May 2023 Print


From Peter to Gregory

The Traditional Roman Rite in the First Six Centuries

By Fr. Ian Andrew Palko, SSPX

For the vast majority of Roman Catholics in 1950, the Catholic Church would have appeared as a singular entity, headed by a Pope as the Vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter, with a singular liturgy in Latin. Leaving aside the liturgical revolution of the 1970s, even today most Latin Catholics know only a Latin Mass, and a vernacular Novus Ordo. A few may have heard of various other rites of Mass, usually through some study, or by relatives who belong to one of these other rites.

This is not very surprising, given that of the Catholic Church’s 1.2 billion members, only 16 million are Eastern or Oriental Catholics. Within this small group, one finds, in fact, twenty-two particular churches, each united in the triple bond of unity that makes one Catholic: the profession of the one true Faith, the recognition of the Pope as Christ’s Vicar, and a unity in the form of worship. This latter bond at first may seem difficult to assert, since these Eastern churches have a Mass and liturgy which are not merely a translation of the Latin Rite, but use significantly different ceremonies. Each has a different liturgy which developed from the Mass and ceremonies taught to and by the Apostles, adapted to the places these Apostles and their successors went, and embellished over time. The unity is had not by specific ceremonial acts, but that at their core is the same essential rite given by Our Lord to the Apostles. Each renews His bloody Sacrifice in an unbloody and sacramental manner and will contain an offertory, the consecration, and a communion, among other more specific elements.

Fr Adrian Fortescue, the great English liturgical scholar, explains that

[T]he important elements of a rite are not the things that will be noticed by a casual and ignorant onlooker—the number of candles, color of the vestments and places where the bell is rung—but just those things he would not notice, the Canon, fraction, and so on, the prayers said in a low voice and the characteristic but less obvious rites done by the celebrant at the altar.1

The traditional Latin liturgy known today to Catholics contains these elements and had its own particular development from the rite transmitted to the Apostles, but by the close of the sixth century, would be recognizable to any modern Catholic as the Latin rite of Mass, studied or ignorant, even if some elements, such as the present Creed, were yet to be included by A.D. 600.

What is the Liturgy?

The term “liturgy” derives from the Greek λειτουργῐ́ᾱ (leitourgíā), a word meaning “public service” and coming itself from the word for a civil servant, or one who works on behalf of the people. The Church employs this word to speak of Her official prayers, only able to be offered in Her name by Her own ministers to God on behalf of Her faithful. Since the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church’s liturgy is, in truth, Christ, through His Church, praying and honoring God the Father.

The liturgy is not limited to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but also includes the Divine Office—a set of psalms, lessons, hymns, responsories, antiphons and prayers which make up the official prayer of the Church. These “hours” as the sets of prayers are called, had their own development from the custom of the early Christians praying the psalms each week, and different forms developed in the different churches as well, but this is beyond the scope of the present article.

This article will address the development of the Roman or Latin rite of Mass during the first six centuries, and show how the present traditional rite has its roots in a very ancient tradition, the core of which is from Our Lord and His Apostles.

A Problem of Antiquarianism

Before launching out to explore history of the development of the Roman Rite, though, it is important to understand the value of that history, for there have been significant errors here, condemned by Popes as recently as 1947 in Pius XII’s encyclical letter, Mediator Dei. Within what was one of the longest encyclical letters prior to the pontificate of John Paul II, the Pope makes an attempt to quell an obsessive antiquarianism that had developed in the Liturgical Movement.

Modern scholarship permitted the distribution of many historical sources and liturgical texts, and a certain camp within the Liturgical Movement during the twentieth century used these sources and texts to suggest a reform of the Roman liturgy, stripped back to what they claimed these sources presented. Later scholarship would show many of these claims were curated omissions and interpretations.

