CHAPTER XV.

THE SERVICE OF PRAYER.

III. The Litany.

Origin of Litanies. Some of the Offices of Holy Communion—especially in the East—have had a portion after the Gospel very similar to what we call a Litany. Thus in the Liturgy (i.e. Holy Communion Office) of S. James, the Deacon says The Universal Collect, consisting of fifteen suffrages (see Appendix F), each ending with, Let us beseech the Lord: and the Response of the people is, Lord have mercy, which is said thrice at the end of the petitions. Similar to this is the Prayer of Intense Supplication, in the Liturgy of S. Chrysostom. Cf. also the modern Liturgy of Constantinople.

We should expect to find the further development of Litanies, in Churches where the Eastern influence was felt; it is therefore no surprise to us, that the history of them next takes us to the Churches of Southern France. "The South of Gaul had been colonized originally from the Eastern shores of the Aegaean. Its Christianity came from the same regions as its colonization. The Church of Gaul was the {154} spiritual daughter of the Church of proconsular Asia[1]."

Pothinus, Bp of Lyons and Vienne, had come probably from Asia Minor. When, at the age of more than 90, he was martyred (A.D. 177), his successor as Bishop was Irenaeus, who received part of his early education in Asia Minor from Polycarp, a disciple of S. John the Evangelist. Other martyrs, at Vienne and Lyons, in that year (A.D. 177), had come from Asia Minor. A map will show that Vienne is about 16 miles south of Lyons. Thus from the first days of the Church in France, a close connection existed between it and the Church in Asia Minor.

About A.D. 467[2], Mamertus, Archbishop of Vienne, ordered Litanies to be said in procession on the three days before Ascension Day; being moved thereto by a succession of calamities—earthquake, war, wild beasts invading the city itself—followed shortly by the destruction of the royal palace in Vienne by lightning. The practice spread to neighbouring dioceses, and was confirmed by the Council of Orleans (A.D. 511). The three days before Ascension Day are thence called 'Rogation Days'; and processions for purposes of prayer are called Rogations, or Litanies.

The Rogation Litanies were not adopted at Rome {155} until the time of
Leo III. (795-816): but in a time of pestilence at Rome, Gregory the
Great, A.D. 590, instituted the Sevenfold Litany of S. Mark's Day.

Gregory the Great has been called the Apostle of the English, because he intended to come as a missionary to convert the English; and, when prevented from so doing by his election as Bishop of Rome, sent Augustine in his stead A.D. 596. The yearly Synod of the English Church was appointed in 673 to be held at Cloveshoo—a place probably near London but in the kingdom of Mercia. In 747 at a great council held at Cloveshoo, March 12 was appointed as S. Gregory's Day; May 26 as the day of S. Augustine Archbishop of Canterbury[3]; and Gregory's Sevenfold Litany, together with the Rogation Services, was sanctioned for use in England, with a phrase which implies that custom had already introduced them.

The 2nd Book of Homilies (1562. See Art. xxxv). contains a Homily for Rogation Week in four parts—three of which appear to be designed for the three Rogation Days, and the fourth for The Perambulation of the Parish, or Beating of the Bounds—a custom which has survived into our own time. The parishioners walked along the outline of the parish, taking {156} care that at least one of them passed through any obstruction which was built, or erected, across the boundary. Thus, if a cottage were so built, a boy would be passed though the door and window of it. Trees at corners were marked with a hatchet: a note book was preserved as a guide for the next perambulation. From this useful and ancient ceremony, Rogation Days were called by the Anglo-Saxons Béddagas=Prayer-days, or Gang-dagas=perambulation-days. Boundary stones, dated May 4, 1837, are to be seen in the thickets of Buckland Woods, Devon, showing that Ascension Day was chosen in that year for the perambulation of Ashburton. More recently the perambulation of Exeter has been performed on Ascension Day. The steps by which the religious dedication of the year's work, at each centre of agricultural industry, passed into a municipal ceremony accompanied by social amenities, may be conjectured. It was still a religious service—partly in the church and partly in the fields, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and much later.

Litanies, however, have ceased to be processions. They are not said walking, but kneeling. The Litany is to be said at some different place from the Morning Prayer: for, in the Commination it is ordered, that part shall be said by the Minister in the Reading Pew, or Pulpit, and the rest "in the place where they are accustomed to say the Litany." Since this recognises an accustomed place, the kneeling desk or fald-stool[4], placed "in front of the chancel door," or "in {157} the midst of the Church" (Injunctions of Edw. VI.), appears to be intended.

For the order to kneel to say the Litany, we must refer back to the rubric at the head of the Collects in Morning Prayer, where the words, all kneeling, were added in 1662 (see p. 130).

The place of the Faldstool may have been suggested by Joel ii. 17, Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar.

Structure of the Litany.

The Litany is a series of prayers addressed mainly to God the Son. It has two breaks, or interruptions, which consist of prayers addressed to God the Father. Thus there are five sections.

Section i. from the beginning, to O Christ, hear us.

Thirty petitions to Jesus under the title Good Lord, with invocation of Holy Trinity at the beginning, and urgent entreaty at the end.

Section ii. from Lord, have mercy upon us, to world without end. Amen.

Earnest appeal to the Father, with Lesser Litany as preface to the
Lord's Prayer.

Section iii. From our enemies, to O Lord Christ.

Eight Antiphonal prayers to Christ.

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Section iv. O Lord, let thy mercy, to end of occasional prayers and thanksgivings.