The Appurtenances of the Mass, at This Day. 104
The Appurtenances of the Mass, at This Day 1. The tapers that are now lighted in the church on the day at mass time, before and after the reading of the Gospel, are not approved by the fathers. "We light no torches on the day time," says Jerome against Vigilantius; yet he confesses that they were lighted in the churches of the east, by some of ignorance, and by others that had zeal, but not according to knowledge, cap. 3. But Tertullian, de
Idololat., says that this was the custom of heretics. And Lactantius wisely reprehends it, lib. 6, Instit., cap. 2, saying, "They do light up lamps unto God, as though He lived in the dark." So does the Council of Elib.is, cap. 34.
2. The primitive church never used incense. "We buy no frankincense at all," says Tertullian, apolog. 42. "We go not into Arabia to seek frankincense," says Augustine, in Psal. 49, "It is the sacrifice of praise that God requires at our hands." And Psalm 50: "Offer wisely, you have your offering within yourself, go not abroad to seek frankincense, but say, in me O God are Thy vows, the praises which I will give Thee." Arnobius, in his 7th book against the Gentiles, infers many reasons against the burning of incense.
3. "The vessels wherein our sacraments are put and consecrated," says Walfrid, cap. 24, de reb. eccles., "are cups and dishes. Pope
Zephyrine ordained that the celebration should be performed with dishes of glass, and Urban after him caused them, and all other church vessels, to be made of silver. Thus, as in all the rest, so in this, has the churches' gravity and state in ceremonies increased daily with the times." Thus says he.
4. The linen vestures (be they albs or surplices) were at first the raiments of noblemen, and for honor's sake given unto priests, but not unto any monk, save only in divine service time, as Erasmus testifies in the life of Jerome. Theodoret, lib. 2, hist., ca. 27, relates that Constantine gave Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, a robe wrought with gold for him to use in baptism.
5. "The priests' ornaments," as Walfrid reports, "grew up by little and little unto the height that they now be in". For first they said their masses in common attire, as they do unto this day in some churches of the east. But Pope Stephen ordained that the priests should have holy vestures to wear in no daily use saving in the church. It was decreed in the Council of Bracarea that no priest should celebrate mass without a typet. Others added other vestures in the church, either in imitation of the habit of the ceremonial priests, or to bear some mystical signification. Thus says Walfrid, de reb. eccles., cap.
24. And indeed, the gaudy shows that are now used about the apparel of the mass were neither seen nor heard of in whole or part for about 400 years after Christ.
6. And for 800 years after Christ, there were but eight vestures used in all the whole mysteries of religion, as the said Walfrid, cap. 24, and Amalarius, lib. 2, c. 22, de offic. eccles., do both testify. Whereas now there are fifteen: six priestly vestures and nine of the bishops.
7. The clergy of antiquity, as well in the western as eastern church, did use to have the head polled, but not shaven as the papists have now, and which the fathers reprove. "The hairs of the head," says
Clemens Alexandrinus, Pedag., lib. 3, capit. 11, "are to be cut, not with a razor, but with barber's scissors". "Show you," says Optatus to the Donatists, lib. 2, contr. Parm., "where you are commanded to have the priest's head shaven, whereas contrariwise innumerable
examples show that it is unlawful to be done". "We learn here," says Jerome upon the 44th of Ezekiel, "that we neither ought to be shaven to the bare, with razor, nor to be cut so near, that we seem as shaven, but let our hair grow, so that it covers our skin". As for the shaving used nowadays, the church thought not of it for many ages after Christ, for the first mention that was ever made of the shaving of the crown like a circle is in Germanus of Constantinople's Theoria. "The shaving of the priest," says he, "and the cutting of his hair round upon the crown, is in sign of the crown of thorns which Christ bare upon His head". This also is spoken of by Hugo Sanct., de Sacram. lib. 2, par. 3, c. 1; Lombard, lib. 4, dist. 24; Thomas and Bonaventure, being indeed all one with the shaving of the lay-penitents, as the Council of Agatha, cap. 2, and the third Council of Toledo, cap. 12, both record. As for the priests' modern shaving, it is absolutely condemned by the fourth Council of Toledo, canon. 40, in these words: "Let all clerks or readers, as the Levites and priests, polling their hair all their head over above, leave but a circle like a crown below (about their ears). Not as the readers do in some part of Galatia, who wearing their hair long, like laymen, do only clip a little circle in the top or crown of the head, for this the heretics in Spain do use unto this day". The Greeks used no round polling, as Bede in two places testifies, viz., hist. Eccl., lib. 4, cap. 1 and lib. 5, cap. 22.
8. The crown in the fathers signifies the episcopal glory, dignity, and reverence, or the hoariness of their hair, which to old men is as a crown. Or it may be the polling used in those days, not the wearing of the hair about the temples, and the crown shaven as the center of the circle. And so must that epistle of Jerome to a certain priest be understood: the crown upon the clerk's head signifies the kingdom they have in God. And that of Augustine, epist. 26: "I pray your crown to salute your two brethren, my Lords Alipius and Euodius, in my name."