Chapter XLI: Part IV: She Sang (2)

Anglicans, on the other hand, have made a great deal of a certain testimonial letter granted by Bonner to Scory, which speaks of the latter’s sin and repentance, and of his subsequent rehabilitation by Bonner, and restoration to the public exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry within the diocese of London. As Scory is spoken of as “our confrère, lately Bishop of Chichester,” it is urged that the ministry to the exercise of which he was restored must have been that of a bishop. Canon Estcourt, after pointing out certain grounds for suspecting the authenticity of this letter, remarks that Bonner’s faculties only extended to the case of priests, “so that Scory must have acknowledged the nullity of his consecration, in order to enable Bonner to deal with him at all”; and, after all, “the letter does no more than enable him to celebrate Mass in churches within the diocese of London”—in fact, to exercise that office, and that office only, which he had received “servatâ formâ et intentione ecclesiæ.” So much for the Holy See’s approval of the Edwardine orders.

Anglicans have tried to make out a charge of inconsistency against the Holy See, on the ground that it did not recognize the episcopate of Ridley, Latimer, and Ferrer—who were all three supposed to have been consecrated according to the Roman Pontifical—but degraded them from the priesthood and inferior orders only. Canon Estcourt admits that Ferrer was treated merely as a priest, but he shows that his consecration had been a medley rite, in which the order of the Pontifical was not followed. As to Latimer, he remarks that there is no pretence for saying that he was not degraded from the episcopate; and that, with regard to Ridley, the great weight of authority makes for his having been degraded from the episcopate. Cardinal Pole, in his commission, ordered that both Ridley and Latimer should be degraded “from their promotion and dignity of bishops, priests, and all other ecclesiastical orders.” The Bishop of Lincoln, in his exhortation to Ridley, says: “You were made a bishop according to our laws.” Heylin says that they were both degraded from the episcopate. The only authority for the contrary opinion is Foxe, who makes the acting commissioner Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, conclude an address to Ridley thus: “We take you for no bishop, and therefore we will the sooner have done with you.” Foxe then proceeds to describe the actual ceremony as a degradation from the priesthood. Canon Estcourt’s reviewer in the _Dublin Review_ of July, 1873, maintains that Foxe was right. The reviewer thinks that Ridley and Latimer were not degraded from the episcopate, because the _status episcopalis_ was not recognized in those who, though _validly_ consecrated, had not received the Papal confirmation. Upon this we remark, 1st, that the ceremonies of degradation came into use when it was a very common opinion in the church that degradation destroyed the _potestas ordinis_. 2. That the form of degradation, in so many words, expresses the taking away the _potestas ordinis_—“amovemus a te,” “tollemus tibi,” “potestatem offerendi,” “potestatem consecrandi”—and this in contradistinction to another form of perpetual suspension—“ab executione potestatis.” The ceremony aims at effecting the destruction of orders, so far as this is possible. It may be called a “destruction of orders,” in the same sense that mortal sin is called the crucifixion of Christ anew. Indeed, in one place, the clause, “quantum in nobis est,” is introduced. 3. Degradation does not depend upon previous confirmation; for Innocent II. (1139) thus deals with those who had been consecrated bishops by the antipope Peter Leo, who therefore assuredly had never been confirmed or acknowledged in any way by the pope. After exclaiming, “Quoscunque exaltaverat degradamus,” etc., etc., “he violently wrested their pastoral staffs from their hands, and ignominiously tore from their shoulders the pontifical palls in which their high dignity resides. Their rings, too, which express their espousals with the church, showing them no mercy, he drew off.”(140) If the Bishop of Gloucester really acted as Foxe describes, he did so on his own responsibility, and in the teeth of ecclesiastical precedent.

Perhaps the most important and interesting portion of Canon Estcourt’s book is that in which he discusses the theological value of the Edwardine form. It is not merely of controversial importance, but is really calculated to throw light upon the theology of orders, which, as a Catholic contemporary well observes, is still in course of formation.

Canon Estcourt, following Benedict XIV., _De Syn. Dioc._, lib. viii. cap. 10, maintains, as the more probable opinion, 1, that, in the case of the priesthood, the second imposition of hands, with the prayer for the infusion “of the virtue of the sacerdotal grace,” is all that is really necessary for validity; although, in practice, we of the West must ordain again _sub conditione_, if the tradition of the instruments has been omitted. 2. That in the case of priests, the third imposition of hands, with the words, “Receive the Holy Ghost; whose sins thou dost remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose sins thou retainest, they are retained,” is not essential, and, if omitted, is to be supplied without repeating the rest. 3. That as to the episcopate, the “Accipe Spiritum Sanctum,” with the imposition of hands, is all that is essential; and, finally, he allows, in deference to the Holy Office (_vide infra_), that the form—_i.e._, the prayer immediately accompanying the imposition of hands—need not express the specific character or work of the order conferred, as, for instance, the Holy Sacrifice in the ordination of a priest.

