“ The names or titles affixed to the Liturgies are of little signification. Some of them, indeed, refer to the Apostles who introduced the form of Christian worship in the Churches where these Liturgies were used. But what is of the highest consequence is, that the Liturgies contain the common form and order of public worship observed in those Churches; and, consequently, that they contain a public profession of the Faith of all the Clergy and People attached to them, in the ages in which these Liturgies were in use.[1]
“ The most sacred part of the form of divine worship, the Canon (called the Anaphora in the Oriental Liturgies,) during the first two or three centuries, was only committed to memory, and retained by the Bishops and Priests, as the Apostles' Creed was learnt and retained by the faithful.[2]
- ↑ “As for the Liturgies ascribed to St. Peter, St. Mark, and St. James," says Archbishop Wake, “there is not, I suppose, any learned man who believes them written by those holy men, and set forth in the manner they are now published. They were, indeed, the ancient Liturgies of the three, if not of the four Patriarchal Churches, viz. the Roman, (perhaps that of Antioch, too) the Alexandrian, and Jerusalem Churches, first founded, or at least governed, by St. Peter, St. Mark, and St. James. However, since it can hardly be doubted, but that these holy Apostles and Evangelists did give some directions for the administration of the blessed Eucharist in those Churches, it may reasonably be presumed, that some of those orders are still remaining in those Liturgies, which have been brought down to us under their names; and that those prayers wherein they all agree, in sense, at least, if not in words, were first prescribed in the same or like terms, by those Apostles and Evangelists. Nor would it be difficult to make a further proof of this conjecture from the writings of the ancient Fathers, if it were needful in this place to insist upon it."Apostolic Fathers, p. 102.—"I add to what has been already observed," says Bishop Bull, the consent of all the Christian Churches in the world, however distant from each other, in the holy Eucharist, or Sacrament of the Lord's supper ; which consent is indeed wonderful. All the ancient Liturgies agree in this form of prayer, almost in the same words, but fully and exactly in the same sense, order, and method; which, whoever attentively considers, must be convinced, that this order of prayer was delivered to the several Churches in the very first plantation and settlement of them."-Sermons on Common Prayer, Vol. I. Serm. XIII.
- ↑ “The symbol of our faith and hope comes to us from the Apostles, and is not written." St. Jerom ad Pam.-“ No one writes the Creed; it cannot be read ; repeat it to yourselves every day, when you lie down, and when you rise. Let your memory be your book." St. Aug. ad Catech. T. vi. p. 548, Paris, 1586.
