There was, however, a mass for the catechumens which comprised the introductory prayers, lessons from the Old and New Testaments, and the bishop’s homily. The true mass, celebrated for the faithful alone, was specially called the eucharist. “Those are masses,” says St. Cesarius of Arles, “when the body and blood of Christ are offered up in sacrifice” (Fig. 176).
At first, mass was celebrated once a week, and always on the Sunday. In the second century, the sacrament or eucharistic offering took place three times a week, on Sunday, on Wednesday, and on Friday. In the following century, the Eastern Church decreed that it should also be celebrated on Saturday. In the West, mass was held only on Sundays, unless in exceptional cases; while in the days of St. Augustine, in the dioceses of Africa, Spain, and Constantinople, it was celebrated generally every day. It was not till the sixth century that it became usual in the Latin Church to celebrate mass every day.
As time passed on, and as the number of worshippers increased, the number of masses was considerably augmented, particularly on great festivals and during Holy Week. The same priest was at liberty to perform several, but after each he was bound to purify his fingers in a chalice, the contents of which were afterwards poured into a fitting vessel and consumed at the final mass, either by the priests themselves, by the deacons and clerks, or by those of the laity who were in a state of grace. At first all masses were sung, or rather chanted; they were all public, and could only be celebrated in diocesan or parish churches. Necessity, however, soon instituted inferior or private masses, thus named because they were held in one of the lesser shrines or chapels, on an ordinary day, or before a small congregation.
The bishops, the apostles’ successors, were alone entitled, during the first two centuries, to administer the solemn rites of baptism. The priests, under the authority of the bishop, were the assistant-ministers of this sacrament. The deacons could only confer it when authorised by special episcopal sanction. In cases of urgent necessity, laymen were permitted to baptize, provided they were of irreproachable morals and had been confirmed. In the Latin Church as well as in the East, public baptism was only solemnised during the vigils of Easter and Pentecost; in the Gallican Church, at Christmas, as in the case of King Clovis. Private baptism might be administered at any period whenever it was deemed necessary.
On the day set apart for baptism, the chosen catechumens met in the church at noon to undergo a final examination (Fig. 177); at midnight they again assembled there, the paschal taper and the water were consecrated, and the officiating priest asked the catechumens if they renounced the devil, the world, and its pomps. They made answer, Yes. The priest then required of them a profession of Christian faith, carefully prepared beforehand, after which they underwent a short examination on the articles of the Creed. When these preliminaries were completed the deacon presented to the priest the catechumens stripped of their clothing, but covered with a veil. Each then stepped into a large vessel of water and was dipped thrice (Fig. 178); at each immersion the bishop invoked one of the persons of the Holy Trinity, a custom that prevailed till the sixth century in the Western Church, and till the eighth in that of the East. After the immersion the assisting deacon anointed the catechumen’s forehead with holy oil, and the priest put on him the chrismal, a flowing white robe which he wore for eight days. Thus clad, and holding lighted tapers, the new Christians went in procession from the place of baptism to the basilica. Before mass they received the sacrament of confirmation; they were then given a mixture of honey and milk, a symbol of their entrance into the promised land, that is to say, into the highway of Gospel privileges. Whatever the age of the newly baptized might be, they were termed children (pueri, infantes).
Fig. 177.—Exorcism of a catechumen by four of the clergy, who are applying the cross to him to drive the devil out of his body, prior to his baptism.—From a bas-relief of the Fourth or Fifth Century, found at Pérouse. Paciaudi, “De Sacris Christianorum Balneis:” Venitiis, 1750, 4to.
Baptism by sprinkling, as practised now, was not unknown to the primitive church, but it was only adopted in urgent cases, when immersion might be dangerous to the catechumen, or when it was expedient to baptize many at one time. In the ninth century baptism by sprinkling had become customary, and it soon became the only method in use.
Fig. 178.—Baptism of the Saxons conquered by Charlemagne.—Miniature in Manuscript No. 9,066 in the Burgundian Library, Brussels (Fifteenth Century).