Preface.

This plan has been used in the other Eastern Liturgies, because the Latin form in which they appear is not original, and could not, therefore, be fairly compared with the Vulgate The late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.. Quotations or allusions are merely indicated here by marginal references.

The small capital letters used in the margin indicate the more important sections—those, in fact, which are found in all the major Liturgies.

The edition of Renaudot’s Collection of Oriental Liturgies original: "Liturgiarum Orientalium Collectio" used has been Leslie’s reprint (1847), and references are made to its pages; however, in any case of doubt, the original edition has been consulted.

Questions such as "When did the Liturgies begin to take a fixed form?", "When and in what shape were they first committed to writing?", and other related points are beyond the scope of this present work. Important as they are, they cannot be discussed briefly. It will be easily seen, however, that I have taken a middle-ground position between the views of those who hold that the Liturgies had taken a recognized and fixed form so early as to be quoted in the Epistles Letters in the New Testament written by Apostles to early Christian communities. to the Corinthians and Hebrews—a view which I feel bound to say is unsupported original: "untenable", both on general and specific grounds, despite the weight of Dr. Neale’s 1 opinion to the contrary—

1 ‘Essays in Liturgiology,’ pages 411 and following.

2 It is impossible to adequately discuss such a broad question within the limits of a note; but it is only right to point out some of the reasons for the conclusion above. In the first place, it seems unlikely—and is, at any rate, contrary to the few scraps of remaining evidence and to traditional belief—that the Liturgy had taken a fixed form as early as the time when St. Paul wrote his First Epistle to the Corinthians. The traditional belief certainly was that the only fixed formula used by the Apostles consisted of the Lord’s Prayer and the Commemoration of the Passion (including, of course, the Words of Institution The words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper: "This is my body... this is my blood."). But, setting aside general considerations, an investigation of the several passages common to both the New Testament and the Anaphora The central and most solemn prayer of the Eucharist, beginning with the "Lift up your hearts." of St. James’s Liturgy (the specific Liturgy for which this claim of early origin is made) yields a verdict that is entirely unfavorable—