A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

As to the form of prayer to be used on this occasion, it is left to the prudence of the Church; since God hath only in general ordered prayers to be made, but not prescribed any particular words, therefore several Churches have made and used several forms proper for the occasion. The Greek Church hath a very large office in their Euchologion; which seems to have been much corrupted by the superstitious additions of later ages, though some of the ancient prayers may yet be discerned there. The most ancient of the Western Church are those which bear the names of St. Ambrose and St. Gregory; and that which Cardinal Bona cites with this title, “Pro infirmis,” written about 900 (1040) years ago, and supposed to be part of the old Gallican service. And upon the Reformation, the several Protestant Churches had their several forms, which are in use amongst them at this day. But this office of the Church of England may be thought to excel all that are now extant in the world; and it exactly agrees with the method of the primitive visitation of the sick in St. Chrysostom’s time.—Dean Comber.

VISITATORIAL POWER. Every corporation, whether lay or ecclesiastical, is visitable by some superior; and every spiritual person being a corporation sole, is visitable by the ordinary. There is, however, in our ecclesiastical polity, an exception to this rule; for, by composition, the archbishop of Canterbury never visits the bishop of London. During a visitation, all inferior jurisdictions are inhibited from exercising jurisdiction: but this right, from the inconvenience attending the exercise of it, is usually conceded; so that the exercise of jurisdiction in the inferior court is continued notwithstanding.

VOLUNTARY. A piece of music played on the organ, usually after the Psalms, sometimes after the second lesson. This was formerly more usual than now; and was practised in many cathedrals, where it is now laid aside, as at St. Paul’s, and Christ Church in Dublin. In the latter place it is transferred to another interval of the service. The name is derived from its performance not being obligatory, but optional with those who are in authority. Pieces of music played at other intervals of the service are properly called symphonies. Lord Bacon approves of voluntaries as affording time for meditation.

VULGAR TONGUE. This expression in the baptismal office stood formerly “in the English tongue.” The alteration was made in compliance, as it should seem, with a suggestion of Bishop Cosin, that “suppose, as it often falls out, that children of strangers, which never intend to stay in England, be brought there to be baptized,” it would be exceptionable that “they also should be exhorted and enjoined to learn those principles of religion in the English tongue.”

VULGATE. The name given to what is called the vulgar Latin translation of the Bible. It was a name anciently applied to any popular edition; and the Septuagint, as Dr. Hody remarks, was sometimes so called by St. Jerome. This is the most ancient version of the whole Scriptures into Latin now extant, and the only one which the Church of Rome acknowledges to be authentic.

The Vulgate of the Old Testament was translated, almost word for word, from the Greek of the Septuagint; the author of it is not known, or so much as guessed at. It was a long time known by the name of the Italic version, as being of very great antiquity in the Latin Church. (See Italic Version.) It was commonly in use, before St. Jerome made a new one from the Hebrew. St. Austin preferred this Vulgate before all the other Latin versions, as rendering the words and sense of the sacred text more closely and justly than any of the rest. It was since corrected from the emendations of St. Jerome; and it is the mixture of the ancient Italic version with the corrections of St. Jerome, that is now called the Vulgate, and which the Council of Trent has declared to be authentic. The version of St. Jerome, however, forms the main part of the Vulgate, with the exception of some of the apocryphal books, and the Psalter. The translation of the latter from the Hebrew was not adopted publicly by the Western Church, though still to be found in his works. The Psalter was twice corrected by him from the old Italic version; the first recension was for a long time used in the Roman Church, the latter was first adopted by the Churches of Gaul and Britain, and was finally adopted by the Western Church by an ordinance of Pius V. The old Roman Psalter being still, however, used at the Vatican, at St. Mark’s, Venice, and in part of the diocese of Britain.

A revision of the Vulgate was made by order of Sixtus V., and published at Rome in 1590. But this, though pronounced by papal authority to be authentic, became such an object of ridicule among the learned from its gross inaccuracies, that his successor, Gregory XIV., caused it to be suppressed, and another authentic Vulgate was published in 1592, by Clement VIII.—Walton’s Prolegomena. Hodius de Bibl. text. orig. Horne’s Introd.

The Vulgate of the New Testament is, by the Romanists, generally preferred to the common Greek text. The priests read no other at the altar; the preachers quote no other in the pulpit, nor the divines in the schools. (See Bible.)

WAFERS. The bread which is used in the eucharist by the Romanists, and by Lutheran Protestants in the Lord’s supper, is so designated. In the ancient Church, so long as the people continued to make oblations of bread and wine, the elements for the use of the eucharist were usually taken out of them; and, consequently, so long, the bread was that common leavened bread, which they used upon other occasions; and the use of wafers, and unleavened bread, was not known in the Church till the eleventh or twelfth centuries. This is now acknowledged by the most learned writers of the Romish communion. The school divines, who maintain that the primitive Church always consecrated in unleavened bread, argue that we must suppose they followed the example of our Saviour, who celebrated his last supper with unleavened bread. But ecclesiastical history, and the writings of the ancient Fathers, unanimously testify the contrary; and it is noted by Epiphanius, as a peculiar rite of the Ebionite heretics, that they celebrated the eucharist with unleavened bread and water only.

How the change in this matter was made, and the exact time when, is not easily determined. Cardinal Bona’s conjecture seems probable enough; that it crept in upon the people’s leaving off to make their oblations in common bread; which occasioned the clergy to provide it themselves, and they, under pretence of decency and respect, brought it from leaven to unleaven, and from a loaf of common bread, that might be broken, to a nice and delicate wafer, formed in the figure of a Denarius, or penny, to represent the pence, for which our Saviour was betrayed; and then also the people, instead of offering a loaf of bread, as formerly, were ordered to offer a penny, which was either to be given to the poor, or to be expended upon something pertaining to the sacrifice of the altar.