RUBRICS
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RUBRICS
are not easy to appreciate until one is practically
vanquished " by the glory of their colour and the
luxuriance of their unrestraint. A deeper considera-
tion awakens fuller appreciation and the marvellous
conceptions of the artist and his exuberant ideas of
magnificence impress and reveal the high position of
the painter.
In his drawings he is almost supreme. His religious pictures, when properly regarded and thoughtfully understood, are impressive in their intense religious quality apart from the fury of colour and extrav- agance. His portraits are triumphant, sometimes perhaps sensual, often dreamy, always impressive. He is unequalled as to colours, and though fuller of the delights of earth than of heaven, yet when the nature of the man is understood the intensely devout quaUty of his beautiful reUgious pictures can be appre- ciated. It is, however, as a draughtsman and colour- ist, as a master of pageant and a decorator of the highest position that the fame of Rubens has been created.
Michel, Histoire de la Vie de Rubens (Brussels, 1771); Gachet, Letters of Rubens (Brussels, 1840) ; Rooses, The Work of Rubens (Antwerp, 1886); Wacters, The Flemish .School of PairUing (London, 1885). See also various catalogues of Rubens exhibitions and articles upon him, specially those by Waagen, Saixsbdrv, and Ruelens.
George Charles Williamson.
Rubrics. — I. Idea. — Among the ancients, accord- ing to Columella, Vitruvius, and Pliny, the word rubrica, rubric, signified the red earth used by carpen- ters to mark on wood the line to follow in cutting it; according to Juvenal the same name was applied to the red titles under which the jurisconsults arranged the announcements of laws. Soon the red colour, at first used exclusively for writing the titles, passed to the indications or remarks made on a given text. This custom was adopted in liturgical collections to dis- tinguish from the formula of the prayers the instruc- tions and indications which should regulate their recitation, so that the word rubric has become the consecrated term for the rules concerning Divine service or the administration of the sacraments. Gavanti said that the word appeared for the first time in this sense in the Roman Breviary printed at Venice in 1550, but it is found in MSS, of the fourteenth cen- tury, such as 4.397 of the Vatican Library, fol. 227-28; see also the fifteenth-century "Ordo Romanus" of Peter Amelius. The word is used sometimes to indi- cate the general laws, sometimes to mark a particular indication, but always to furnish an explanation of the use of the text, hence the saying: Lege rubrum si vis int«lligere nigrum (read the red if j-ou would under- stand the black). Thus in liturgical books the red characters indicate what should be done, the black what should be recited, and the Rubrics may be de- fined as: the rules laid down for the recitation of the Di%'ine Office, the celebration of Mass, and the ad- ministration of the sacraments. In some respects the rubrics resemble ceremonies, but they differ inasmuch as the ceremonies are external attitudes, actions con- sidered as accidental rites and movements, while the Rubrics bear on the essential rite.
1 1 . Kinds. — Writers distinguish between the rubrics of the Breviary, the Missal, and the Ritual, according as the matter regulated concerns the Divine Ofl^ice, the Mass, or the sacraments; and again between essential and accidental rubrics according Jis they relate to what is of necessity or to ext^-rnal circumstances in t he act which they regulate, ftc But the chief distinction seems to be that which divides them into general and particular rubrics. The first are the rules common to the same sacred function, e. g. those which re^rijlate the recita- tion of the Divine Office, whether considered as a whole, in its chief parts, or in its secondary parts; they are at prf«ent printed under thirty-four titles in the editions of the Roman Breviary at the head of the part for autumn; those which regulate the celebration
of Mass printed at the beginning of the Roman Missal
(twenty titles containing the general rules, thirteen
others giving the rite to be followed in the celebration,
and ten others explaining the defects which may
occur); those which regulate the administration of
the sacraments (given by the Ritual at the beginning
of each of the sacraments, as also by the Pontifical
for the sacraments administered by a bishop). The
particular rubrics are the special rules which determine
during the course of the action what must be done at
each period of the year, on certain fixed days, as the
days of Holy Week, or when a particular formula is
recited. They are inserted in the midst of the form-
ulaj of Breviary, Missal, or Ritual.
III. Origin and Development. — The Rubrics are as ancient as the Offices themselves. They were long transmitted by oral tradition and when they were consigned to wTiting it was not in the fulness known to us. Like the various elements of the Divine Office and the Mass, the manner of celebrating them had at first a local character; there were observances peculiar to certain churches. Thus St. Cyprian (Ep. Ivi, in P. L., IV, 410) mentions the peculiarities of Carthage in the administration of the sacraments; St. Augustine in his reply to Januarius (Ep. Iv, in P. L., XXXIII, 204) treats at length the rites of the Church, those which might under no circumstances be neglected and those which might be discontinued; St. Gregory the Great, writing to St. Augustine of Canterbury (XI, Ixiv, in P. L., LXXVII, 1186) suggests to him the same wise direction with regard to local practices. It is difficult to determine the period at which these rules were consigned to writing. The ancient Sacra- mentaries, the MSS. Missals, and even the early printed Missals contain some, but very few, rubrics. There is every reason to believe that they were con- tained in special collections known as Ordinaries, Directories, and Rituals. An Ordo Romanus has been attributed to Gregory the Great (see Liturgical Books), but it is difficult to say what it was. Relying on the "Ordines Romani" published by Mabillon, leather Grisar (Civilta Cattolica, 20 May, 1905) gives the oldest description of the solemn pontifical Mass as dating from the pontificate of Gregory the Great. Hittorp's publication has been much discussed. Cardi- nal Bona (De divina psalmodia, i, 604) regarding the collection as very ancient but overloaded with the ceremonies of subsequent ages, which is the case with all the ritualistic books. Cardinal Tommasi (Opera, IV, p. xxxv) characterizes it as a confused mass in which it is impossible to distinguish the most ancient and authentic practices. In this primitive state rubrics and ceremonies were generally mingled.
There were no rubricists until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At first they were comjiilers and worked on separate parts. Cardinal Quign6nez found the ancient rubrics obscure and confused; the new rubrics which still exist with some additions and alterations form an excellent exposition borrowed from the "Directorium OflUcii Divini", published in 1540 by the Franciscan L. Ciconialano with the approval of Paul III. In 1502, under Leo X, Burchard edited the general rubrics of the Roman Missal; they were printed in the edition of the "Missale Planum" and have thus reached us. In collaboration with Aug. Patrizi Piccolomini, Bun-hard also issued (1488) the ordinary and the ceremonies of the pontifical Mass under the title "Romans; Ecclesia; Ca;remoniarum libri tres"; these have passed into our present Pontifical. Finally the lionian Ritual, edited in 1614 under Paul V, was compiled, with the ai<l of the Rit>ial of Cardinal (liulio Antonio .Sjmtario, from which most of the rubrics are derived. Thus various collec- tions of the nibricH compiled by individuals have re- ceived the approval of the sovereign pontiffs, and since Pius V, instead of being published as separate treatises, they have been inserted in the liturgical
