XLI. The public estate of the Church of God amongst the Jews hath had many rare and extraordinary occurrents, which also were occasions of sundry1 open solemnities and offices, whereby the people did with general consent make show of correspondent affection towards God. The like duties appear usual in the ancient Church of Christ, by that which Tertullian speaketh of Christian women matching themselves with infidels. “She cannot content the Lord with performance of his discipline, that hath at her side a vassal whom Satan hath made his vice-agent to cross whatsoever the faithful should do. If her presence be required at the time of Station or standing prayer, he chargeth her at no time but that to be with him in his baths; if a fasting-day come he hath on that day a banquet to make; if there be cause for the church to go forth in solemn procession, his whole family have such business come upon them that no one can be spared2.”
These processions as it seemeth were first begun for the interring of holy martyrs, and the visiting of those places where they were entombed. Which thing the name itself applied by heathens unto the office of exequies3, and partly the speeches of some of the ancient delivered concerning Christian processions4, partly also the very dross which superstition thereunto added, I mean the custom of invoking saints in processions, heretofore usual, do strongly insinuate. And as things invented to one purpose are by use easily converted to moe5, it grew that supplications with this solemnity for the appeasing of God’s wrath, and the averting of public evils, were of the Greek church termed Litanies;6 Rogations, of the Latin. To the people of Vienna (Mamercus being their Bishop, about 450 years after Christ) there befell many things, the suddenness and strangeness whereof so amazed the hearts of all men, that the city they began to forsake as a place which heaven did threaten with imminent ruin. It beseemed not the person of so grave a prelate to be either utterly without counsel as the rest were, or in a common perplexity to shew himself alone secure. Wherefore as many as remained he earnestly exhorteth to prevent portended calamities, using those virtuous and holy means wherewith others in like case have prevailed with God. To which purpose he perfecteth the Rogations or Litanies before in use, and addeth unto them that which the present necessity required. Their good success moved Sidonius Bishop of Arverna to use the same so corrected Rogations7, at such time as he and his people were after afflicted with famine, and besieged with potent adversaries. For till the empty name of the empire came to be settled in Charles the Great, the fall of the Romans’ huge dominion concurring with other universal evils, caused those times to be days of much affliction and trouble throughout the world. So that Rogations or Litanies were then the very strength, stay, and comfort of God’s Church. Whereupon in the year 506 it was by the council of Aurelia decreed8, that the whole Church should bestow yearly at the feast of Pentecost three days in that kind of processionary service. About half an hundred years after, to the end that the Latin churches which all observed this custom might not vary in the order and form of those great Litanies which were so solemnly every where exercised, it was thought convenient by Gregory the First and the best of that name to draw the flower of them all into one9.
But this iron began at the length to gather rust. Which thing the synod of Colen saw and in part redressed within that province10, neither denying the necessary use for which such Litanies serve, wherein God’s clemency and mercy is desired by public suit, to the end that plagues, destructions, calamities, famines, wars, and all other the like adversities, which for our manifold sins we have always cause to fear, may be turned away from us and prevented through his grace; nor yet dissembling the great abuse whereunto as sundry other things so this had grown by men’s improbity and malice, to whom that which was devised for the appeasing of God’s displeasure gave opportunity of committing things which justly kindled his wrath. For remedy whereof it was then thought better, that these and all other supplications or processions should be no where used but only within the walls of the house of God, the place sanctified unto prayer. And by us not only such inconveniences being remedied, but also whatsoever was otherwise amiss in form or matter, it now remaineth a work, the absolute perfection whereof upbraideth with error or somewhat worse them whom in all parts it doth not satisfy.
As therefore Litanies have been of longer continuance than that we should make either Gregory or Mamercus the author of them, so they are of more permanent use than that now the Church should think it needeth them not. What dangers at any time are imminent, what evils hang over our heads, God doth know and not we. We find by daily experience that those calamities may be nearest at hand, readiest to break in suddenly upon us, which we in regard of times or circumstances may imagine to be farthest off. Or if they do not indeed approach, yet such miseries as being present all men are apt to bewail with tears, the wise by their prayers should rather prevent. Finally, if we for ourselves had a privilege of immunity, doth not true Christian charity require that whatsoever any part of the world, yea any one of all our brethren elsewhere doth either suffer or fear, the same we account as our own burden? What one petition is there found in the whole Litany, whereof we shall ever be able at any time to say that no man living needeth the grace or benefit therein craved at God’s hands? I am not able to express how much it doth grieve me, that things of principal excellency should be thus bitten at, by men whom God hath endued with graces both of wit and learning for better purposes.
