A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

There was likewise another hymn, of great note in the ancient Church, called the great doxology, or angelical hymn, beginning with those words, which the angels sung at our Saviour’s birth, “Glory be to God on high,” &c. This was chiefly used in the Communion Service. It was also used daily in men’s private devotions. In the Mozarabic liturgy it is appointed to be sung before the lessons on Christmas day. St. Chrysostom often mentions it, and observes that the Ascetics, or Christians who had retired from the world, met together daily to sing this hymn. Who first composed it, adding the remaining part to the words sung by the angels, is uncertain. Some suppose it to be as ancient as the time of Lucian, about the beginning of the second century. Others take it for the Gloria Patri; which is a dispute as difficult to be determined, as it is to find out the first author and original of this hymn.

Both these doxologies have a place in the liturgy of the Church of England, the former being repeated after every psalm, the latter used in the Communion Service.

As the ancient doxology of “Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” was, among the Christians, a solemn profession of their belief in the Holy Trinity, so the Mohammedans, by their doxology, “There is but one God,” (to which they sometimes add, “and Mohammed is his prophet,”) which they use both in their public and private prayers, and in their acclamations, sufficiently show their disbelief of a Trinity of persons in the Godhead.—Bingham.

DRIPSTONE. In church architecture, the projecting moulding which crowns doors, windows, and other arches, in the exterior of a building.

DULCINISTS. Heretics, so denominated from one Dulcinus, a layman, of Novara in Lombardy, who lived in the beginning of the 14th century. He pretended to preach the reign of the Holy Ghost; and while he justly enough rejected the pope’s authority, he foolishly made himself to be the head of that third reign, saying, that the Father had reigned from the beginning of the world to the coming of Christ; and the Son’s reign began then, and continued until the year 1300. He was followed by a great many people to the Alps, where he and his wife were taken and burnt by the order of Clement IV.

DULIA. (Δουλεία.) The worship paid by Romanists to saints and angels, and to images. Not denying that all these are made by them objects of worship, the Papists invent a distinction of many kinds and degrees of worship, and very accurately assign to each object of worship its proper amount of reverence. The lowest degree is the dulia, which is given to saints and angels. Hyperdulia (ὑπερδουλεία) is reserved for the Blessed Virgin alone: and Latria (λατρεια) is given to the Lord himself, and to each person in the ever blessed and glorious Trinity. Images of either of these receive a relative worship of the same order. An image of a saint or angel, relative Dulia: an image of the Blessed Virgin, relative hyperdulia: an image of either person of the Blessed Trinity, relative Latria. (See Idolatry, Images, Invocation of Saints.)

DUNKERS, or DIPPERS. A sect of Baptists, originating (1724) in the teaching of one Conrad Peysel or Beissel, a German, in Philadelphia, one of the American states. They are distinguished not only by their adherence to the rite of baptism with trine immersion, which, like other Baptists, they of course confine to adults, but also by their rigid abstinence from flesh, except on particular occasions; by their living in monastic societies, by their peculiar garb, like that of the Dominican friars, and by their scruples with regard to resistance, war, slavery, and litigation. Their great settlement is at a place which they call Euphrata, in allusion to the lament of the Hebrews in their captivity, which they used to pour forth to their harps as they sat on the banks of the Euphrates.

EAGLE. A frequent, and the most beautiful, form of the lectern for reading the lessons from in churches. It has probably some reference to the eagle, which is the symbolical companion of St. John, in ecclesiastical design. The eagle is frequently employed in foreign churches, but generally for the chanting of the service, not for the lessons. Sometimes it is employed for the reading of the Epistles and Gospels, and there are instances of one being on each side of the choir or chancel. Several of the cathedrals and colleges in our universities have this kind of lecterns. Before the civil wars in 1651, there was in the cathedral of Waterford, a “great standing pelican to support the Bible, a brazen eagle,” and other ornaments.—Ryland’s Waterford. Winchester and St. John’s College, Cambridge, have of late years been provided with eagle lecterns. The “Lecterna” or Bible eagle at Peterborough was given by Abbot Ramsay and John Maldon in 1471.—Dugd. Monast. ed. 1830, i. 344.—Jebb.

EARLY ENGLISH, or LANCET, the first style of pure Gothic architecture, fully established about 1190, and merging in the Geometrical about 1245. The Lancet window is the principal characteristic of this style; but it has, besides, various peculiarities, (see Arcade, Capital, Moulding, Vaulting,) among which are the following:—The doorways are frequently divided by a central shaft. As compared with the preceding style, the buttresses have a considerable projection, and they usually terminate in a plain pediment. The flying buttress becomes frequent. Gables are of very high pitch; the parapet usually retains the corbel-table. Piers consist of a circular or octagonal shaft, surrounded by four or eight smaller ones, which stand free, except that, when of great length, they are generally banded in the centre. Purbeck or Petworth marble is often used both for the central, which is really the bearing shaft, and the smaller ones; but in this case the marble of the bearing shaft is laid as in the quarry, while the smaller shafts are set upwards, for the sake of greater length. The triforium still maintains its importance, though hardly so lofty as in the Norman style: it is usually of two smaller behind a principal arch, or of four smaller behind two principal arches. The clerestory is generally of the three Lancets, the central one much more lofty than the two others. The carving is extremely sharp and good, and very easily recognised, when it contains foliage, by the stiff stalks ending in crisped or curled leaves. Panels are often used to relieve large spaces of masonry, either blank or pierced; and sometimes in window-heads, and in triforium arcades, approach very nearly to the character of tracery. They are also often filled with figures. The dog-tooth, which had made its appearance in the Transition, is now extremely abundant, often filling the hollows of the mouldings in two or three continuous trails. The spires are almost invariably broach-spires.

EAST. (See also Bowing and Apostles’ Creed.) In the aspect of their churches, the ancient Christians reversed the order of the Jews, placing the altar on the east, so that in facing towards the altar in their devotions they were turned to the east. As the Jews began their day with the setting sun, so the followers of Christ began theirs with the rising sun. The eye of the Christian turned with peculiar interest to the east, whence the day-spring from on high had visited him. There the morning star of his hope fixed his admiring gaze. Thence arose the Sun of righteousness with all his heavenly influences. Thither, in prayer, his soul turned with kindling emotions to the altar of his God. And even in his grave, thither still he directed his slumbering eye, in quiet expectation of awakening to behold in the same direction the second appearing of his Lord, when he shall come in the clouds of heaven to gather his saints.