Consistently with these principles, Canon Estcourt admits that, _so far as words go_, “Receive the Holy Ghost” is a sufficient form both for the episcopate and the priesthood. As regards the episcopate, this has been long a common opinion. As regards the priesthood, the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition, in 1704, decided that certain Abyssinians had been validly ordained priests by imposition of hands and the words, “Accipe Spiritum Sanctum.” From this it follows that the Anglican forms for ordaining priests and bishops are, _so far as words go_, sufficient. They are as follows, from 1549 to 1662, for the priesthood: “Receive the Holy Ghost; whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained; and be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God and of his holy sacraments, in the name of the Father, etc.” For the episcopate: “Take the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou stir up the grace of God which is in thee by imposition of hands; for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and soberness.” In 1662, certain changes were introduced by the High Church party. In the form for the priesthood, after the words “Holy Ghost” was added, “for the office and work of a priest in the church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands.” For the form of the episcopate was substituted, “Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a bishop in the church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands, in the name of the Father, etc.”

Of course the value of Anglican orders “secundum formam” must depend upon the value of the form as it originally stood. The subsequent alterations are important as marking, 1st, the dissatisfaction of the High Church party with the forms upon which their orders depended; 2d, the low theological standard which satisfied them, after all.

So far as the material words of the Edwardine forms go, they are sufficient—_i.e._, they are words capable of being used in a sense in which they would be sufficient—but the words are ambiguous. The form of ordination, although it need not express, must signify or mean, the essential idea of the order. Where it does not carry its meaning on the face of it, we must look for it in the rite and liturgy of which it forms a part. This is not an appeal to the mere subjective intention of the minister, but to the objective meaning of the words. Upon this principle we must, in order to get at the value of the Anglican forms, discover, 1st, by an examination of the various admittedly valid rites of ordination, what such words should mean; 2d, by an examination of the Anglican rite, what these words, in the position which they occupy in that rite, do or do not mean.

Canon Estcourt examines the numerous rites which the Roman Church acknowledges to be valid, whether fallen out of use, and only to be found in the pages of ancient sacramentaries, or still living and operative, in East or West, among Catholics or among those who have separated from Catholic unity. He finds three qualities in which they all unite: 1st, a recognition of the divine vocation or election of the ordained; 2d, a recognition of the “virtus sacramentalis” of orders, as something quite distinct from and beyond the grace which is also given to the ordained to acquit himself worthily in the duties of his calling; 3d, a constant recognition of, and appeal to, the main scope and duty of orders—the offering of the Holy Sacrifice.

Canon Estcourt next proceeds to examine the Anglican liturgy and ordinal with special reference to these three points: 1. The divine election. 2. The sacramental virtue. 3. The Holy Sacrifice. And he finds that both the liturgy and the ordinal are the result of a deliberate manipulation of the ancient Catholic ritual previously in use, in order to the exclusion of these three points, which contain the essential idea of holy orders.

Ordination in the Anglical ritual no longer appeals to a divine election, of which it is the expression and the fulfilment. It is merely the public expression of the approval of the authorities of church and state. For the “virtus sacramentalis” it has substituted a mere _grâce d’état_. From this it only naturally follows that episcopal ordination cannot be of indispensable necessity, or more than a matter of regulation and propriety which, in an emergency, may be abrogated. This is the express teaching of many of the early Anglican reformers. Even when engaged in defending their episcopal succession, they are careful to say that they do not regard it as indispensable. Hooker, who is in many respects so much more orthodox than his predecessors and contemporaries, allows “that there may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination to be made without a bishop.”

Canon Estcourt prints considerable portions of the Anglican ordinal and liturgy in parallel columns, with the corresponding text of the Sarum and Exeter pontificals and missals. We see with what an unerring sacrilegious instinct everything bearing upon the Holy Sacrifice, and even upon the Real Presence, is either cut out or perverted.

As regards the Second Book of 1552, it is clear that it was the work of sacramentarians who disbelieved in the Real Presence in any sense, and was undertaken for the express purpose of purging the ritual of what previous handling had still allowed it to retain of the impress of that Presence. Mr. Cardwell, in his comparison of the “Two Books of Edward VI.,” pref. xxvii., admits that Cox and Taylor, who were probably the working members of the commission, appear to have looked upon the oblation of the Eucharist as consisting merely of “prayer, thanksgiving, and the remembrance of our Saviour’s passion.” Of Cranmer, the most influential member of the commission, we are told that “about a year after the publication of King Edward’s First Book, Archbishop Cranmer abandoned his belief in the Real Presence—a change which seems to have been very acceptable to the young king and his favorites.”(141) In the revision of 1662, an apparent attempt was made to attain to the expression of a higher doctrine, both as regards orders and the Holy Eucharist; but even if the expressions introduced were in themselves adequate, as Canon Estcourt fairly shows they were not, of what avail could have been so tardy a restoration? But if we examine these restorations and emendations, we can hardly avoid coming to the conclusion that they were not really dictated by any conception of, or aspiration after, a higher doctrine, but were the genuine fruits of a conservative reaction fired by controversial pique. The First Book substituted for the Catholic faith a hazy Lutheranism; the Second Book for this again a hazy sacramentarianism; and the revision of 1662, a hazy compound of the two, with the addition of a Catholic phrase or so in order to support claims to a wider sweep of church authority. Thus the revisers of 1662 introduced the words “priest” and “bishop” into the ordination form, whilst doing absolutely nothing toward restoring the idea of sacrifice to the liturgy.

But, it may be urged, there is one portion of the Anglican form for making priests which expresses the Catholic doctrine of priestly virtue—the power of forgiving sins. Unfortunately for Anglicans, whatever force may lie in this expression—and all precedents are against its being regarded as a sufficient form—is neutralized by the Lutheran new form of absolution which had been introduced in addition to the two Catholic forms. At best, one is left in doubt whether the mighty words have not shrivelled into a Lutheran sense, in which sins are not forgiven, but the forgiveness of sin is merely declared.