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Footnotes
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Exod. xv. 20; Wisd. x. 20; 2 Samuel vi. 2; 1 Chron. xiii. 5; 2 Chron. xx. 3; Joel ii. 15. ↩
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Tertull. lib. ii. ad Uxor. [c. 4. “Domino certe non potest pro disciplina satisfacere, habens in latere diaboli servum, procuratorem domini sui ad impedienda fidelium studia et officia. Ut si statio facienda est, maritus de die condicat ad balneas: si jejunia observanda sunt, maritus eadem die convivium exerceat: si procedendum erit, nunquam magis familiæ occupatio adveniat.”] ↩
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Terent. Andr. [1. i. 100. “funus procedit.” Phorm. v. 8. 37. “Exsequias Chremeti, quibus est commodum ire, hoc tempus est.”] ↩
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“Martyres tibi quærantur in cubiculo tuo. Nunquam causa deerit procedendi, si semper quando necesse est progressura sis.” Hier. Epist. xxii. ad Eust. [al. xviii. § 17.] ↩
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Socrat. lib. vi. c. 8. [Οἱ Ἀρειανίζοντες, ὥσπερ ἔϕημεν, ἔξω τη̑ς πόλεως τὰς συναγωγὰς ἐποιου̑ντο· ἥνικα οὐ̑ν ἑκάστης ἑβδομάδος ἑορταὶ κατελάμβανον, ϕημὶ δὴ τό τε σάββατον καὶ ἡ κυριακὴ, ἐν αἷς αἱ συνάξεις κατὰ τὰς ἐκκλησίας εἰώθασι γίνεσθαι, αὐτοὶ ἔντος τω̑ν τη̑ς πόλεως πυλω̑ν περὶ τὰς στοὰς ἀθροιζόμενοι, καὶ ᾠδὰς ἀντιϕώνους πρὸς τὴν Ἀρειάνων δόξαν συντιθέντες ᾐ̑δον· καὶ του̑το ἐποίουν κατὰ τὸ πλει̑στον μέρος τη̑ς νυκτός· ὑπὸ δὲ ὄρθρον, τὰ τοιαυ̑τα ἀντίϕωνα λέγοντες, διὰ μέσης τη̑ς πόλεως ἐξῄεσαν τω̑ν πυλω̑ν, καὶ τοὺς τόπους ἔνθα συνη̑γον κατελάμβανον … . τότε δὴ καὶ Ἰωάννης [Χρυσόστομος] εὐλαβηθεὶς, μήτις τω̑ν ἁπλουστέρων ὑπὸ τω̑ν τοιούτων ᾠδω̑ν ἀϕελκυσθῃ̑ τη̑ς ἐκκλησίας, ἀντιτίθησιν αὐτοι̑ς τοὺς του̑ ἰδίου λαου̑, ὅπως ἂν καὶ αὐτοὶ ται̑ς νυκτεριναι̑ς ὑμνολογίαις σχολάζοντες, ἀμαυρώσωσι μὲν τὴν ἐκείνων περὶ τούτου σπουδὴν, βεβαίους δὲ τοὺς οἰκείους πρὸς τὴν ἑαυτω̑ν πίστιν ἐργάσωνται.] Sozom. lib. viii. c. 8; Theod. lib. ii. c. 24; lib. iii. c. 10. [Julian having permitted the remains of St. Babylas to be removed from Daphne, the Christians ἀσμένως τὸ ἄλσος καταλαβόντες, καὶ ἐπὶ ζεύγους τεθεικότες τὴν λάρνακα, πανδημεὶ ταύτης ἡγου̑ντο, χορεύοντες καὶ τὴν Δαυϊτικὴν ᾄδοντες μελῳδίαν, καὶ καθ’ ἕκαστον κω̑λον ἐπιϕθεγγόμενοι, “αἰσχυνθήτωσαν πάντες οἱ προσκυνου̑ντες τοι̑ς γλυπτοι̑ς.”] Novel. lxviii. 51. [lxvii. 1. p. 261. ed. Gothofred. 1688. “Nulli licentiam esse neque monasterium neque ecclesiam neque orationis domum incipere ædificare, antequam civitatis Deo amabilis [Θεοϕιλέστατος] episcopus orationem in loco faciat, et crucem figat, publicum processum [δημοσίαν πρόσοδον] ipse faciens, et causam manifestam omnibus statuens.” Ibid. cxxiii. cap. 31, 32, are laws for the protection of the litany services from disturbance, and forbidding them to be solemnized except by the clergy. Both enactments are by Justinian.] ↩