Even where this cadre did accurately present the history of the liturgy, the Pope warned that “obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by the disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.”2

This camp saw the Roman Mass of 1950 as a once-simple ritual, which centuries of pharisaic “traditions of men” obscured. The rite they wished to return to looked more like the simplistic descriptions of the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles. History, for this group, paved the way to a future simpler and more primitive rite. The most well-meaning of such liturgists were concerned with the lack of engagement of the faithful with a liturgy which seemed distant and reserved to a clerical class. The least well-meaning, influenced by a false ecumenism, desired, as Msgr. Annibale Bugnini, to strip back from the liturgy, labeling the gutting of prayers which teach Catholic doctrines, “painful sacrifices.”3

Opposed to this was another form of extreme antiquarianism which sought to demonstrate that the Last Supper or at least the liturgy of St. Peter looked much like a Baroque-era Pontifical Mass. Such writers would claim, “From the beginning the Mass was said according to a long Liturgy and with ceremonies differing little from those of our time.”4 The Roman liturgy, such an author would claim, was a Christianized edition of the Pharisaic Temple ritual. Such a claim is a demonstrable overstatement, even if it were a well-meaning attempt to undermine Protestant objections or take aim at the liturgical revolutionaries in the above-mentioned group. Jewish rituals certainly influence Christian worship, both rites for the Temple and Synagogue, but as Fortescue writes,

It is dangerous to draw up parallel forms with any one Jewish set of prayers and to deduce that that particular set is the prototype of the Christian liturgy, for several reasons, one of the most obvious of which is that the same forms recur continually in the services of the Jews.5

The variety of rites coupled with historical sources shows a universal core of prayers and ceremonies, with differing surrounding elements. This would suggest that the rite of the Apostles—and therefore Our Lord—was a formal Passover meal, with a New Victim in Our Lord’s offering of His own Body and Blood. This Passover meal, though, was not a temple ceremony or liturgy, but a formal familial ceremony. It had set rubrics and actions, but was far more restrained and simple than the complex and relatively rare liturgies of the Temple. Those same sources also clearly establish that over the first centuries of Christianity more formal and ceremonial elements were added as these liturgical services moved from house churches to dedicated buildings, set aside for the Christian Liturgy.

As such, establishing that certain elements of our present liturgical rites have their origins in antiquity gives them value, but finding antique elements that have passed into obscurity or later elements added does not suggest age-long practices be added, or medieval or even more recent additions are to be disdained. Such was the warning and principles enumerated by Pius XII.

The Apostolic Liturgy

To begin to understand the liturgy at the time of the Apostles, one needs begin with Holy Writ. While no one place in Sacred Scripture lays out the Mass in detail, a general picture of the Apostolic liturgy anterior to the Council of Jerusalem becomes clear by looking at various parts.

The Last Supper is presented in greater or less detail by each of the Synoptic Gospels,6 as well as by St. Paul. St. Paul and St. Luke are of particular interest, for neither was present. As St. Mark is by some traditions the son of the owner of the cenacle, and the young man who followed to the Garden of Olives, escaping without as much clothing as he arrived with, he at least has claim to be a possible eyewitness. He was also the scribe for St. Peter in Rome, and so his account may simply be St. Peter’s.

These reports of the Last Supper provide the core of the “this” which Christ commanded the Apostles to continue. Christ takes bread, gives thanks (i.e. offers it), consecrates (i.e. blesses it), then distributes it in Communion. The same is done with a cup of wine—offered, consecrated, given in Communion. Understanding the symbolism on Good Friday of the separation of Christ’s Body and Blood as the sign of the Sacrifice, delaying Communion until after both consecrations, produces the essential structure of not only the Mass canonized in 1570 for the Latin Church, but every rite the Church has ever employed, Western or Eastern.

This Mass, however, was not the only ceremony that those in the Apostolic age would have attended. Sts. Peter and John after the Ascension go up to pray at the Temple,7 and this would not have been unique amongst Hebrew Christians. The prayers offered here would have consisted of psalms, much like the Divine Office. The Apostles and other Hebrew Christians would have attended the various synagogues,8 as well as their own particularly Christian meetings.9

At such meetings the Old Testament was read,10 the text explained by preaching,11 Apostolic or similar letters read,12 psalms and hymns sung,13 and public prayers recited.14 There was even a collection taken up for the poor.15 This service was not, however, the Mass, but similar to the synagogue.

Confirmation of this from a non-Christian source can be found from Pliny the Younger, governor of Pontus from A.D. 111–113. In a letter to the Emperor Trajan, asking how to deal with the Christians, Pliny is confused, because Christians seem not to be criminals, rather the opposite:

[T]hey were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food.16

This ordinary food, considering St. Paul’s description of the Agape,17 would have been the communal meal and the Eucharist, or Mass. To a pagan, it would look like “ordinary food.” The lack of fraternal charity at this meal, plus those who would “drink too freely” before the Eucharist, would quickly lead to Mass becoming a separate rite without the chance for abuses at a preceding meal.

