A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

ELECTION OF BISHOPS. (See Bishops.)

ELEMENTS. The materials used in the sacraments, appointed for that purpose by our Lord himself. Thus water is the element of baptism, and bread and wine are the elements of the eucharist. With respect to the elements of the eucharist, it is ordered by the Church of England that, “when there is a communion, the priest shall then place upon the table so much bread and wine as he shall think sufficient;” Then, that is, after the offertory, and after presenting the basin with the alms. This rubric being added to our liturgy at the last review, at the same time with the word “oblations,” in the prayer following, it is clearly evident, as Bishop Patrick has observed, that by that word are to be understood the elements of bread and wine, which the priest is to offer solemnly to God as an acknowledgment of his sovereignty over his creatures, and that from henceforth they might become properly and peculiarly his. For in all the Jewish sacrifices, of which the people were partakers, the viands or materials of the feast were first made God’s by a solemn oblation, and then afterwards eaten by the communicants, not as man’s, but as God’s provisions, who by thus entertaining them at his own table, declared himself reconciled, and again in covenant with them. And therefore our blessed Saviour, when he instituted the new sacrament of his own body and blood, first gave thanks and blessed the elements; that is, offered them up to God as Lord of the creatures, as the most ancient Fathers expound that passage; who for that reason, whenever they celebrated the holy eucharist, always offered the bread and wine for the communion to God upon the altar by this or some short ejaculation: “Lord, we offer thee thine own out of what thou hast bountifully given us.” After which they received them into the sacred banquet of the body and blood of his dear Son.

In the ancient Church they had generally a side table, or prothesis, near the altar, upon which the elements were laid till the first part of the communion service was over. Now, though we have not always a side table, and there is no express provision for one made in the Church of England, yet in the first Common Prayer Book of King Edward VI., the priest himself was ordered, in this place, to set both bread and wine upon the altar; but at the review in 1551, this and several other pious usages were thrown out, in condescension to ultra-Protestant superstition. (See Credence.) After which the Scotch liturgy was the first wherein we find it restored; and Mr. Mede having observed our liturgy to be defective in this particular, was probably the occasion, that, in the review of it after the Restoration, this primitive practice was restored, and the bread and wine ordered by the rubric to be set solemnly on the table by the priest himself. It appears, indeed, that the traditional practice of the immediately preceding times maintained its ground in many places after the alteration of the rubric; (see Hicke’s Treatises, i. 127–129, 322–324;) but the history of the change gives so marked a character to our present rubric, that a neglect of it is clearly a violation of the priest’s obligation to conformity. If the priest thus offends the consciences of the more enlightened members of a congregation, they should point out to him his mistake, which can only proceed from traditional negligence. In the coronation service of Queen Victoria, after the reading of the sentences in the Offertory, this rubric occurs. “And first the Queen offers bread and wine for the communion, which being brought out of King Edward’s chapel, and delivered into her hands, the bread upon the paten by the bishop who read the Epistle, and the wine in the chalice by the bishop that read the Gospel, are by the archbishop received from the Queen, and reverently placed upon the altar, and decently covered with a fair linen cloth, the archbishop first saying this prayer,” &c. (See Oblation and Offertory.)—See Wheatly.

ELEVATION. In architecture, a representation of a building, or of any portion of it, as it would appear if it were possible that the eye should be exactly opposite every part of it at the same time.

ELEVATION OF THE HOST. This Romish ceremony, condemned in our twenty-fifth Article, is not, comparatively speaking, an ancient rite. The Roman ritualists, Bona, Merati, Benedict XIV., Le Brun, &c., acknowledge that there is no trace of its existence before the eleventh or twelfth century in the West. The Ordo Romanus, Amalarius, Walafrid Strabo, and Micrologus, make no mention of the rite, though the last of these ritualists lived at the end of the eleventh century. The truth is, that no certain documents refer to it until the beginning of the thirteenth century, but it may possibly have existed in some places in the twelfth. The synodical constitutions of Odo de Sulli, bishop of Paris, about 1200, appoint this elevation, and it was probably then first introduced into the diocese of Paris. Innocent III., who wrote on the ceremonies of the mass at the beginning of the thirteenth century, does not speak of it; but, in the time of Honorius III., it had come into use, for he mentions it in an epistle to the Latin bishops of the patriarchate of Antioch, A. D. 1219, where he commands that, at the elevation, the people should reverently bow. “Sacerdos quilibet frequenter doceat plebem suam, ut cum in celebratione missarum elevatur hostia salutaris, quilibet reverenter inclinet.” This was inserted in the decretals (c. sane de celebratione missarum) by Gregory IX., his successor, and thus became the law of the West. It is spoken of by Bonaventure, Durand, and the Council of Lambeth, in the latter part of the same century; and Cardinal Guido is said to have introduced this rite, or some part of it, at Cologne, about 1265.