It is impossible to do justice in a review to the exhaustive completeness of Canon Estcourt’s treatment of this portion of his subject. His conspectus of the Catholic missals and the different editions of the _Book of Common Prayer_ in parallel columns enables us, as it were, to detect the pulsations of each several heresy, and to appreciate its share in what may be called the passion of the Catholic liturgy in England. A quotation from each of his parallels may serve as examples of, 1st, the action of the Lutheran First Book upon the missal; 2d, the Zuinglian Second Book upon the First Book; 3d, the compromise of 1662.

The Sarum Missal.

We thy servants, and likewise thy holy people, do offer to thy excellent Majesty, of thy gifts and bounties, a pure victim, a holy victim, the holy bread of eternal life, and the chalice of everlasting salvation.

The Book Of Common Prayer, 1549.

We, thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before thy divine Majesty, with these thy holy gifts, the memorial which thy Son hath willed us to make.

1549.

He hath left us in those holy mysteries, as a public pledge of his love, and a continual remembrance of the same, his own blessed body and precious blood for us to feed upon spiritually, to our great and endless comfort.

1552, Untouched In 1662.

He hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries, as pledges of his love, and for a continual remembrance of his death, to our great and endless comfort.

The Sarum Missal.

“The body of our Lord Jesus Christ [1549: which was given for thee] preserve thy body and thy soul unto everlasting life.”

1552.

“Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart with thanksgiving.”

(This form was substituted for that of 1549, in 1552, and was appended to it in 1662.)

Canon Estcourt’s argument against the validity of Anglican orders is no argument from lack of sufficient intention on the part of Anglicans. Neither do we think that such an argument could be maintained, in accordance with the commonly‐accepted principles of theology. If it is a sufficient intention for valid baptism to intend to administer the form of Christian initiation, it is sufficient, in the case of orders, to intend to administer the form of Christian ordination, although the ceremony in either case may be regarded as merely an external form without any intrinsic value. It is only as a witness to the sense of the form that the intention of Anglicans is brought into court; and it is not the intention with which they ordain at which we demur, but the intention with which they have altered the ordination service and liturgy—_i.e._, the form of ordination and its context. Had these alterations been merely the result of an antiquarian leaning towards a more primitive though less perfect utterance of the same truth, or of a puritanic craving after simplicity, the irreverence would have been of the extremest kind, but still there would have been no grounds for disputing the orthodox sense, and so the validity of the form. But, on the contrary, the very object of the alterations, as Canon Estcourt has shown, was the elimination of the orthodox doctrines of priesthood and sacrifice, and therefore of the significance upon which the validity of the form depends.

The doubts which should beset the minds of honest Anglicans on the subject of their orders, if they have the least scruple as to the orthodoxy of their position, are simply overwhelming. If they turn to the early church, they find that there are at least as many precedents and authorities for regarding as null the ordinations of heretics and schismatics as for accepting them. Morinus’ opinion is that such ordinations are invalid, except where the church has thought fit to dispense with the impediment; and Morinus is a genuine student of antiquity, and no mere controversialist. True it is Anglicans may appeal to what is undeniably the more common doctrine in the Roman Church—viz., that such ordinations are valid—but then she unflinchingly condemns Anglicans, whereas she has never condemned Morinus. It is nothing to the purpose to say that the practice of the church prevents her using Morinus’ opinion against Anglicans—which is begging the question against Morinus; the point is, Can Anglicans escape using it against themselves? Again, when they direct their attention to the special facts of their own history, their view is to the last degree discouraging. Their latest antagonist, Canon Estcourt, has notoriously given up to them every point to which they could make the remotest claim, and has broken and thrown away every weapon to which the least exception could be taken; and yet it has come to this: that their only title to orders is a succession probably broken by the non‐ consecration of Barlow, and an ambiguous form which, when read in the light of their mutilated ordinal and liturgy, is unlike any that has been accepted as even probably adequate either by East or West.

Even if Anglicans could find their identical form, as far as words go, in approved ordinals, they could not argue from this the sufficiency of their own form. Mutilation and involution, although they contract within the same span, can never be identical. You might as well pretend that there is no difference between a stamen from which you have plucked the leaves and an undeveloped bud.

It is true that originally different portions of the church were allowed, in regard to orders, to give expression to the same truth in various forms with various degrees of explicitness; but this can afford no precedent to an individual church for mutilating a common form in order to deny a common truth.

The Abyssinian Decision.

We cannot conclude our review without noticing an important criticism made upon our author in the shape of a letter to the _Month_, November‐ December, 1873, by the Rev. F. Jones, S.J. F. Jones, whilst expressing his thorough concurrence with Canon Estcourt in every other particular, thinks that he has attached an undue force to the decision of the holy office upon Abyssinian orders.

Canon Estcourt has understood the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition, in their decree in 1704, to have ruled that the form, “Accipe Spiritum Sanctum,” understood in the sense of the Abyssinian liturgical books, is valid for the priesthood, although, in the particular case, no further expression is given to this sense, at least no expression within the limits of the form strictly so called—_i.e._, the verbal formula synchronous with the matter. The decree which he so understands is as follows:

Question: “The ordainer passed hurriedly along a line of deacons, laying his hands upon the head of each, and saying, ‘Accipe Spiritum Sanctum’; are they validly ordained _in tal modo e forma_, and admissible to the exercise of their orders?” Answer: “The ordination of a priest with the imposition of hands and utterance of the form as in the question is undoubtedly valid.”