Scripture also gives us accidental details which remain in most all liturgies, including the traditional Roman Rite. Prayers were led only by men,18 women veiled their heads while men’s heads were bare,19 and a kind of Creed was recited.20

Fortescue draws out from this two distinct services, one based on the order of the synagogue, and the other a uniquely Christian service: Mass.21 Thus, the “Synaxis, based on a Synagogue Service,” would have consisted of Scriptural readings, sermons, psalms, hymns, common prayer, almsgiving, a Creed, and a kiss of peace. The second service, Fortescue surmises, is the Eucharist, in which there was some thanksgiving or offertory, the consecration of the bread and wine, prayers in remembrance of Christ’s death, then a Communion.

In every rite, but very clearly in the Roman Rite, these two separate services become the one Mass. In the present traditional Roman rite, one sees in this Synaxis the “Fore-Mass” or Mass of the Catechumens in which we have prayers, scriptural readings, responsory psalms, and often a sermon, followed by collection of alms. In the Eucharistic service of Apostolic times, one can see the Mass of the Faithful, with offertory, canon, consecration, and Communion.

“Different arrangements of subsidiary part, greater insistence on certain elements in various places produce different liturgies; but all go back eventually to this outline. The Roman Mass is one form of a service that we find first, not in the laws of some medieval Pope, but in the Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospels.”22

The Next Generation

One of the oldest Christian texts, outside of Holy Scripture, is the Didache, which claims to summarize the doctrine of the Apostles. Written in the late first or early second century, it provides quite detailed references to liturgical prayers, and provides at least a paraphrase, if not an actual version of a primitive offertory. Within it is found a nascent “Sanctus” and “Libera Nos” along with parts of what is now found in the Gloria in excelsis.23

Pope St. Clement, writing in A.D. 95 to the Corinthians, insists upon the liturgy being performed in an orderly way, at set times, much like the Mass and Divine Office are intended to be offered in the Latin Church. At the same time, the pope clearly indicates the hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons, and how the ordering of the liturgy revolves around them. While the details of the liturgy are not spelled out, St. Clement’s writings include the Sanctus among many other clearly liturgical formulas used to this day in the Roman Rite.24

In the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas, and the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, those of St. Polycarp, and the Shepherd of Hermas are found plentiful examples of liturgical formulae and instructions, alluding to the Sunday Mass obligation or at least the Christian community assembling on Sunday for Mass, the Sanctus in full, and the Our Father as a liturgical prayer.

Of great value in understanding the liturgy of the first and second centuries is St. Justin Martyr (100–c. 165). In his First Apology one finds a general but very clear description of the Mass, and a clear reference that not only the ceremony, but also the consecrated species are called the Eucharist. His reader would have learned that Mass was celebrated on Sundays, but also at other times, especially in conjunction with Baptism. The Mass has a clear structure resembling that of the Apostolic age, and it is open only to the baptized who are in the state of grace. In Justin’s Dialogue one finds that these species are bread and wine, that there is an anamnesis, or prayer specifically recalling the passion and death of Christ as connected with the consecration, and that it is the words of consecration which effect the transubstantiation, even if this term will take centuries to develop to the point of the precision it provides.

Fortescue thus gives the second century’s liturgy to include lessons from scripture in “an apparently indefinite number,” an episcopal sermon, prayers by the faithful, a kiss of peace, the Eucharistic prayers or canon, a prayer invoking the remembrance of Christ’s passion and death and the words of consecration, the canon ending with a collective “Amen,” Communion of the faithful, Communion for this sick taken by deacons, as well as alms taken up for the clergy and poor.

The liturgy in various places was at the time quite uniform, which is suggested by St. Irenaeus, who reports to Pope St. Victor that Pope St. Anicetus allowed St. Polycarp of Smyrna to offer his own liturgy in a Roman church, suggesting the Romans would have at least recognized the rite as similar to their own.

In comparison with the traditional Mass of today, one sees the general outline: a prayer, readings from the Old and New Testament, a sermon, a canon, a prayer recalling Christ’s passion coupled to the words of consecration, then Communion of all the faithful. Missing are which specific prayers make up this canon, as well as the preparatory and concluding prayers such as the prayers at the foot of the altar, introit antiphon, communion antiphon, and postcommunion prayer. Certain elements like the giving of alms or kiss of peace are not in the place one would find them today.

