KISS
664
KISS
Council of Auxerre, a. d. 57S, almost certainly had
some relation to the abuse at that time prevalent of
placing the Blessed Sacrament in the mouth of the
dead or burj'ing It with them. It may be added that
throughout the Middle Ages an almost rehgious so-
lemnity attached to the public exchange of a kiss as a
token of amity. Remarkable examples of tliis may be
found in the liistory of the quarrels of Henn,- II with
St. Thomas of Canterburj', and of Richard Coeur de
Lion with St. Hugh of Lincoln. In the latter case the
bishop is recorded to have taken hold of Richard by
his mantle and to liave positively shaken Iiim until the
king, overcome by such persistence, recovered his
good humour and bestowed on the saint the salute
which was liis due.
Iviss OF Pe.\ce. — It is not easy to determine the precise Unk between the "holy kiss" and the liturgi- cal "ki.ss of peace", known in Greek from an early date as eipiji-r; (i. e. pax. or peace). This latter may be quite primitive, for it meets us first in the description of the liturgy given by St. Justin Martyr (ApoL, I, 65) , who writes : " When we liave completed the prayers we salute one another with a kiss [dXX^Xous (piXrifiari aa-fra^6ii(8a Travirdnevoi twv cuxw"], whereupon there is brought to the president bread and a cup of wine." This passage clearly shows that in the middle of the second century the usage already obtained — a usage now claimed as distinctive of the liturgies other than Roman — of exchanging the kiss of peace at the begin- ning of what we call the Offertorj'. The language of many Oriental Fathers and of certain conciliary canons further confirms this conclusion as to the prinii- tive position of the Pax. Thus St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. Myst., v, 3) speaking of the time between the washing of the celebrant's hands and the Sursum Corda which introduces the Anaphora , or Preface, says, "Then the deacon cries out aloud: 'Embrace ye one another and let us salute each other. . . . Thiski-ssis the sign that our souls are united and that we banish all remembrance of injury'." Many other Fathers (e. g. Origen, Pseudo-Dionysius, and also St. John Chrysostom, "De Comp. Cordis", 1, 3) speak in a similar tone and use language which implies that the Pax preceded the oblation of the elements. Even the so-called "Canons of Hippolj'tus ", referred by some to Rome in the third century, though Funk ascribes them to a much later date, imply that the kiss was given at the Offertorj'. The same was undoubtedly the case in the Mozarabic and the Galilean liturgies. In Rome, however, the kiss of peace was more closely united to the Communion, and it mu.st have followed shortly after the Pater Xoster as it does at present. Thus Pope Innocent I in his letter to Decentius (.\. D. 416) blames the practice of those who give the Pax before the Consecration and urges that it was meant as a token that "the people give their assent to all things already performed in the mysteries".
Another clear testimony of about the same date occurs in a .sermon attributed to St. Augustine, but probably written by St. Ca^sarius of Aries (P. L. XXX Vni, 1 101) : "After this [the Lord's prayer], Pax vobiscum is said, and the faithful salute each other with the kiss which is the sign of peace.' The Roman Ordines, the Stowe Missal which represents Irish usage at an early date, and a chorus of liturgical writers from the eighth century onwards attest that wherever Roman influence prevailed the Pax invariably fol- lowed the great consecratory prayer and the Pater. It is easy to understand that the usage which placed the kiss of peace before the Offertory was prompted by the remembrance of those words of our Lord (Mat!, V, 23-24) : " If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy lirother hath any- thing against thee; leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother: and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift. It seems to be pretty generally held that this position before the
Offertorj' was the primitive position of the liturgical
kiss of peace even at Rome. Dom Cabrol and others
incline to the view that the kiss formed the natural
sequel to the commemoration of the living and of the
dead, and that all these three elements, which origi-
nally found a place at the Offertory, were deliberately
transferred elsewhere in the course of some early re-
vision of the Roman Liturgy, the commemoration of
the li\Tng and of the dead being inserted separately
in the great consecratory prayer, or Canon of the
Alass, while the Pax was made to follow the Pater
Xoster, having been attracted to that position by the
words "Forgive us our trespasses", etc. (Cabrol,
"Origines Liturgiques", Paris, 1906, pp. 360-361).
However, the rival theory, that there were originally
two occasions when the kiss of peace was given, one
before the Offertory and the other before the Com-
munion, does not lack probability; for St. John
Chrysostom, the Prayer Book of Serapion, and Ana-
stasius Sinaita seem all to know of some such rite
before Communion, and the practice of kissing the
bishop's hand before receiving the Blessed Sacrament
(see Card. RampoUa, "S. Melania giuniore", note 41)
may possibly be connected with it. According to this
second theory of the double kiss of peace, both the
Roman and the Oriental liturgies omitted one of these
salutations, the Oriental retaining that at the Offer-
tory, the Roman that at the Communion. In any
ease it is certain that in the early Middle Ages the kiss
of peace was most intimately associated in idea with
the reception of Communion (see Pseudo-Egbert,
"Confessionale", xxxv, in Wassenschleben, "Bussord-
nungen", p. 315), and it seems probable that the
omission of the Pax in Masses for the Dead was due
to the fact that Communion was not distributed to
the faithful at such Masses.
From a very early date, also, the abuses to which this form of salutation might lead were very carefully guarded against. Both in the East and the XA'est women and men were separated in the assemblies of the faith- ful, and the kiss of peace was given only bv women to women and by men to men. Then in about the twelfth or thirteenth centurj' the use of the inslru- mcntum pads, or oscvlatorium, known in English as the "pax-board" or "pax-brede", was graduallj' in- troduced. This was a little plaque of metal, ivorj', or wood, generally decorated with some pious carving and provided with a handle, which was first brought to the altar for the celebrant to kiss at the proper place in the Mass and then brought to each of the congrega- tion in turn at the altar rails. But even this practice in course of time died out, and at the present day the Pax is only given at High Mass, and is hardly any- where communicated to the congregation. The cele- brant kisses the corporal spread upon the altar (he used formerly in many local rites to kiss the sacred Host Itself) and then, placing his hands upon the arms of the deacon, he presents his left cheek to the deacon's left cheek but without actually touching it. At the same time he pronoimces the words Pa.r tecum (Peace be with thee) : to which the deacon replies, Et cum spirilu tiio (And with thy spirit). The deacon then conveys the salute to the sub-deacon, and the sub- deacon to the canons or clergj' in the stalls. The Western Church, however, has not been the only one to discover that the ceremony of the Pax could not be decorously maintained when manners had grown less austere. Among the Greeks hardly a trace of the original salute is preser\-ed. Just before the Creed, which itself precedes the .\naphora,the celebrant says, "Peace be to all", and then he kisses the gifts (veiled), while at the same time the deacon ki.s.ses his own nrarinn, or stole. In the Syrian rites, the deacon touches the priest's hands, then moves his own hands down his face and gives them to be touched by some- one else. In this way the salute is passed on. Dean Stanley declares that in the Coptic Rite the kiss is