F. Jones, whilst allowing that Canon Estcourt’s interpretation is the natural one according to ordinary canons of criticism, insists that the decree, “when interpreted in the light of certain rules which arise out of what is called the _stylus curiæ_,” asserts, indeed, the sufficiency of the imposition of hands as matter, when used with the form, but does not define the sufficiency of the particular form, “Accipe Spiritum Sanctum.”

The rules in question are as follows: 1. The meaning of the answer depends upon the meaning of the _dubium_. 2. Nothing but what is directly stated is decided. 3. “If there is anything in the wording of a decision which appears inconsistent with the teaching of an approved body of theologians—such teaching as amounts to a true theological probability—the decision is to be interpreted so as to leave such teaching intact, unless the decision should itself show that it intended to condemn that teaching, and to take away that probability.” 4. Such decisions are formed on the presumption that every point except the one in question is correct, on the maxim, “Standum est pro valore actûs.” 5. When the validity of an ordination is the subject‐matter of a decision, it must be assumed that the decision has been made after an inspection of the ordinal. 6. “It is hardly safe to allege the authority of a decision (I speak merely of a curial decision), particularly when the details of the case are but imperfectly known to us, without having ascertained the sense in which, after its promulgation, it was understood by those who were most competent to measure its importance.” We shall examine these rules when we come to consider the worth of F. Jones’ application of them to the case in hand. But first it will be well to see what effect the elimination of the Abyssinian decision would have upon Canon Estcourt’s controversial position.

Pp. 158‐163. Canon Estcourt considers various objections made by Catholic controversialists to the Anglican form of the priesthood. He is considering the question of the form in its strict sense—viz., that portion of the ordination formulary which is synchronous with the matter, whether this last consist in the tradition of the instruments or in the imposition of hands. One objection urged by Lequien, amongst others, is grounded upon the very common doctrine that the form of priestly ordination must express the principal effect of the sacrament of order by making mention of the priesthood in relation to the sacrifice, which is its principal object. Now, if, as F. Jones suggests was the case, the unmutilated Coptic rite was in use in Abyssinia up to 1704, and the examples given by Ludolf and Monsignor Beb are merely imperfect copies; and if no decision as to the form was given in 1704, then, so far as anything has been shown to the contrary, Lequien’s objection holds good that no approved form for the priesthood fails to make an appeal to the Holy Sacrifice.

And now as regards F. Jones’ rules for interpreting the “stylus curiæ,” and their application to the Abyssinian decision. We have no criticism to make upon Rules 1 and 2. They are sufficiently obvious even to a non‐ expert. Rule 3 cannot, we think, be admitted without qualification. It is no doubt an important principle that the presumption is in favor of an interpretation which leaves intact a probable opinion, supposing that this is not the formal subject of the decision; but we must not do violence to the natural sense of words, and it is quite possible that such a decision might completely evacuate the probability of an opinion of which it took no direct cognizance whatever. The Council of Florence did not directly intend to condemn the opinion requiring as absolutely necessary the tradition of the instruments, yet effectively it has done so. As to Rule 4, “Standum est pro valore actûs,” its application to the case before us must depend upon whether the course indicated is equivalent to the introduction of a new “actus.” To ask, as the dubium does, concerning the validity of “tal modo e forma,” implies that this is given in its integrity. In the Abyssinian case, it was a question whether certain persons were to be allowed to say Mass and perform other priestly functions, and the Sacred Congregation allowed them. As to Rule 5, no doubt an inspection of the ordinals is to be presumed; but here the very contention of the questioner is that the ordinal had not been followed. Moreover, there was ample evidence, in the sacred books quoted by Ludolf and Monsignor Beb, accessible to the Sacred Congregation, and which, according to F. Jones’ principle, we may assume it had before it, that in Abyssinian hands the Coptic ritual had been seriously tampered with. The translation from the Abyssinian, as given by the above‐named writers, is certainly not an imperfect version of the Coptic, but a deliberate compilation from the Coptic form and that of the apostolic constitutions, which would hardly have been made except for ritual purposes.

If we may accept the earliest and most precise evidence as to actual practice in Abyssinia—that of the missionary Francis Alvarez (1520), the one prayer used by the Abuna, with the imposition of hands, is not the form “Respice,” but, in the Coptic tongue, the prayer “Divina gratia quæ infirma sanat.”(142) But these words, as Canon Estcourt points out, p. 181, “in the _Coptic_ and Jacobite rites, are said by the archdeacon or one of the assisting bishops. In the Nestorian and ancient Greek, they are said by the bishop without imposing his hands; and only in the modern Greek, the Maronite, and the Armenian are they united with the imposition of hands.” This looks as if the Abyssinian ritual was a complete medley.

This view is borne out by F. Godigno, S.J. (_De Abyssin. Rebus_, p. 224), who tells us that the Jesuit Patriarch of Abyssinia, Oviedo, as long as he lived in Æthiopia, always doubted very much, and with good reason, if the Abyssinian priests had been duly and lawfully ordained, inasmuch as the forms of consecration used by the Abuna _were so uncertain that they seemed to have been corrupted_. On which account, in those matters which belong to orders, and which require in the minister a real character, he never could persuade himself to use their offices, lest haply the sacraments should be rendered void.