The Third and Fourth Century

There were many periods of Christian persecution until the universal legal tolerance of A.D. 313 with the Edict of Milan. Few of these, however, were universal—that is, Empire-wide. Even the well-known Neroine persecutions which saw the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul were confined mostly to Latium, the areas immediately around Rome. At times and in certain places, even if persecution was occurring elsewhere, the practice of the Christian Faith was tolerated. This aided in helping certain places develop more significant rituals as liturgical rites could be celebrated more openly and in larger spaces.

The Church Fathers during the third century give more concrete details about the liturgy of their time. Origen, for instance, writes of the singing of a Communion Antiphon similar to those rites that flow from Antioch. He also mentions the Sanctus, the Our Father, and the Anaphora (or Preface). He speaks of Communion under both kinds, and of the reservation of hosts for Communion outside of the Mass.

The language of the liturgy seems to have been uniformly Greek until about the third century, when Latin came into use in the African church, then made its way to Rome. Tertullian suggests that the North African liturgy was similar to that in Rome, with Scriptural lessons, responsorial psalms sung by two cantors, and all prayers facing East. He writes of prayers of the faithful, very similar to the orations still said during the Good Friday Liturgy in the Roman Rite, for the emperor, the senate, peace, and many other intentions, after which there was a kiss of peace. Tertullian in particular provides the words of the Anaphora used by the Roman rite even today, “It is truly right that God should be blessed by all men in every place and at all times for the due memory always of his benefits.” He also provides the conclusion, “To whom the court of angels does not cease to say, Holy, holy holy.”25

Tertullian also provides many accidental details that reflect the present practice in the Roman rite, such as the altar containing relics, Mass said every day early in the morning, and that there were special rubrics or Masses at funerals.

St. Cyprian says that the lessons belong to special readers, suggesting that there were men ordained or at least assigned this particular office. He also was unflinching in insisting that the wine used for the Eucharist needed to have water added to it. Cyprian also provides the formula “Sursum Corda” and its response “Habemus ad Dominum” in several places. This whole dialogue is also given by St. Augustine.26

St. Augustine explains that the kiss of peace has moved from the first part of the Mass to after the Fraction, which in the present Roman rite follows the Our Father, because this sign of peace is the fulfillment of the forgiveness asked in the Our Father.27 Yet in the Eastern liturgies the kiss of peace remains to this day in the middle of the Mass before the equivalent of the Preface or Canon.

Thus one can begin to see a divergence of rites, not in essentials, but in the accidental elements. Parts are shifted, some expanded or embellished, and others are reduced or eliminated. As closely as the African rites seem to Rome in certain ways, the cycle of readings suggested by St. Augustine’s sermons more closely resembles the liturgy as performed in Toledo, Spain, called the Mozarabic rite, and the Tridentine rite. This can be seen, for instance, in the Lenten reading of Genesis and the Paschaltide inclusion of the Acts of the Apostles found in the Roman Breviary for Matins, which was the Mozarabic practice.28 It is clear, however, that the distinctions at this point are quite minor.

By the mid-fourth century, four major families of liturgy can be seen clearly. Three originated in the major Patriarchal cities of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. A fourth was used in Gaul (Northern Italy, France, Germany), Spain, and Britain. That rites would solidify around the Patriarch, through imitation of the chief bishop in a region, makes a great deal of sense. Thus those in the West would follow the liturgy of the Patriarch of the West, the Pope; those in Eastern and Northern Africa, the Patriarch of Alexandria; and those in the Greek- and Syriac-speaking East, the Patriarch of Antioch. It is the Gallican liturgy that is a mystery, since Rome was very close, and a city like Milan was a great center in the Western Empire.

The rite used at Antioch gave birth to the modern rites of the Melkite Greek, Maronite, Syro-Malabar, Armenian, Ethiopian, Chaldean, and Byzantine rites. The two liturgies that make up the Antiochene rite are the Liturgy of St. James and the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. The latter is the one mostly used, and forms the basis for most of the Eastern liturgies, both Catholic and schismatic Orthodox.

The rite used in Alexandria, the Liturgy of St. Mark, has mostly died out except in Coptic churches, both the Catholic and schismatic.

