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 [pg 618] 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.