F. Jones thinks that Assemani would certainly have noticed these corruptions, had they existed, in his _Controversia Coptica_, composed for the information of Propaganda in 1731. But Assemani was not called upon to consider the corruptions of Abyssinia; for, as he tells us in his preface, the occasion of his writing was the conversion of two Egyptian monks of the Alexandrian Church, of whose reordination there was question.

As to Rule 6, obviously nothing can be more important than the estimate of a decision expressed by contemporary theologians; but it is very easy to misinterpret their silence. In his defence of the Coptic rite, urges F. Jones, Assemani ought to have quoted the authorization of a form which _à fortiori_ authorized the Coptic. We reply that Assemani had no lack of far more obvious and splendid instances of the recognition of the Coptic rite; that he had no need of such indirect support. The examination of the Abyssinian monk Tecla Maria, in 1594, sufficiently shows that it was impossible to judge of Abyssinian ordinations by the Coptic rite. Assemani himself acknowledges, p. 227, that either Tecla Maria’s memory failed him, or his ordainers must have been “poco pratici del rito Coptico o l’avessero in qualche parte alterato.” F. Godigno (l. c.) says that the reason of Tecla Maria’s reordination was the corruption of the rite. On the other hand, it is clearly a great exaggeration to say that the missionaries made nothing of Abyssinian orders, and that the motive of reordination was the non‐tradition of the instruments. Of John Bermudes, the first of the Jesuit patriarchs, Ludolf (pars. ii. p. 473) tells us that he (Bermudes) has recorded in so many words, that he received all the sacred orders, including the episcopate, with right of succession to the patriarchate, from the Abuna Mark, under condition that the pope would confirm it, and that the pope confirmed and ratified all Mark’s acts. Again, the Portuguese De Francia, one of the negotiators for the Jesuits, tells the Abyssinian king that he had been taught that, if he is in danger of death, and cannot get a Catholic priest, he must ask the Abyssinians for communion.(143)

Certainly, this Abyssinian decision has not as yet made much mark in theology. Canon Estcourt is able to mention one work in which it occurs—a certain edition of the theology of Antoine, a Jesuit, and Prefect of Propaganda under Benedict XIV. But then there is a vast technical difference, anyhow, between a decision taking the shape of a practical rule of procedure and a speculative definition. For more than a century after the Council of Florence, its recognition of Greek orders had no perceptible influence upon the language of theologians concerning the matter of the priesthood. It takes time to translate from the language of action into that of speculation; but who can deny that in any fair controversy such action must be discounted.

It remains to be determined whether, everything considered, the decision of the Sacred Office admits of F. Jones’ interpretation; whether the dubium can be understood, as he suggests (p. 456), to turn exclusively upon these two points: the non‐tradition of the instruments and the deviation from the Coptic rite which prescribes that the bishop’s hands should be imposed upon each _ordinandus_ during the whole of the form Respice, instead of during the one phrase, “Repleeum Spiritu Sancto,” which F. Jones thinks the missionaries paraphrased by “Accipe Spiritum Sanctum.” Now, we must say that it is hardly probable that in 1704 the missionaries should be seriously exercised about the non‐tradition of the instruments. Neither is it likely that they should have proposed, in the same breath, the two difficulties suggested by F. Jones; for why should deviation from a rite, the substantial validity of which they doubted, be a difficulty? They ask about the validity of a form and a manner of imposing hands, which they describe “talmo do e forma.” There may have been other prayers used in the service from the Coptic ordinal and liturgy, but the dubium excludes them from “tal forma.”

F. Jones’ notion that the “Accipe Spiritum Sanctum” is a mistranslation of the Coptic “Reple eum Spiritu Sancto”—which is not found in the Abyssinian version—is, we think, quite untenable. No distinction was more thoroughly appreciated on both sides than that between an imperative and a precatory form. The Patriarch of the Maronites, in 1572, informs the pope: “In our Pontifical, the orders are conferred without a form by way of prayer.”(144) In 1860, the missionaries inform the Sacred Congregation “that the Monophysites believe the essence of ordination consists in the expiration (_insuflazione_) the ordainer makes in the act of saying, ‘Accipe Spiritum Sanctum.’ ”(145) Amongst the various deviations from the Coptic rite which Assemani notes in the evidence of Tecla Maria, the Abyssinian says of his ordainer, “Insufflavit in faciem meam.” This “insufflatio” almost implies an imperative form, and so far isolates the words from any precatory formularies that may precede and follow them. Most probably this form was obtained from the missionaries with whom the Abyssinians had been so long in intercourse.

Doubtless the Sacred Congregation did not sanction the form “Accipe Spiritum Sanctum” taken by itself simply, but specificated in the sense of the Abyssinian liturgy; but this is exactly Canon Estcourt’s contention against Anglicans.

In spite of F. Jones’ shrewd and interesting observations, we are of opinion that Canon Estcourt’s appreciation of the Abyssinian decision is the true one. At any rate, his interpretation is sufficiently probable to make it most important to show that, even so understood, it cannot sanction Anglican orders.