The Gallican rite died out by the time of Charlemagne, except in two places, Milan, where the Ambrosian Rite is used, and Toledo, where the Mozarabic is used.

The Roman rite in its original, purer form is also no longer used, but the Roman rite with some Gallican influences is the rite most Catholics know as the traditional Latin Mass, minus some important developments.

The Roman Rite to the Sixth Century

In the time of St. Justin Martyr, the lector did not have a set text to read at Mass, but would read a text until the bishop stopped him, and then the bishop would preach on what was read. By the fourth century, however, more set texts begin to develop through notes in the Scriptures and an Index to point out what is to be read and when. These eventually became Lectionaries, of which several exist from the early centuries. Similarly, with the growth of Christianity, liturgical books began to become common.

Whereas at present a single book, called a Missal, contains most of what is needed for Mass, in the early Church liturgical books were written with their user in mind, since the copying of texts was labor-intensive and expensive. A book was used by one person, who needed only his part. Thus the Lectionaries for the lector, and the sacramentary for the use of the bishop and priest, which provided them the prayers they were to say such as the Propers of the Mass, the Offertory, the Canon and Communion rite.

Three great Latin sacramentaries exist which provide details of the Roman rite in its development during the fourth to eighth centuries. These books are named the Leonine Sacramentary (because attributed to Pope St. Leo I), the Gelasian Sacramentary (falsely attributed to Pope St. Gelasius I), and the Gregorian Sacramentary (attributed to Pope St. Gregory I).

The oldest is the Leonine, which provides only about two-thirds of the full year from April to the December Ember Days. It is, in fact, a private collection of copied texts from Roman books, providing many alternative forms of prayers for the same Masses. Twenty-eight possible formulae are provided for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, though the text shows they are either different options or collected from different churches with slightly different Propers. Most scholars see what is contained here as the original Roman rite, without any Gallican influences, placing a date of compilation in the late fifth century.

The Gelasian Sacramentary provides many of the reforms made by Pope St. Gregory the Great, such as the addition of the Hanc igitur. Notably it does not contain the Agnus Dei, which was added by Pope St. Sergius I in the late seventh century as a response to the errors of the Quinisext Council where some Eastern iconoclasts objected to depicting Christ as a lamb. This book provides many of the Propers for the Masses throughout the year as they currently exist in the traditional Latin Mass, though often later revisions move some of these prayers to other days, or slightly revise the text. For example, the prayer for the Vigil of Pentecost in this sacramentary is found, not on the Vigil of Pentecost in the Roman Missal of 1962, but as the prayer after the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, just before Mass begins. While from Advent to Pentecost, the sacramentary provides many Masses assigned to particular days, the period from Pentecost to Advent is provided with Masses for Sundays, but no particular ordering.

The final of the three, the Gregorian Sacramentary, is the most well-known and was compiled to provide Charlemagne with the Latin rite as performed at Rome. As such it presents a relatively authentic picture of the reforms that close out the sixth century, and it is why the traditional Mass is sometimes called the Mass of St. Gregory the Great. This Pope was a notable liturgical reformer. As one biographer puts it: “He collected the Sacramentary of Gelasius into a single book, leaving out many things, changing very little, adding only some things.”29

What can be found at the close of the pontificate of Pope St. Gregory I and the end of the sixth century is, therefore, essentially the Roman rite known today, with minor variations and omissions. There was an Introit, the Kyrie (a simplification of a litany previously employed, perhaps for a procession to a stational church), a Collect prayer, the Epistle, a Gradual and Tract or Alleluia, the Gospel, an Offertory antiphon or responsory, a prayer over the oblations said secretly, the Preface, the Sanctus, the Canon unchanged until the name of St. Joseph was added in late 1962, the Pater Noster, the Fraction of the Host, the Kiss of Peace, Communion with a chanted antiphon, a Postcommunion prayer, and the dismissal in the form of Ite Missa est.

The Gloria was not said consistently in the sixth century, but slowly was added more frequently during the following centuries. By the sixth century it was said, but usually only on Christmas, and then only by bishops. By the eleventh century it was extended to all priests.

The Creed of Nicaea-Constantinople existed from the late fourth century, but its recitation at Mass did not become common until the ninth century. As above, the Agnus Dei was introduced in the seventh century.

When the Council of Trent and Pope St. Pius V chose to use the Roman Missal in the version employed in the Roman curia, in 1570, they were not inventing a Mass, nor creating some new liturgy. They were choosing one slight variation of a rite that, in almost all of its parts and ordering, was nearly 1,000 years old, and whose core elements go back to Christ Himself.

As warned above, though, the mere antiquity of a practice does not mean that it must be good. The Agape or communal meal preceding Mass was of Apostolic origin, but even St. Paul finds this early practice full of abuses, and to be done away with.

So too for the Roman rite. Organically elements were added until the sixth century, and then only a few additions, except for the development of proper Masses and minor rubrical changes. But even here these were slow and organic developments, not development by committee as with the Novus Ordo Missæ.

Communion under both species, for instance, passed out of use quite early due to practical difficulties, the lack of deacons to minister the chalice, and the dangers of sacrilege through spilling the Precious Blood, among other reasons. By the Middle Ages, only the priest offering the Mass drank from the chalice. When the Utraquist heretics asserted the necessity of Communion under both kinds to receive Our Lord completely, whereas the Catholic Faith teaches Our Lord is fully present in both species, it solidified the Latin’s Church’s practice of Communion under the species of bread only, except in rare circumstances. That the Protestants revived this error only solidified the practice further. This newer development, therefore, is not suspect because of its relatively young age.

Elements from antiquity did develop in the Roman rite to the time of St. Gregory the Great, but then as Pius XII writes, “new patterns [were] introduced by the disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.”30

Attending the traditional Mass today, therefore, is a direct link with this past, but also something fresh and new, because it is a new presentation of that same Sacrifice that St. Gregory the Great and St. Peter offered on the altar, and Our Lord offered on the Cross.

Endnotes

1 Fortescue, Adrian. The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy. (1955) London: Longmans, Green, and Co., p. 205.

2 Pope Pius XII. (Nov. 20, 1947), Mediator Dei, §63.

3 Bugnini, Annibale. “Le ‘Variationes’ ad Alcuni Testi della Settimana Santa” L’Osservatore Romano. March 19, 1965. An often quoted paraphrase which seems to originate from Michael Davies, “We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants,” certainly accurately communicates Msgr Bugnini’s erroneous ecumenical motive, even if the prelate’s actual words are less emphatic.

4 Meagher, James L. How Christ Said the First Mass. 1984. Rockford: Ill. Tan Books and Publishers, p. 11. Meagher, for instance speculated that (p. 353) that the seven officials of the synagogue developed into the assistant priest, deacon, subdeacon, assistant deacons, and master of ceremonies in a Pontifical Mass, even though it is demonstrable that most of these roles are of relatively recent origin.

5 Fortescue, Adrian. The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy, p. 75.

6 Sts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke

7 Cf. Acts 3:1.

8 Cf Acts 9:20.

9 Cf. Jas. 2:2, Heb. 10:25.

10 Acts 13:15.

11 I Tim. 4:13.

12 I Cor 14:26.

13 Eph. 5:19, Col. 3:16, I Cor 14:26.

14 Acts 2:42

15 Rom 15:26.

16 Pliny, Letters 10.96-97

17 Cf. I Cor 11.

18 I Cor. 14:34–35.

19 I Cor. 11:6–7.

20 I Tim. 6:12.

21 Fortescue, p. 6.

22 Ibid., p. 7

23 Didache, X.

24 Cf. Pope St. Clement I. First Epistle to the Corinthians, 33, 6.

25 Tertullian, De Oratione, 3.

26 St. Augustine, Sermon 227.

27 Ibid.

28 Fortescue, p. 45.

29 Joannes Hymonides, Vita Sancti Gregorii, 2, 17.

30 Pope Pius XII. (Nov. 20, 1947), Mediator Dei, §63.

Image sources

TEMPLE: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Second_Temple.jpg

CHALICE: Marie-Lan Nguyen (2011), commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antioch_chalice_Met_50.4.jpg

HOUSE CHURCH: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doura_Europos_domus_ecclesiae_front.jpg

ST. PETER’S CHURCH: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChurchSaintPeterAntakya.jpg

SACRAMENTARY: www.facsimiles.com/facsimiles/sacramentarium-leonianum

CHI RHO: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cancel_iglesia_siglo_VI_villa_Fortunatus.jpg