Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/184

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

DOXOLOGY


150


DOXOLOGY


Catholic Encyclopedia, I, 14. The last-named building consists at present of transepts, choir, and fif- teen side chapels only; it is 2.30 feet long, and 70 feet high internally. Even in its unfinished state it ranks as one of the finest modern Gothic buildings in Eng- land, and contains the tomb of the Irish martiiT, Ven- erable Oliver Plunket, Archbishop of Armagh. The commimity numbers eighty-foiu- choir monks; there are no lay" brothers. About half the monks work on the twenty-two missions or parishes in various parts of England which are dependent on the abbey. Be- sides the school attached to the monasterj^ Downside has two other schools, at Ealing, London, W, and at Gorey, Co. Wexford, Ireland ; a house of studies for its monks at Cambridge I'niversity and another for stu- dents in London, near the British JIuseura. The "Downside Review", a periodical now in its twenty- eighth year, devoted chiefly to local, monastic, and liturgical interests, and in which are many articles of value, is published everj- four months. The " Downside Masses" and "Downside Motets" indicate the abbey's interest in the revival of polj-phonic music; a similar interest in Christian art being shown in the "Down- side Prints", a series of small devotional pictm-es re- produced from ancient masters. Attached to the ab- bey are the titular Abbacies of Glastonbtu^- and St. Alban's, and the cathedral priories of Canterbm^i-, Bath, Coventrj', and Norwich. The arms of Down- side are: Or a cross moline gules; the abbot's seal bears an effigj' of Bl. Richard ^Miiting, martyr, the last abbot of ^he neighbouring Abbey of Glastonbury. Weldox. Chronological \otes on EngUsh Congregation O. S. B. (privately printed, Worcester. ISSl); Tacxton, English Black Monks of St. Benedict (London, 1897), II; Birt, Dovm- fyide (London. 1902'1; Snow, Xecrotogy of English Benedictines (London. 18S3); Sketches of Old Downside (London, 1903); HriiLLsTox, Guide to Downside Abbey Church (London, 1903); Illustrated articles in Christian Art, I, 135: Architectural Re- ti< ic. XXIII, 40; Downside Review. I — XXVIII, many articles passim.

G. Roger Hudlestox.

Doxolog^. — In general this word means a short verse praising God and beginning, as a rule, with the Greek word A6Ja. The custom of ending a rite or a hjTnn with such a formula comes from the Synagogue (cf. the Prayer of Manasses: tibi est gloria in s(ecula SfBculorum. Amen). St. Paul uses doxologies con- stantly (Rom., xi, 36; Gal., i, 5; Eph., iii, 21; etc.). These earliest examples are addressed to God the Fa- ther alone, or to Him through (dia.) the Son (Rom., x^-i, 27; Jude, 25: 1 Clem., xh; Mart. Polyc, xx; etc.) and in (iv) or with {<rl>v, fierii) the Holy Ghost (Mart. Polyc, xiv, xxii, etc.). The form of baptism (Matt., xxviii, 19) had set an example of naming the three Persons in parallel order. Especially in the foiu-th centurj', as a protest against Arian subordination (since heretics appealed to these prepositions; cf. St. Basil, "De Spir. Sancto", ii-v), the custom of using the form: "Glorj' to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost", became universal among Catholics. From this time we must distinguish two do.xologies, a greater {doxologia maior) and a shorter (minor). The greater doxologj' is the Gloria in Excelsis Deo(q.v.) in the Mass. The shorter form, which is the one generally referred to tmder the name " doxologj-", is the Gloria Patri. It is continued by an answer to the effect that this glorj- shall last for ever. The form, eti Toi>s aiCifas tQv a/ufui', is verj" common in the first centuries (Rom., xvi, 27; Gal., i, 5; ITim., i. 17; Heb., xiii, 21; I Peter, iv, 11; I Clem., xx, xxxii, xxx^aii, xhii, xiv, etc.; Mart. Polyc, xxii, etc.). It is a common Hebraism (Tob., xiii, 23; Ps. Ixxxiii, 5; re- peatedly in the -Apocal j-pse : i, 6, IS; xiv, 11; xix, 3; etc.) meaning simply "for ever". The simple form, fts Tous oiui-as, is also common (Rom., xi, 36; Doctr. XII .Apost., ix, x; in the Liturgj* of the Apostolic Constitutions, p/ts.tim). Parallel formula are: eii Tois pifWovra! aHvat (Mart. Polyc, xiv) ; dvi yevds


