www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Pictish Dragons and Highlander

Originally posted by Zenovia:


I would love some information on the Picts. There seems to be so little on them.

Zenovia

Originally posted by St. Gabriel:
The last time I was in Greece a couple of years ago, I had a friend, who is interested in such things, relate to me the theory that the Scottish Mc (or Mac) prefix, especially in the case of Mc (or Mac)Donald, is a derivation from the word Makedonos (he who is from Macedonia). I thought that was quite interesting as the resemblence seems to be there.

Group V. The Hispano-Gallican Rite (St John).-This group of Latin liturgies, which once prevailed very widely in Western Europe, has been almost universally superseded by the liturgy of the Church of Rome. Where it survives, it has been more or less assimilated to the Roman pattern. It prevailed once throughout Spain, France, northern Italy, Great Britain and Ireland. The term "Ephesine" has been applied to this group or family of liturgies, chiefly by English liturgiologists, and the names of St John and of Ephesus, his place of residence, have been pressed into service in support of a theory of Ephesine origin, which, however, lacks proof and may now be regarded as. a discarded hypothesis. Other theories represent the Gallican to be a survival of the original Roman liturgy, or as an importation into Western Europe from the east through a Milanese channel. The latter is Duchesne's theory (Christian Worship, London, 1904, 2nd ed., p. 94).
We must be content with mentioning these theories without attempting to discuss them.
The chief traces of oriental influence and affinity lie in the following points: (1) various proclamations made by the deacon, including that of "Silentium facite" before the epistle (Migne, Pat. Lat. torn. lxxxv. col. 534); (2) the presence of a third lesson preceding the epistle, taken from the Old Testament; (3) the occasional presence of "preces" a series of short intercessions resembling the Greek "Ektene" or deacon's litany; (4) the position of the kiss of peace at an early point in the service, before the canon, instead of the Roman position after consecration; (5) the exclamation "Sancta sanctis" occurring in the Mozarabic rite, being the counterpart of the Eastern "Td i yea rois aylocs," that is "holy things to holy people"; (6) traces of the presence of the "Epiklesis," that is to say, the invocation of the Holy Spirit, in its Eastern position after the words of institution, as in the prayer styled the Post-pridie in the 1Vlozarabic service for the second Sunday after the octave of the Epiphany: "We beseech thee that thou wouldest sanctify this oblation with the permixture of thy Spirit, and conform it with full transformation into the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Migne, Pat. Lat. torn. lxxxv. col. 250). On the other hand the great variableness of its parts, and the immense number of its proper prefaces, ally it to the Western family of liturgies.
Liturgies of the British Islands. Period I. The Celtic Church. - Until recently almost nothing was known of the character of the liturgical service of the Celtic church which existed in these islands before the Anglo-Saxon Conquest, and continued to exist in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall for considerable though varying periods of time after that event. But in recent times a good deal of light has been thrown on the subject, partly by the publication or republication of the few genuine works of Patrick, Columba, Columbanus, Adamnan and other Celtic saints; partly by the discovery of liturgical remains in the Scottish Book of Deer and in the Irish Books of Dimma and Mulling and the Stowe Missal, &c.; partly by the publication of medieval Irish compilations, such as the Lebar Brecc, Liber Hymnorum, Martyrology of Ocngus, &c., which contain ecclesiastical kalendars, legends, treatises, &c., of considerable but very varying antiquity. The evidence collected from these sources is sufficient to prove that the liturgy of the Celtic church was of the Gallican type. In central England the churches, with everything belonging to them, were destroyed by the heathen invaders at the close of the 5th century; but the Celtic church in the remoter parts of England, as well as in the neighbouring kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland, retained its independence for centuries afterwards.
An examination of its few extant service-books and fragments of service-books yields the following evidence of the Gallican origin and character of the Celtic liturgy: (a) the presence of collects and anthems which occur in the Gallican or Mozarabic but not in the Roman liturgy; (b) various formulae of thanksgiving after communion; (c) frequent biddings or addresses to the people in the form of Gallican Praefationes; (d) the Gallican form of consecration, being a prayer called "PostSanctus" leading up to the words of institution; (e) the complicated rite of "fraction" or "the breaking of bread," as described in the Irish treatise at the end of the Stowe Missal, finds its only counterpart in the elaborate ceremonial of the Mozarabic church; (f) the presence of the Gallican ceremonial of Pedilavium or "Washing of feet" in the earliest Irish baptismal office.
For a further description of these and other features which are characteristic of or peculiar to the Celtic liturgy the reader is referred to F. E. Warren's Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Oxford, 1881).