[48] It may interest the English student to be given a sketch of the
principal features of the Sarum Breviary and Missal in relation to the
subject of the festival. At Mattins the first three lessons are from
Isaiah (lv. 1-5, 6-12; lx. 1-7), speaking of light, and the calling of
the Gentiles. The versicle after the 1st lesson is ‘and the nations,
shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising.’ The
response and versicle after the 2nd lesson touch on the gifts of gold
and incense from Saba; ‘the kings of the Arabs and of Saba shall bring
gifts’; and this note is sounded again and again. The 4th, 5th and 6th
lessons are from a sermon of St Leo, and the responses and versicles
relate to the visit of the Magi. In the response and versicle to the 7th
lesson the baptism of Christ is recounted; and subsequently there are
several references to the baptism. The collect is solely confined to the
thought of the revelation of God’s only begotten Son to the Gentiles by
the guiding of a star; and this is the dominant (though not exclusive)
feature of the rest of the service. During the octave the baptism is
given greater prominence; and on the octave itself the miracle at Cana
has an important place, as well as the baptism. In the Missal the propers
are confined to the revelation to the Gentiles and the visit of the Magi.
But on the octave and the Sunday within the octave the baptism of Christ
forms the leading thought.
[49] Duchesne, _Chr. Worship_, E. tr., 266 f., where certain variations
in the Armenian and Nestorian Kalendars are exhibited.
[50] Possibly ‘the Baptist’ is a bungle of the transcriber.
[51] [On these commemorations of St James and St John see further C. L.
Feltoe in _J. Th. St._ x. 589 f. Edd.]
[52] The Hieronymian Martyrology is a mechanical and unintelligent
piecing together of Eastern and Western lists, to which African additions
were made as late as A.D. 600. Its origin has been investigated by De
Rossi and Duchesne, V. de Buck and Achelis: see Wordsworth’s _Ministry of
Grace_, p. 66.
[53] _Cathemerinon_, Hymnus XII.
[54] _De Corona_, 3.
[55] _Contra Celsum_, VIII. 22.
[56] _Les Vies des Saints_ (Paris, 1739), II. 4.
[57] _Serm._ 197, 198.
[58] This is so as regards the text printed by Muratori; but in Menard’s
text there is a benediction that in its language is not unlike the
collect in the Book of Common Prayer.
[59] _De Eccl. Off._ I. 40, 41.
[60] In Dom Cabrol’s _Les Origines liturgiques_ (Appendice C.) will be
found an interesting collection of liturgical passages illustrating the
Church’s protest against idolatry on the Kalends of January.
[61] _De Orat._ 18.
[62] _Concil. Carthag._ III. c. 29.
[63] _Ep._ LIV. 7, _ad Januarium_. The well-known passage in Socrates
(_H.E._ v. 22) seems to indicate that he believed that, excluding
Alexandria, the Egyptians and the inhabitants of the Thebais _ordinarily_
partook of the mysteries in the evening after a full meal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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