A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

But this is only apparent. For the Litany may seem an exception to the rule. When said, it is repeated alternately, as verse and response, by the minister and people. But the regular choral usage is, not that the minister, or a priest, but two chanters should sing together those parts which the minister reads in a parish church, and which in some old choral books are here called versicles, as far as the Lord’s Prayer exclusive. And this, not with the common intonation and inflection used in prayers and versicles, (which have come under the denomination of singing,) but with the modulation of a regular chant; which in some parts of the Litany (the invocation e. g.) these two chanters sing throughout; while in others they form the first part of the chant, the response of the choir forming the second. This particular service has often been set to artificial music, both before and after the last review. No notice of Minister (or Priest) and Answer are prefixed to the former part of the Litany; while in the latter part, when there are such notices, the suffrages are always recited by one minister, and answered by the choir or people.

Now if in a choir the minister were to read, or simply intone, the versicles of the first part of the Litany, that service would then not be sung, but said, according to the meaning of the rubric, even though the responses were chanted; the word singing including the whole portion of the service then specified, not a part only. And this is probably the reason why the ancient harmonized Litanies by various composers are generally set to music in the former part only; the supplications, or latter part, being customarily sung in choirs to the ordinary chant.

But the rubrics by no means interfere with, and indeed do not allude to, the chanting of prayers and responses immemorially used in choirs; the singing which the rubrics specify being a different thing from choral or responsional recitation. The responses were, and are still, frequently sung to the organ. But singing (as used in the Prayer Book) never has reference to a mere response. In fact, the word answer is an ecclesiastical term, which in choirs always implies singing, (in its common and general sense,) as attention to the older documents on which our Prayer Book was based will show.—Jebb.

SCARF. A piece of silk or other stuff which hangs from the neck, and is worn over the rochet or surplice. It is not mentioned in the rubric of the English ritual, but is worn by our bishops and dignitaries of the Church. It is used from long custom, and may be referred to the ancient practice of the Church, according to which presbyters and bishops wore a scarf or stole in the administration of the sacraments, and on some other occasions. The stole has been used from the most primitive ages by the Christian clergy. It was fastened on one shoulder of the deacon’s alb, and hung down before and behind. The priest had it over both shoulders, and the ends of it hung down in front. Thus simply were the dresses of the priests and deacons distinguished from each other in primitive times.

SCEPTICS. (From the Greek word σκέπτομαι, to look about, to deliberate.) This word was applied to an ancient sect of philosophers founded by Pyrrho, who denied the real existence of all qualities in bodies except those which are essential to primary atoms, and referred everything else to the perceptions of the mind produced by external objects; in other words, to appearance and opinion. In modern times, the word has been applied to Deists, or those who doubt of the truth and authenticity of the sacred Scriptures.

SCHISM, in the ecclesiastical sense of the word, is a breaking off from communion with the Church, on account of some disagreement in matters of faith or discipline. The word is of Greek original, and signifies a fissure or rent.

We shall easily learn what the ancients meant by the unity of the Church and schism, if we consider the following particulars:—1. That there were different degrees of unity and schism, according to the proportion of which a man was said to be more or less united to the Church, or divided from it. 2. That they who retained faith and baptism, and the common form of Christian worship, were in those respects at unity with the Church; though, in other respects, in which their schism consisted, they might be divided from her. 3. That to give a man the denomination of a true Catholic Christian, absolutely speaking, it was necessary that he should in all respects, and in every kind of unity, be in perfect and full communion with the Church; but to denominate a man a schismatic, it was sufficient to break the unity of the Church in any one respect; though the malignity of the schism was to be interpreted, more or less, according to the degrees of separation he made from her. Because the Church could not ordinarily judge of men’s hearts, or of the motives that engaged them in error and schism, therefore she was forced to proceed by another rule, and judge of their unity with her by their external communion and professions.

And as the Church made a distinction between the degrees of schism, so did she between the censures inflicted on schismatics; for these were proportioned to the quality and heinousness of the offence. Such as absented themselves from church for a short time (which was reckoned the lowest degree of separation) were punished with a few weeks’ suspension. Others, who attended only some part of the service, and voluntarily withdrew when the eucharist was to be administered: these, as greater criminals, were denied the privilege of making any oblations, and excluded for some time from all the other holy offices of the Church. But the third sort of separatists, who are most properly called schismatics, being those who withdrew totally and universally from the communion of the Church, and endeavoured to justify the separation; against these the Church proceeded more severely, using the highest censure, that of excommunication, as against the professed enemies and destroyers of her peace and unity.

Ecclesiastical history presents us with a view of several considerable schisms, in which whole bodies of men separated from the communion of the Catholic Church. Such were, in the fourth century, the schisms of the Donatists, and the many heretics that sprung up in the Church, as the Arians, Photinians, Apollinarians, &c.; the schism of the Church of Antioch, occasioned by Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, in Sardinia; in the fifth century, the schism of the Church of Rome, between Laurentius and Symmachus; in the ninth century, the separation of the Greek Church from the Latin; but, particularly, the grand schism of the popes of Rome and Avignon, in the fourteenth century, which lasted till the end of the Council of Pisa, 1409.—Bingham.

It is a causeless separation from such governors in the Church as have received their authority and commission from Jesus Christ. If there be a sufficient cause, then there may be a separation, but no schism. But if there be no sufficient ground for the separation, it is schism, that is, a culpable separation, which was always reckoned a sin of a very heinous nature. For St. Paul charges the Ephesians to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, because there is but one God, one faith, one baptism, and one body of Christ. The same doctrine is taught in the writings of the first Fathers of the Church, particularly St. Ignatius and St. Cyprian; and schism was reputed a great sin by them, even before the Church and State were united, and when the meetings of the schismatics were as much tolerated by the State as the assemblies of the Catholics. For toleration does not alter the nature of schism. Such laws only exempt the persons of schismatics from any penal prosecution. Donatism and Novatianism were counted as damnable schisms, under the reigns of those emperors who granted toleration to them, as under the reigns of those who made laws against them.—Nelson.