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Basil. Epist. lxiii. [al. 207. t. iii. 311. αἱ Λιτανει̑αι, ἃς ὑμει̑ς νυ̑ν ἐπιτηδεύετε. But it is truly observed by the Benedictine editor, that the word Litany is not employed here in its technical sense; no procession being mentioned or implied.] Niceph. (758-828.) lib. xiv. c. 3. [“The younger Theodosius, having to preside at the Circensian games in a time of excessive rain, which threatened famine, said to the people, ‘It were better for us, deferring the festivity, to appease God:’ and they went forth in procession with the Litany, offering hymns to God: and the city with accordant voice became in a moment one church.”] Cedren. (Eleventh Cent.) in Theodos. [juniore, p. 281, ed. Xyland. Basil. 1566. Σεισμοὶ μεγάλοι γεγόνασιν ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει· … του̑ γου̑ν … πατριάρχου μετὰ του̑ κλήρου καὶ του̑ λαου̑ ται̑ς λιται̑ς [ἔξω τη̑ς πόλεως] προσκαρτερου̑ντος, περὶ ὥραν τρἰτην, ἄϕνω πάντων ὁρώντων ἡρπάγη νεανίας εὶς τὸν ἀέρα, καὶ ἤκουσε θείας ϕωνη̑ς παρεγγυώσης αὐτῳ̑, ἀναγγει̑λαι τῳ̑ ἐπισκόπῳ καὶ τῳ̑ λαῳ̑, λιτανεύειν οὕτω, καὶ λέγειν, Ἅγιος ὁ Θεὸς, ἅγιος ἰσχυρὸς, ἅγιος ἀθάνατος, ἐλέησον ἡμα̑ς· καὶ μηδὲν ἔτερον προστιθέναι· καὶ εὐθέως του̑το ψάλλοντος του̑ λαου̑, ἔστη ὁ σεισμός. Ὅθεν ὁ βασιλεὺς Θεοδόσιος, καὶ ἡ μακαρία Πουλχερία, ὑπεραγασθέντες τῳ̑ θαύματι, ἐθέσπισαν κατὰ πα̑σαν οἰκουμένην οὕτω ψάλλεσθαι τὸν θει̑ον ὕμνον.] ↩
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Sidon. (430-487.) lib. vii. Epist. 1. [ad Mamercum. “Rumor est, Gothos in Romanum solum castra movisse. Huic semper irruptioni nos miseri Arverni janua sumus . . Solo tamen invectarum te auctore Rogationum palpamur auxilio … Non enim latet nostram sciscitationem, primis temporibus harumce supplicationum institutarum civitas cælitus tibi credita per cujusmodi periculorum terriculamenta vacuabatur. Nam modo scenæ mœnium publicorum crebris terræ motibus concutiebantur; nunc ignes sæpe flammati caducas culminum cristas superjecto favillarum monte tumulabant; nunc stupenda foro cubilia collocabat audacium pavenda mansuetudo cervorum: cum tu inter ista discessu primorum populariumque statu urbis exinanito, ad nova celer veterum Ninevitarum exempla decurristi … Qua devotione placatus inspector pectorum Deus, fecit esse obsecrationem vestram vobis saluti, cæteris imitationi, utrisque præsidio … . . Quæ omnia sciens populus iste, Viennensibus tuis et accidisse prius et non accessisse posterius, vestigia tam sacrosanctæ informationis amplectitur, sedulo petens, ut conscientiæ tuæ beatitudo mittat orationum suarum suffragia, quibus exempla transmisit.” Biblioth. Patr. Colon. V. 1020.] ↩
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Concil. (First Council of Orleans, 511 (not 506) Can. 27.) tom. ii. p. 513. [iv. 1408. E. “Rogationes, i.e. Litanias ante ascensionem Domini ab omnibus ecclesiis placuit celebrari: ita ut præmissum triduanum jejunium in dominicæ ascensionis festivitate solvatur: per quod triduum servi et ancillæ ab omni opere relaxentur, quo magis plebs universa conveniat.”] ↩
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[See Palmer’s Origines Liturgicæ, i. 267-272.] ↩
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Concil. tom. v. anno 1536. [Conc. Colon. i. p. 9. c. 7, 8; xiv. 546, 547. “Quod processiones per agros et campos peraguntur, rationem quidem habet, nempe quod populus oret, ut segetes ac fruges terræ a Domino conserventur: verum ut alia plurima, ita et hic mos hominum malitia depravatus est, quod per occasionem talis deambulationis, quæ Deo placando erat instituta, multa scelera committantur. Quamobrem nobis satius videtur, ut hæ, aliæque supplicationes ac processiones, de cætero intra septa ecclesiarum religiose fiant, ac ut in templo, loco precationibus peculiariter dedicato, oretur Deus, habeaturque tum pius rei ac tempori conveniens ad populum commonitorius sermo.”] ↩