A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

INTERDICT. An ecclesiastical censure, whereby the Church of Rome forbids the administration of the sacraments and the performance of Divine service to a kingdom, province, town, &c. Some people pretend this custom was introduced in the fourth or fifth century; but the opinion that it began in the ninth, is much more probable: there are some instances of it since that age, and particularly Alexander III., in 1170, superciliously put the kingdom of England under an interdict, forbidding the clergy to perform any part of Divine service unless baptism to infants, taking confessions, and giving absolutions to dying penitents, which was the usual restraint of an interdict; but the succeeding popes, for reasons best known to themselves, seldom make use of it.—Broughton.

INTERIM. (Lat.) The name of a formulary, or confession of faith, obtruded upon the Protestants, after the death of Luther, by the emperor Charles V., when he had defeated their forces. It was so called, because it was only to take place in the Interim, till a general council should decide all the points in question between the Protestants and Catholics. The occasion of it was this: the emperor had made choice of three divines, viz. Julius Pflug, bishop of Naumberg, Michael Helding, titular bishop of Sidon, and John Agricola, preacher to the Elector of Brandenburg; who drew up a project consisting of twenty-six articles concerning the points of religion in dispute between the Catholics and Protestants. The controverted points were, the state of Adam before and after his fall; the redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ; the justification of sins; charity and good works; the confidence we ought to have in God, that our sins are remitted; the Church, and its true marks; its power, authority, and ministers; the pope and bishops; the sacraments; the mass; the commemoration of saints; their intercession; and prayers for the dead.

The emperor sent this project to the pope for his approbation, which he refused; whereupon Charles V. published the imperial constitution called the Interim, wherein he declared, that “it was his will, that all his Catholic dominions should, for the future, inviolably observe the customs, statutes, and ordinances of the Universal Church; and that those who had separated themselves from it, should either reunite themselves to it, or at least conform to this constitution; and that all should quietly expect the decisions of the general council.” This ordinance was published in the Diet of Augsburg, May 15th, 1548. But this device neither pleased the pope nor the Protestants; the Lutheran preachers openly declared they would not receive it, alleging that it reestablished Popery. Some chose rather to quit their chairs and livings than to subscribe it; nor would the Duke of Saxony receive it. Calvin, and several others, wrote against it. On the other side, the emperor was so severe against those who refused to accept, that he disfranchised the cities of Magdeburg and Constance, for their opposition.—Broughton.

INTERMEDIATE STATE. A term made use of to denote the state of the soul between death and the resurrection. From the Scriptures speaking frequently of the dead sleeping in their graves, many have supposed that the soul sleeps till the resurrection, i. e. is in a state of entire insensibility. But against this opinion, and that the soul, after death, enters immediately into a state of conscious happiness or misery, though not of final reward or punishment, the following passages seem to be conclusive: Matt. xvii. 3; Luke xxiii. 43; 2 Cor. v. 6; Phil. i. 21; Luke xvi. 22, 23; Rev. vi. 9. (See Hell.)

INTONATION, properly speaking, the recitation by the chanter, or rector chori, of the commencing words of the psalm or hymn, before the choir begins: as is often practised in the English choirs, with respect to the Venite, the Te Deum, the Nicene Creed, and the Gloria in Excelsis. The intonations of the Gregorian Psalm chant are regularly prescribed. Intonation is also applied to the commencement of each verse of the Canticles (sung however by the choir) before the reciting note. The intonations are the same as in the psalm chants; but in the latter they are confined to the first verse of each psalm. The word is sometimes, but inaccurately, used for the chanting of the services by the priest or minister in the musical tone proper to choirs—Jebb.

INTROIT. In the ancient Church a psalm was sung or chanted immediately before the collect, Epistle, and Gospel. As this took place while the priest was entering within the septum or rails of the altar, it acquired the name of Introitus or Introit.

Cardinal Bona says that Introits, as used in the Roman Church, were introduced by Pope Cœlestine (A. D. 422–432). The Introit consists of one or more verses, generally from the Psalms, but sometimes from other parts of Scripture. This anthem is the Introit, properly so called. Then follows a verse from the psalm (anciently a whole psalm): then the Gloria Patri, after which the Introit, or commencing anthem, is repeated. The First Prayer Book of Edward VI., (A. D. 1549,) appoints special psalms to be used as Introits on all Sundays and holy-days. These differ altogether from the Roman Introits, both in their selection and in their construction. They are entire psalms, with the Gloria Patri, and without any verse. The psalm or hymn now universally sung in our churches before the Communion Service, may be said to represent the Introit, as Bishop Bull observes. “In cathedral or mother churches there is still a decent distinction between the two services: for before the priest goes to the altar to read the second service, there is a short but excellent anthem sung, in imitation whereof in the churches of London, and in other greater churches of the country, instead of that anthem there is part of a psalm sung.”—Jebb.

In Clifford’s Introduction, (1664,) it appears that a voluntary at that time preceded the Communion Service at St. Paul’s. Shortly after this time, the custom arose, now universal in choirs, of singing a Sanctus in this place: St. Paul’s, Westminster, and Canterbury were the first to adopt it. In parish churches, a metrical psalm is usually sung in this place, and very properly.

INVENTION OF THE HOLY CROSS. A festival kept by the Church of Rome, in memory of the day on which they affirm our Saviour’s cross was found by the empress Helena, in the time of Constantine the Great; concerning which the following story has been fabricated. That princess being at Jerusalem, was informed that the cross of our Saviour was buried in the sepulchre, upon which she ordered them to dig, when they found the cross and the nails, together with the crosses of the two thieves: but the wood on which the inscription was made being separated from the cross, they could not distinguish that of our Saviour from the others, till Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, found out the following expedient: he ordered a dying woman to be brought and laid upon the crosses, two of which gave her no manner of relief, but being set upon the third, she perfectly recovered from the first moment she touched it, whereby they plainly discovered that it was the same on which our Saviour suffered. The empress built a stately church in the place where the cross was found, where she left some part of the wood richly ornamented, carrying the rest with the nails to Constantinople.

INVESTITURE. The act of conferring a bishopric, by delivering a pastoral staff or ring. Concerning the right of investiture, violent disputes arose in the middle ages, between the emperors and the popes, for an account of which the reader is referred to Mosheim, Cent. XI. part ii. chap. 2, the account being too long for insertion here.