Postscriptum

Since the above was written, the discussion has been continued in the _Month_ by an answer from Canon Estcourt in January, and an elaborate rejoinder by F. Jones in February. Something of what we have written has been anticipated; but, on the whole, we have thought it better to leave our article as it stands, and content ourselves with appending such further remarks as may seem called for.

F. Jones, in his second letter, insists that Canon Estcourt has mistaken what the missionaries proposed as a solitary deviation from a well‐known and approved rite for the whole form used on the occasion. He proceeds to support his position by italicizing the concluding words of the answer of the Holy Office allowing the missionaries to admit the person so ordained “to the exercise of his orders _according to the rite, approved and expurgated, in which he was ordained_.” “The Holy Office, then,” he argues, “did not suppose that the Abyssinians were ordained with only the words, ‘Accipe Spiritum Sanctum,’ but presumed that some rite, and that an _approved_ rite, had been followed.”

Now, it is quite certain that the schismatical Abuna did not make use of a rite expurgated and approved by the Holy See; therefore the word “rite” must refer to the sacerdotal rite to the exercise of which the person in question was ordained, which rite he might use in its expurgated and approved form; but whether the bare words, Accipe Spiritum Sanctum, were used, or the fuller Abyssinian or Coptic forms, the priest would have been ordained in that rite with a view to the exercise of which he had been ordained.

As to the question whether the Æthiopic liturgy, as distinct from the Coptic, was approved, we cannot admit that a conclusion in the negative can be drawn from the passage F. Jones quotes from the encyclical of Benedict XIV. The pope lays down that the Oriental churches in communion with Rome consist of four rites—Greek, Armenian, Syrian, and Coptic; but he is clearly only giving general heads. The Æthiopic, if approved, might well have been included under the Coptic. The Melchite and Chaldaic liturgies are approved; but in this enumeration they are not distinguished from the Syrian and the Greek, of which they are respectively slight variations. Further on in this encyclical, the pope says that “Greeks, Maronites, Armenians, Copts, and Melchites had been given churches in Rome, in order that they may perform their sacred offices each according to his rite.” We know that the Abyssinians also had a church in Rome, where we may assume that they were allowed the same privilege. The fact that an expurgated edition of the Æthiopic liturgy was brought out in Rome in 1549 goes some way to show that the liturgy was approved.(146) This was the first of the Oriental liturgies published in Rome, and may be found in various editions of the _Bibliotheca Patrum_ (Paris, 1624, tom. vi.), together with the Æthiopic rite of baptism and confirmation. This rite of confirmation affords a curious example of the unprincipled variations of Æthiopic ritual. It is almost the same as the Coptic rite published by Assemani, to which F. Jones refers, but it carefully eliminates the direct form, “Accipe Spiritum Sanctum,” wherever it occurs in the Coptic.

We are inclined to believe that the Abuna sometimes ordained in the Coptic, sometimes in the Abyssinian, tongue; but we must confess that the only direct testimony we have met with on this point is in favor of the Coptic. Still, whatever was the language used, there is ample evidence to show that the Abyssinians were in the habit of materially diverging from the Coptic ordinal. To the testimonies of Oviedo and Alvarez, already quoted, we may add that of F. Soller. Referring to F. Bernat’s correspondence, he says that that father discusses “the different rite of ordination and other points of difference between the Copts and Abyssinians.”(147)

We submit that the Holy Office had no grounds for assuming the use of the Coptic, or, indeed, of any specific ritual in the case brought before them.

On The Wing. A Southern Flight. V.

“Les Dieux étaient alors si voisins de la terre Qu’ils y venaient souvent avec ou sans mystère.”(148)

“There is no sense of desolation greater than that produced by the sight of a dismantled palace and a deserted garden.” These were the words with which Don Emidio broke a long and somewhat sad silence which had fallen on our little party the day we went to Portici.

It is a long drive of four miles on the rough pavement of huge slabs common to Naples and its environs. We passed over the bridge where S. Januarius had gone forth with cross and banners, incense and choristers, to meet the torrents of burning lava from Mount Vesuvius, and arrest the destruction of the city by prayer. It made me shudder to think how very near that destruction we had then been. For, of course, if the lava had once gone so far, there was no natural reason why it should not do so again, and even pass on further still. That bridge is now hardly outside the town. Indeed, town succeeds town, and the whole way from Naples to Portici is one long street, chiefly consisting of villas and handsome palaces, now sadly neglected, but probably still containing many treasures, and all with more or less of garden ground attached.

Portici is a royal palace; but for years none of the royal family have resided there, and it is used chiefly for public offices. It is sad to see these magnificent buildings left nearly empty; and we can only wonder at the extraordinary wealth of the past when we reflect that Portici is one only of many other beautiful royal residences which are no longer kept up. Even Caserta, which is said to be the largest palace in Europe, is all but deserted. Don Emidio was telling us an anecdote in connection with it. Just before the revolution of 1860 the palace had been put in order, partially refurnished, and redecorated, for the reception of Francis II. and his bride, the ex‐King and Queen of Naples.