We know then, that, in the thirteenth century, the host was elevated, and the people bowed or knelt at the same time. But if we are to judge by the authorities referred to by the Roman ritualists themselves, the writers of that and the following ages did not always interpret this as designed for the adoration of the elements, or even of Christ in the eucharist. Bonaventure (A. D. 1270) assigns eight reasons for the elevation, some of which relate to the duty or dispositions of the people on the occasion; but he does not notice the adoration of the elements. William, bishop of Paris, about 1220, ordered a bell to be rung at the elevation, that the people might be excited to pray: not to worship the host. “Præcipitur quod in celebratione missarum, quando corpus Christi elevatur, in ipsa elevatione, vel paulo ante, campana pulsetur, sicut alias fuit statutum, ut sic mentes fidelium ad orationem excitentur.” Cardinal Guido (A. D. 1265) ordained, that at the elevation all the people should pray for pardon. “Bonam illic consuetudinem instituit, ut ad elevationem hostiæ omnis populus in ecclesia ad sonitum nolæ veniam peteret, sicque usque ad calicis benedictionem prostratus jaceret.” The synod of Cologne (A. D. 1536) explained the people’s duty at the elevation to consist, in remembering the Lord’s death, and returning him thanks with minds raised to heaven. “Post elevationem consecrati corporis ac sanguinis Domini ... tum videretur silendum, et ab omni populo mortis Dominicæ commemoratio habenda, prostratisque humi corporibus, animis in cœlum erectis, gratiæ agendæ Christo Redemptori, qui nos sanguine suo lavit morteque redemit.”

On the other hand, Durand, (1286,) Lyndwood, (1430,) the diocesan synod of Augsburg, (1548,) and Cardinal Hosius, one of the papal legates at the synod of Trent, understood the prostration of the people as designed for the adoration of Christ as present in the eucharist. Certainly this has latterly become the common opinion, but from what has been said above it appears that, before the Reformation, and afterwards, many persons at the elevation directed their worship to God and Christ simply, without any exclusive reference to the presence of Christ in the eucharist.—Palmer.

EMBER DAYS. These are the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, after the first Sunday in Lent, the feast of Whitsunday, the 14th of September, and the 13th of December, all being fasting days; the Sundays following these days being the stated times of ordination in the Church. It is to be remarked, that the Sunday in December which begins the Ember week is always the third Sunday in Advent. The week in which these days fall are called Ember week. But as Sunday begins the week, the Ember collect is always to be read on the Sunday preceding the Ember days, not on that which follows them, as is sometimes erroneously done.

The derivation of the name is uncertain. It has been supposed by some to signify “ashes,” and by others “abstinence,” in allusion to the ancient custom connected with fasting. The fact that the Ember weeks return at stated periods, has led others to trace the name to a Saxon word signifying a “course,” or “cycle.” In the Western Church they were denominated “the Fasts of the Four Seasons:” and from this comes another, and perhaps the most probable, illustration—the Latin quatuor tempora (four seasons) being abbreviated into the German quatemper or quatember, and again, into the English ember. On these days the design of the Church is to call her members, by prayer and fasting, to invoke the Divine aid and blessing on the choice and commission of ministers of the gospel. The deep interest every Christian heart should feel in a matter of such infinite moment, should secure for these days the pious observance of the members of the Church.

EMBLEM. A visible, and usually an ornamental, symbol of some spiritual thing; of some great truth concerning the object of a Christian’s worship, of some object of his faith and hope, or of some mystery or privilege.