Group II. The Egyptian Rite (St Mark).—This group includes the Greek liturgies of St Mark, St Basil and St Gregory, and the Coptic liturgies of St Basil, St Gregory, St Cyril or St Mark; together with certain less known liturgies the titles of which are enumerated by Brightman (op. cit. pp. lxxiii. lxxiv.). The liturgy of the Ethiopian church ordinances and the liturgy of the Abyssinian Jacobites, known as that of the Apostles, fall under this group.
Group III. The Persian Rite (SS. Adaeus and Maris).—This Nestorian rite is represented by the liturgy which bears the names of SS. Adaeus and Maris together with two others named after Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius. This group has sometimes been called “East-Syrian.” The titles of three more of its now lost liturgies have been preserved, namely those of Narses, Barsumas and Diodorus of Tarsus. The liturgy of the Christians of St Thomas, on the Malabar coast of India, formerly belonged to this group, but it was almost completely assimilated to the Roman liturgy by Portuguese Jesuits at the synod of Diamper in 1599.
Group IV. The Byzantine Rite.—The Greek liturgies of St Chrysostom, St Basil and St Gregory Dialogus, or The Presanctified, also extant in other languages, are the living representatives of this rite. The Greek liturgy of St Peter is classified under this group, but it is merely the Roman canon of the Mass &c., inserted in a Byzantine framework, and seems to have been used at one time by some Greek communities in Italy. To this group also belongs the Armenian liturgy, of which ten different forms have existed in addition to the liturgy now in general use named after St Athanasius.
We now come to the two western groups of liturgies, which more nearly concern the Latin-speaking nations of Europe, and which, therefore, must be treated of more fully.
Group V. The Hispano-Gallican Rite (St John).—This group of Latin liturgies, which once prevailed very widely in Western Europe, has been almost universally superseded by the liturgy of the Church of Rome. Where it survives, it has been more or less assimilated to the Roman pattern. It prevailed once throughout Spain, France, northern Italy, Great Britain and Ireland. The term “Ephesine” has been applied to this group or family of liturgies, chiefly by English liturgiologists, and the names of St John and of Ephesus, his place of residence, have been pressed into service in support of a theory of Ephesine origin, which, however, lacks proof and may now be regarded as a discarded hypothesis. Other theories represent the Gallican to be a survival of the original Roman liturgy, or as an importation into Western Europe from the east through a Milanese channel. The latter is Duchesne’s theory (Christian Worship, London, 1904, 2nd ed., p. 94).
We must be content with mentioning these theories without attempting to discuss them.
The chief traces of oriental influence and affinity lie in the following points:—(1) various proclamations made by the deacon, including that of “Silentium facite” before the epistle (Migne, Pat. Lat. tom. lxxxv. col. 534); (2) the presence of a third lesson preceding the epistle, taken from the Old Testament; (3) the occasional presence of “preces” a series of short intercessions resembling the Greek “Ektené” or deacon’s litany; (4) the position of the kiss of peace at an early point in the service, before the canon, instead of the Roman position after consecration; (5) the exclamation “Sancta sanctis” occurring in the Mozarabic rite, being the counterpart of the Eastern “Τὰ ἄγια τοῖς ἁγίοις,” that is “holy things to holy people”; (6) traces of the presence of the “Epiklesis,” that is to say, the invocation of the Holy Spirit, in its Eastern position after the words of institution, as in the prayer styled the Post-pridie in the Mozarabic service for the second Sunday after the octave of the Epiphany: “We beseech thee that thou wouldest sanctify this oblation with the permixture of thy Spirit, and conform it with full transformation into the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Migne, Pat. Lat. tom. lxxxv. col. 250). On the other hand the great variableness of its parts, and the immense number of its proper prefaces, ally it to the Western family of liturgies.
We proceed now to give a more detailed account of the chief liturgies of this group.
1. The Mozarabic Liturgy.—This was the national liturgy of the Spanish church till the close of the 11th century, when the Roman liturgy was forced upon it. Its use, however, lingered on, till in the 16th century Cardinal Jimenes, anxious to prevent its becoming quite obsolete, had its books restored and printed, and founded a college of priests at Toledo to perpetuate its use. It survives now only in several churches in Toledo and in a chapel at Salamanca, and even there not without certain Roman modifications of its original text and ritual.
Its date and origin, like the date and origin of all existing liturgies, are uncertain, and enveloped in the mists of antiquity. It is not derived from the present Roman liturgy. Its whole structure, as well as separate details disprove such a parentage, and therefore it is strange to find St Isidore of Seville (Lib. de Eccles. Offic. i. 15) attributing it to St Peter. No proof is adduced, and the only value which can be placed upon such an unsupported assertion is that it shows that a very high and even apostolic antiquity was claimed for it. A theory, originating with Pinius, that it may have been brought by the Goths from Constantinople when they invaded Spain, is as improbable as it is unproven. It may have been derived from Gaul. The Gallican sister stood to it in the relation of twin-sister, if it could not claim that of mother. The resemblance was so great that when Charles the Bald (843-877) wished to get some idea of the character of the already obsolete Gallican rite, he sent to Toledo for some Spanish priests to perform Mass according to the Mozarabic rite in his presence. But there is no record of the conversion of Spain by Gallican missionaries. Christianity existed in Spain from the earliest times. Probably St Paul travelled there (Rom. xv. 24). It may be at least conjectured that its liturgy was Pauline rather than Petrine or Johannine.