Amongst other valuable ornaments, in one room the walls had hangings attached with massive gold _fleurs‐de‐lis_. When the revolution broke out, a Neapolitan duke, one of the very few of the really noble families who turned traitor to their king, was appointed to adapt and readjust the palace for the usurper. The whole matter was put into his hands, in perfect confidence, no doubt, that he would see it properly carried out. For some time the palace was closed to the public. When again it was opened on certain days, and those who had known it before saw it again, they observed that all the gold _fleurs‐de‐lis_ had disappeared. Of course the fact provoked enquiry; but no account of them was ever rendered, and all researches proved fruitless. No one doubted but that they had been “annexed” by the liberal aristocrat, but, equally, no one dared call him to task. For as annexation on a large scale was the order of the day, it did not answer to look too closely into minor examples of the same. Nevertheless, the story got whispered abroad, and his reputation, in consequence, was far less golden than the missing _fleurs‐de‐lis_.

One day the duke was standing at a window in his own palace overlooking the courtyard, when a poor artisan, who had already sent in his bill more than once, came to request payment. The duke, who thought, or pretended to think, the charges in the bill were exorbitant, began to upbraid and scold the man from the window. At the same moment the wife of one of the men‐ servants of the establishment was crossing the yard. The duke called to her, exclaiming, “It is a downright theft. But these artisans are all thieves, are they not, Donna Rafaele?”

“Your excellency is a better judge of that than I am,” was the reply, “since the greater ought to know the lesser.”

“I wonder how the duke took it?” said I.

Don Emidio gave me a knowing look, and shook his right hand under his left elbow. We all laughed; but no description can convey the inimitable drollery of Neapolitan pantomime. It is a thousand times more eloquent than words. What expression, such as “to make yourself scarce,” or “to skedaddle,” could convey what is indicated by that wagging of the straightened hand under the elbow? You _see_ the thief escaping. It is the same in everything else. There is a gesture for all the emotions and most of the casualties of daily life. No beggar tells you he is hungry; but standing silently before you, with a perfectly immovable expression, he opens his mouth, and points downwards with his finger. A woman and half a dozen children gathering round you, and all doing the same thing, produces an effect so curiously divided between the ludicrous and the pathetic that it is far harder to refuse an alms than if the request were made in downright words. It is the same with the coachmen of the hired public carriages. You are driving rapidly along, and your coachman passes another whom he knows. In less than a second he has conveyed to his friend full information of where he comes from, where he is going, and how soon he will be back, probably concluding with the amount of the fare for which he has agreed to do the distance; and all without a word being uttered.

The Neapolitans carry the same extraordinary pantomimic power into all scenes and all places, including the pulpit, or, more likely, the platform, from which the priest delivers his Lenten or Month of Mary discourses. He walks to and fro in the heat of his argument, he sits down, and starts up again, he weeps, and he even laughs. It is often very striking; and it is so natural, it belongs so essentially to the genius of the people, that it is never ridiculous, nor does it seem out of place. Of course sometimes it is done less well and gracefully than at others; but it is too thoroughly in unison with the language and habits of the people ever to appear incongruous.

We were sitting on the low wall of the outer steps leading to the tower entrance of a building at the end of the Portici pleasure‐grounds when this conversation occurred. The tower belongs, I believe, to an observatory, and all around are the stables, the barracks, and the appurtenances of the palace, now empty and silent. The grass grew high and thick in the courtyard. The deep‐red blossoms of the wild sorrel, with the sunlight shining through them, looked like drops of blood among the grass. The ox‐eyed daisies boldly faced the blue, glaring sky. The low, long building used for stables was in front of us. Then a dark, dense wood of ilex and cork‐trees, like a strong, black line. And beyond that no middle distance was visible, but stark and sudden rose the seamed and barren sides of Mount Vesuvius. No beneficent and tender white cloud broke the intense, monotonous blue of all the wide heavens. The sky, the grim mountain, the black wood, and the deserted stables—that was all; bathed in sunshine, sparkling with intense light, silent with brooding heat, and unspeakably desolate with a broad, unmodulated, horrific beauty like the face of the sphinx.

Suddenly there came over me a dim, weird feeling of the ancient pagan world. There was an inner perception and consciousness that in some undefined way it was homogeneous to the scene around me and to unredeemed man. It was cruel in its beauty; as poetic, but not picturesque, beauty so often is.

I started up, and exclaimed, “Let us get back. The old gods are about this place, and I cannot stay.”

Time has not effaced the impression, and I can recall the inner vision at any moment. Frank declared we should come again, and have a picnic there with the Vernons. But I protested I would not be of the party. “By the bye, Jane,” said Frank, “why did Elizabeth not come?”

“Because little Franceschiella was buried this morning, and neither Ida nor Elizabeth would leave the poor mother; while Helen remained to keep Mrs. Vernon company.”