els yeveiv (ibid.); etc This expression was soon en- larged into: "now and ever and in ages of ages" (cf. Heb., xiii, 8; Mart. Polyc, xiv, etc.). In this form it occurs constantly at the end of prayers in the Greek Liturgj' of St. James (Brightman, Eastern Liturgies, pp. 31, 32, 33, .34, 41, etc.). and in all the Eastern rites. The Greek form then became: A6ta warpl (cat vli^ Kal ayitfi wveijfjLaTt, Kal puv Kai del Kal els Toiis aluivas rS)v aiwvw. a.tu\v. In this shape it is used in the East- ern Churches at various points of the Liturgj^ (e. g. in St. Chrj-sostom's Rite; see Brightman, pp. 354, 364, etc.) and as the last two verses of psalms, though not so invariably as with us. The second part is occa- sionally slightly modified and other verses are some- times introduced between the two halves. In the Latin Rite it seems originally to have had exactly the same form as in the East. In 529 the Second Synod of Vasio (Vaison in the pro\-ince of Avignon) says that the additional words, Sicut erat in principio, are used in Rome, the East, and Africa as a protest against Ariauism, and orders them to be said likewise in Gaul (can. v.). As far as the East is concerned the sjTiod is mistaken. These words have ne\er been used in any Eastern rite and the Greeks complained of their use in the West [AValafrid Strabo (ninth cen- turj'), De rebus eccl., xxv]. The explanation that sicut erat in principio was meant as a denial of Arian- ism leads to a question whose answer is less obvious than it seems. To what do the words refer? Every- one now tmderstands gloria as the subject of erat: "As it [the glory] was in the beginning", etc It seems, however, that originally they were meant to refer to Filiuf, and that the meaning of the second part, in the West at any rate, was: "As He [the Son] was in the beginning, so is He now and so shall He be for ever." The in principio. then, is a clear allusion to the first words of the Foiu-th Gospel, and so the sentence is obviously directed against Arianism. There are medieval German versions in the form: "Als er war im Anfang".

The doxology in the form in which we know it has been used since about the seventh century all over Western Christendom, except in one corner. In the Mozarabic Rite the formula is: "Gloria et honor Patri et Filio et Spiritui sancto in saecula s^rculorum" (so in the Missal of this rite; see P. L., LXXXV, 109, 119, etc.). The Fourth Sjmod of Toledo in 633 ordered this form (can. xv). A common medieval tradition, founded on a spurious letter of St. Jerome (in the Benedictine edition, Paris, 1706, V, 415) says that Pope Damasus (366-384) introduced the Gloria Patri at the end of psalms. Cassian (died c. 435) speaks of this as a special custom of the Western Chiu-ch (De mstit. coen., 11, vm). The use of the shorter doxology in the Latin Chm-ch is this: the two parts are always said or sung as a verse ■nith response. They occur al- ways at the end of psalms (when several psalms are joined together as one, as the sixty-second and si.\ty- sixth and again the one hundred and forty-eighth, one hundred and forty-ninth and one himdred and fiftieth at Lauds, the Gloria Patri occurs once only at the end of the group; on the other hand each group of sixteen verses of the one himdred and eighteenth psalm in the day Hours has the Gloria) except on occasions of mourning. For this reason (since the shorter doxologj', like the greater one, Gloria in Excelsis Deo, is natu- rally a joj^ul chant) it is left out on the last three days of Holy Week; in the Office for the Dead its place is taken by the verses: Requiem a-ternam, etc. and Et lux perpetua, etc. It also occius after canticles, except that the Benedieite has its own doxology (Benedica- mus Patrem . . . Benedictus es Domine, etc.- — the only alternative one left in the Roman Rite). In the Mass it occurs after three psalms, the "Judica me" at the beginning, the fragment of the Introit-Psalm, and the "Lavabo" (omitted in Passiontide, except on feasts, and at requiem Masses). The first part only