and before the Supplices te rogamus.[1] On the other hand, the Orthodox service book adds a note to the words of institution, saying that they are only recited historically, and that therefore it is superfluous and contrary to the right mind of the Eastern Church of Christ to show the bread and wine to the people at this point.[2] The question of the Epiklesis is a long one. Two remarks about it will be sufficient here. In the first place the Christians of the first centuries certainly did not ask very closely at what exact instant the grace of any Sacrament was given. They obeyed Christ's commands, said the prayers, and did the actions he had appointed, and they believed that God in answer would most certainly do his part. But they did not discuss the exact instant at which all conditions were fulfilled.[3] If they had thought about the form of the Holy Eucharist in our terms they would have said that the whole great Eucharistic prayer is the form, from the Preface to the Our Father. Secondly, the fact that all the liturgies have a prayer to the Holy Ghost, asking him to change the bread and wine into the Blessed Sacrament, is no evidence against the change having already been made. The Church always dramatically represents things as happening successively which really must happen at one instant. In our rite of baptism the priest first drives out the devil, then "enlightens, cleanses, and sanctifies" the child by an imposition of hands, drives out the devil again, opens the nostrils and ears, anoints for "life everlasting," baptizes, anoints with chrism, and then gives the white robe and shining light. Presumably the truth of all these symbols is verified at one
- ↑ The elevation is a late ceremony. It began in France in the 12th century (after Berengar's heresy) and spread throughout the West during the 13th century. Gregory X (1271-1276) ordered it in his Ceremoniale romanum.
- ↑ Euchologion (Venice, 1898), p. 63.
- ↑ Even now such an investigation would only lead to absurd subtleties. At what moment is a child baptized? After the word Spiritus, or not till the whole word Sancti has been spoken? In the case of Holy Orders the question is still more uncertain. No one can say at what instant the subject becomes a priest. Of course the bishop does everything scrupulously: the subject is certainly not a priest when the service begins, he certainly is one when it ends. And if one must determine the form of the Sacrament, one would say that it is the whole prayer from the first laying on of hands to the giving of the instruments.