Franceschiella was a lovely child of six years who had died of a fever the day before. She was the only child, and that fact, added to her quite extraordinary beauty, had made the trial doubly hard to bear for her adoring parents. For, indeed, it was little less than adoration that Franceschiella received, not only in her own home, but from all her neighbors. We were very much struck in this instance by the poetic nature of the Italians. The father was a _vignaiuolo_, the mother did a little needle‐work, or took in washing; but no nobleman’s child was ever more carefully bathed and dressed and nourished than this one darling, and that partly in consequence of her angelic beauty and her infantine charm. The little creature ran every risk of being entirely spoilt by the amount of petting and flattery that she received on all sides. On Sundays and holidays they always dressed her in white with a red coral necklace; and the mother or the cousins would weave a wreath of flowers to crown her beautiful, golden hair, that fell below her waist. She had deep violet eyes with black lashes, and a milk‐white skin. She was very forward for her age, and singularly intelligent. But she was surely never meant to live long in this rough world. She came to it like a stranger, and she remained a stranger all the time of her brief sojourn—as though some princess from the distant lands of poetry and romance had come for a brief visit to dwell with common mortals. There was an inexpressible refinement in all the little creature’s ways which would have become a real cross to her and the occasion of endless trials had she lived long enough to find the harsh side of life ruffling her angel wings. It was in mercy the child was taken away before the period of white frocks and fresh flowers had come to an end. Life could have brought to her nothing but temptation and anguish. But of course in proportion to her exceptional nature was the despair of the poor parents in seeing her fading before their eyes. As little Franceschiella had been unaccustomed to restraint or coercion of any kind, it was exceedingly difficult, during her short illness, to induce her to take the necessary remedies. And nothing could be more touchingly beautiful than the arguments used by the distracted parents to persuade her to swallow the nauseous draughts. As usual, there was a crucifix near the bed, and an image of the Mater Dolorosa—the devotion of the Neapolitans being very specially to the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin. They would beg the poor little darling to take her medicine in honor of Our Lord’s thirst on the cross, or of Our Lady’s anguish when His dead form was laid in her arms. And these were not unmeaning or merely mystical phrases, to which the child could attach but little sense. They were as household words to her; familiar to her childish thoughts from the moment she could lisp, and woven into her life as the mysteries of the faith only are in lands altogether Catholic. But nothing was to avail to keep the pretty human flower from fading fast. And before a week had past little Franceschiella had taken flight ere any of the ugliness of mortal life had tarnished her sweet loveliness. They crowned her with roses, and laid her, dressed in white, in the little wooden coffin filled with flowers. Then they flung handfuls of colored sugar‐plums over her, and placed a white camellia between her still red lips, saying, as they did so, “She breathes flowers.” And so they carried her, in the open bier, the uncovered, lovely face turned towards the heavens, and thus laid their darling in the dark grave, but in the full hope of a bright resurrection.

The mother’s anguish was extreme. The Neapolitan women are an excitable and highly nervous race; which arises, no doubt, in great measure from the climate, as every stranger knows who finds the effect produced on his nerves by this intoxicating atmosphere, which I have heard compared to drinking champagne. As in the case of the peasantry much self‐control has not been inculcated, the result is the frequency of terrible nervous attacks producing convulsions—what we should probably designate as very aggravated hysteria. After Franceschiella’s death the mother became subject to these attacks, and seemed incapable of receiving any consolation till heaven granted her the hope of again becoming a mother. On the day we went to Portici the Vernons had hardly left her. And it was very charming to see the Christian sense of equality on their side, and the deference and gratitude shown them by their peasant neighbors on the other.

But why did Frank so particularly ask why Elizabeth had not come, instead of asking equally about Ida and Helen?

“You have, then, seen Medusa in the woods of Portici, Miss Jane?” said Don Emidio suddenly to me, as we were driving home in absolute silence.

I looked up out of my brown study to find his eyes fixed upon me. “Do you mean that I am changed to stone?”

“You are as silent as one.”

I laughed, and said, “At least, thank heaven, I am not _malheureuse comme les pièrres_,(149) as the French say, though I may be as silent as they. I did not, however, see anything in those dark ilex groves. I only suddenly felt the awfulness of nature when you look at her in all her inexorable beauty, with the rhythm of her apparently changeless laws and her sublime disdain of man. She breathes and blossoms, she burns and thunders, she weeps and smiles, utterly independent of us all. She knows no weakness; no decay touches her but such as she can repair. She embraces death, that she may produce life. She is ever fertile, ever lavish of herself and of her gifts. But she never _cares_. Her mountains are granite even to the feet of her Creator, as he climbs the heights of Calvary. Her noontide heavens are brass to the cravings of man’s heart in his midday toil. She will not pause in the twenty‐four hours of her inevitable day, though sundown should bring death to one and despair to many again and again. She treads her ever‐victorious march over ruined nations, buried cities, and broken hearts. Oh! I could hate her—cruel power, terrible Pythoness; mocking me with sunshine, scaring me with storms; ever rejoicing in her strength, ever regardless of me. I cannot explain why these thoughts came to me, as across the dark wood I traced the violet scars on awful Vesuvius, and heard the low whispers of the wind in the long grass at our feet. Suddenly faith seemed to die out of me. I forgot what I believe; and back came trooping the pagan gods and the pagan world, with the strong feeling that pantheism is the inevitable religion of the natural man, and that were I not, thank God, a Christian and a Catholic, some form of it would grow into my mind, as the impress left by the face of nature. For a moment a dark cloud overshadowed me while I looked into the depths of the old pagan belief; and it became so real to me that I shuddered. It has left me silent; that’s all.”

“That’s all!” repeated Don Emidio with a sly smile, and imitating my voice in a way that I half thought was rather impertinent. “Allow me to tell you that I think that is a great deal. I do not imagine there are many young ladies who come out for a day’s pleasuring to the gardens of Portici or elsewhere, and indulge in such profound reflections as you do.”

I looked round, and saw that Frank and Mary were listening.

Frank said: “I believe Jane is quite right; and she has so well described the effect which the aspects of nature produce on the mind of man that I am convinced her words embody and express the riddle of the sphinx. The laws of nature, taken without the doctrine of the Incarnation, which alone is the keystone to the whole creation, form the enigma which is put before us to understand and answer; failing which, we perish.”