FREAKS AND PHASES OF LOCAL CUSTOM.
THE KISS OF PEACE.
The peculiar tendency of the Christian religion to encourage honor towards all men, as men, to foster and develop the softer affections, and, in the trying condition of the early Church, to make its members intimately known one to another, and unite them in the closest bonds, led to the observance of kissing as an accompaniment of that social worship which took its origin in the very cradle of our religion. Hence the exhortation of St. Paul, “Salute one another with a holy kiss;” and the brethren followed the injunction literally. It was called signaculum orationis, the soul of prayer; and was a symbol of that mutual forgiveness and reconciliation which the Church required as an essential condition to admission to its sacraments. Tertullian, Origen, and Athenagoras mention it; and Dr. Milner cites the Apostolical Constitutions to show the manner in which the ceremony was performed:
“Let the bishop salute the church and say, ‘The peace of God be with you all;’ And let the people answer, ‘And with thy spirit.’ Then let the deacon say to all, ‘Salute one another with a holy kiss and let the clergy kiss the bishop, and the laymen the laymen, and the women the women.”
This primitive fraternal embrace appears to have been observed as late as the twelfth or thirteenth century, and the pax (osculatorium, porte-paix, or pax brede) introduced, as it was at this period that the sexes began to mingle together in the low mass.
The use of the pax in England was prescribed by the royal commissioners of Edward VI. The Injunctions published at Doncaster, in 1548, ordain that:
“The clarke shall bring down the paxe, and standing without the church door, shall say loudly to the people these words, ‘This is a token of joyful peace which is betwixt God and men’s conscience; Christ alone is the peace-maker, which straitly commands peace between brother and brother. And so long as ye shall use these ceremonies, so long shall ye use these significations.’”
Agnes Strickland, in her account of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, says: