coeli terraeque creatura Dominum collaudat, et quem Ecclesia catholica per totum orbem diffusa celebrat, quidam sacerdotes in missa Dominicorum dierum et in solemnitatibus martyrum canere negligunt; proinde hoc sanctum consilium instituit ut per oinnes ecclesias Hispaniae vel Galliae in omnium missarum sollemnitate idem in pulpito decantetur; communionem amissuri, qui et antiquam hujus hymni consuetudinem nostramque definitionem excesserint,'

The fourteenth canon of the Fourth Council of Toledo, A.D. 633, was in these words:-Diebus Dominicis atque in martyrum sollemnitatibus ante epistolam cantatur canticum trium puerorum.'

''Sed illi post Evangelii recitationem viderunt quendam igneum globum et valde luminosum de vertice sancti Columbae ante altare stantis et sacram oblationem consecrantis tamdiu ardere, et ad instar alicujus columnae sursum Ascendere donec eadem perficerentur sacrosancta mysteria.' Cuminius, Vit. S. Col. cap. xii.