A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

The word ceremony occurs in the title page of the Prayer Book, in the prefatory section, (of Ceremonies,) in the 34th Article, and the vi., xiv., xviii., and xxx. Canons, &c. It is plainly a different thing from Common Prayer, (i. e. the ordinary public service as contrasted with the occasional services,) the administration of sacraments, or rites.

Dr. Nicholls says that the cross in baptism, and, it may be, the marriage ring, are perhaps the only ceremonies enjoined in the Book of 1662, which can in a strict and proper sense be called so. But, as is observed in a note to Stephens’s Common Prayer Book with notes, (vol. i. p. 139,) “Dr. Nicholls uses ceremony in a limited sense, which is by no means sanctioned by our best writers and divines. Ceremonia in its classical sense was a general term for worship. Johnson’s definition, outward rite, external form in religion, is fully supported by his references, and especially Hooker, who, throughout his book, applies it to all that is external in worship. It seems that rite and ceremony are thus to be distinguished. A rite is an act of religious worship, whether including ceremonies or not. A ceremony is any particular of religious worship, (included in a rite,) which prescribes action, position, or even the assumption of any particular vesture. The latter sense is plainly recognised by Hooker. (Eccl. Pol. book iv. sect. i.; book v. sect. 29.) The Preface to the Book of Common Prayer speaks first of common prayer, viz. the offices intended for the common and periodical use of all at stated times; next, the administration of the sacraments; next, of other rites and ceremonies; i. e. the occasional services, whether public or private, and all the methods of administration which these involve. Now among ceremonies, the prescribed procession in the Marriage and Burial Services, the standing at certain parts of the service, the bowing at the name of Jesus, as prescribed by the 18th canon, ought to be included.” It may be observed, that the 18th canon expressly calls the bowing just mentioned, a ceremony, as also in the 30th canon, the sign of the cross.—See Hooker, book iii. sect. 11, and book v. sect. 6.

CERINTHIANS. Ancient heretics, the followers of Cerinthus. This man, who was a Jew by birth, attempted to form a new and singular system of doctrine and discipline, by combining the doctrines of Christ with the opinions and errors of the Jews and Gnostics. He taught that the Creator of the world, whom he considered also as the Sovereign and Lawgiver of the Jews, was a Being endued with the greatest virtues, and derived his birth from the Supreme God; that this Being gradually degenerated from his former virtue; that, in consequence of this, the Supreme Being determined to destroy his empire, and, for that purpose, sent upon earth one of the ever happy and glorious æons whose name was Christ; that this Christ chose for his habitation the person of Jesus, into whom he entered in the form of a dove, whilst Jesus was receiving baptism of John in the waters of Jordan; that Jesus, after this union with Christ, opposed the God of the Jews, at whose instigation he was seized and crucified by the Hebrew chiefs; that when Jesus was taken captive, Christ ascended on high, and the man Jesus alone was subjected to the pain of an ignominious death.

CESSION. This is where the incumbent of any living is promoted to a bishopric; the church in that case is void by cession.

CHALDEANS. A modern sect of Christians in the East, in obedience to the see of Rome. Dr. Grant, in his Nestorians, quotes with approval the following passage from Smith and Dwight’s Researches in Armenia: which is also confirmed by Mr. Badger, in his Nestorians and their Rituals (vol. i. p. 177–181). “In 1681, the Nestorian metropolitan of Diarbekir, having quarrelled with his patriarch, was first consecrated by the pope Patriarch of the Chaldeans. The sect was as new as the office, and created for it. Converts to Papacy from the Nestorians” [not from the Jacobites, as Mr. Badger corrects Dr. Grant] “were dignified with the name of the Chaldean Church. It means no more than Papal Syrians, as we have in other parts Papal Armenians and Papal Greeks.” (See Nestorians.)

CHALDEE LANGUAGE. This was a dialect of the Hebrew, almost identical with the old Syriac, spoken formerly in Assyria, and the vernacular language of the Jews after the Babylonish captivity. The following parts of the Old Testament are written in Chaldee: Jer. x., xi.; Dan. ii. 4 to the end of chap. vii.; Ezra iv. 8 to vi. 19, and vii. 12–17.—Jebb.

CHALDEE PARAPHRASE, in the Rabbinical style, is called Targum. There are three Chaldee paraphrases in Walton’s Polyglot, viz. 1. Of Onkelos. 2. Of Jonathan, son of Uzziel. 3. Of Jerusalem. The first of these is supposed to have been composed about the time that our blessed Lord was on earth. It comprises the Pentateuch. The second, comprising the Prophets and Historical Books, is supposed to have been composed about the same time as the former. The Jerusalem Targum is considered a compilation not earlier than the eighth century. It comprises the Pentateuch.—Another Targum, falsely ascribed to Jonathan Ben Uzziel, was probably written two centuries after Christ, if not later. There are other inferior Targums.—See Horne on the Scriptures.

CHALICE. (Lat. calix.) This word was formerly (as by Shakspeare) used to denote any sort of cup, but is now usually restricted to the cup in which the consecrated wine for the eucharist is administered. The primitive Christians, desirous of honouring the holy purpose for which it was used, had it made of the most costly substances their circumstances would allow—of glass, crystal, onyx, sardonyx, and gold.

By a canon of the Council of Rheims, in Charles the Great’s time, all churches were obliged to have chalices of some purer metal. The ancient chalices were of two kinds: the greater, which were in the nature of our flagons, containing a large quantity of wine, which was all consecrated in them together; and the lesser, which were otherwise called “ministeriales,” because the priest delivered the wine to be drunk out of them; for communion in one kind was not then invented by the Romish Church.—Dr. Nicholls. (See Cup.)

CHAMFER. The flat slope formed by cutting away an angle in timber, or masonry. The chamfer is the first approach to a moulding, though it can hardly itself be called one. The chamfer plane, in speaking of mouldings, is used for the plane at an angle of 45°, or thereabouts, with the face of the wall, in which some of the mouldings often, and sometimes all of them, lie. The resolution of the chamfer into the square is called a stop-chamfer; it is often of considerable elegance.