I wonder if anyone can fill in gaps in my understanding of the evolution of this preface.
I first become aware of phrases from this preface in the pages of the Stowe Missal. This is a liturgical book scribed in the 790s, but copied undoubtedly from a much earlier source (for example, it lacks evidence of the Gregorian changes, such as the moving of the Pater Noster to a place immediately after the Roman Canon and before the Fraction). It may have been the book of an itinerant priest in South-West Ireland, or one who could not afford a large Mass-book (it only has one Epistle and Gospel, but is clearly meant for all-the-year use since it has the seasonal paragraphs of the Communicantes). And the Preface in this rite goes as follows:
" ... through Christ our Lord: who with thine only begotten Son and the Holy Ghost art one God and immortal God and incorruptible and immovable God and invisible and faithful God [much more like this up to:] good and holy God, not singulariter of one person but of the one substance of the Trinity; Thee we believe, Thee we bless; Thee we adore [etc.]."
This faintly reminds me of the same place in the Anaphora of S John Chrysostom:
" ...For thou art Got ineffable, incomprehensible,invisible, inconceivable, ever being as Thou art, Thou and thine only-begotten Son and thy Holy Spirit [etc.]."
Is this simply a generic similarity, of Christians toto orbe divisi thinking the same way in the same context, or is there a textual link? I strongly incline to the former possibility.
I am first aware of the preface of the Trinity, in more or less its present form, in the Gelasian Sacramentary, for use on the Sunday after Pentecost. Is it from a source like this that Alcuin got it for the Sunday Mass of the little book which I am sure (pace Willis) he put together for priests minimally equipped during the Carolingian period?
A brief look at the manuscript evidence suggests to me that the rubric directing this Preface to be used on the Sundays after Trinity (aka after the Octave of Pentecost) first appears in Sarum Missals early in the 14th century ... as one might expect. It is also in the Westminster and Hereford Missals; was it universal in the later English Middle Ages?
I then have a gap until Pope Wozname made it the Green Sunday (and Advent etc.) Preface in the Missale Romanum in the mid 18th century. Had there been continuity anywhere in this custom between the Tridentine curtailing of local rites, and the 18th century ... or did it just occur to the pope quite spontaneously that it was a good idea to make the Trinity Preface the all-purpose Sunday Preface?
It would only take the slightest of rubical suggestions to add it as an option to the endless number of Sunday prefaces in the Novus Ordo.
Fr John Hunwicke
was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Now incardinated into the Personal Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham, he has his base within the Oxford Ordinariate Group. This blog now replaces the Blog Father Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes. Its main purpose is to explore, ad mentem Summi Pontificis, the possibilitiesfor mutual enrichment between three forms of the Roman Rite: the Extraordinary Form, the Ordinary Form, and the Anglican Use. I have been told that my previous blog was disliked because of some the comments on the 'thread'. I take the point. In this blog, all comments will be moderated, and anything which is even implicitly critical of the English Hierarchy or of any member of it, will not be published.
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Raffaello's Madonna di Foligno
The original once graced the high altar of the church of Sancta Maria in Ara Coeli on the Capitoline Hill. A fine copy is at the centre of the great baroque reredos at S Thomas the Martyr, Oxford.
6 comments:
Decree of Pope Clement XIII, 3rd january 1759 (Decreta auth., SRC, n. 2449).
It would be interesting to dig up this document - unfortunately not available on the Vatican website. Acc. to Jungmann, the reason adduced in the decree for imposing the Trinity Preface on Sundays without a Preface - they'd previously just used the Common or ferial Preface - is that on Sunday God began the work of Creation, on Sunday the Lord rose again, and on Sunday the Holy Ghost came down: hence all should laud and honour the Three Persons together on Sundays.
The liturgical reformers of the 1960's hated the Trinity Preface - I recall Bouyer, otherwise quite a decent fellow, God rest him! has some harsh words for it, or was it his description of the Preface for Christ the King as thinly disguised Christian Democrat propaganda? - as apparently it very wickedly and contumaciously isn't a prayer of thanks, but a profession of belief, as a Preface shouldn't be (sez who?).
(For the same reason, many many of the old Ambrosian Prefaces were junked in favour of Roman ones, since they refused to conform to modern liturgical theories about what Prefaces should be, and were prayers or mini-homilies instead.)
Jungmann also notes that a 7th C. Spanish origin for the Trinity Preface is possible, as there's a Mozarabic Preface of the same general sort, though it looks more like an elaboration of the sober Roman text than its source or inspiration:
Dignum et iustum est, ætérne omnípotens Deus, nos te semper laudáre, tibíque quantas póssumus indesinénter grátias agere, qui cum unigénito Fílio tuo, Dómino nostro et Spíritu Sancto, unus es Deus in personárum trinitáte et unus es Dóminus in trinitáte.
Quod enim de glória tua revelánte te crédimus, hoc de Fílio tuo, Dómino nostro Iesu Christo, hoc étiam de Spíritu Sancto sine ulla discretióne sentímus; ut in confessióne veræ sempiternæque deitátis, et in persónis propríetas, et in maiestáte únitas, et in deitáte adorétur æquálitas.
Per te enim, unum verúmque Deum, constántiam fides áccipit; per te virtútem sumit infírmitas, et quidquid est in persecutiónibus sævum, quidquid in morte terríbile, nóminis tui facis confessióne felíciter superári; unde mérito tibi omnes ángeli et archángeli clamáre non cessant, ita dicéntes:
(1988 Missale Hispano-Mozarabicum, Dom III de cotidiano)
[It would take too long to dig out my photocopy of the Missale Mixtum of 1500 as reprinted in Migne.]
The decree links the introduction (that I, wrongly, thought was from 1752 having read that in Crichton) of the preface for Sundays with the eighth responsory at Mattins, Duo Seraphim etc., and Quicumque at Prime as all being liturgial acts praising the Blessed Trinity.
I'll send a photograph of the decree to Fr. H tomorrow.
Thanks to Rubricarius for sending me a photo of the Clementine decree, which I transcribe as follows - the Latin is quite fine (I particularly like the Trinity referred to as "the most august Triad"!):
******
2449. URBIS ET ORBIS. (4275)
SS˜mus Dominus Noster Clemens PP. XIII, inter multiplices Apostolatus sui curas, Sacrorum Rituum amplitudinem prae oculis habere non praetermittens, pia meditatione perpendit quod, quamvis compertum sit Festis quibusvis diebus Ecclesiam iugi cultu Sacrosanctae et individuae Trinitatis solemnia colere, quum Deum ipsum, qui est Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus rerum omnium opifex, et ad quem omnia referenda sunt, in Festis quoque Deiparae et aliorum Sanctorum venerari et glorificari profiteatur; maxime tamen deceat Dominica die, quo Deus ipse lucem condidit, quo Iesus Christus a mortuis resurrexit, quo sedens ad dexteram Patris Paracletum Spiritum Sanctum misit de Coelis, quo proinde ineffabile et incomprehensibile Trinitatis Mysterium manifestum factum est nobis, quemadmodum in divino Officio tum ad Primam recitando Symbolum Quicumque, tum plerumque in ultimo tertii Nocturni Responsorio, Augustissimae Triadis fit commemoratio; idem et in Missae Sacrificio peragi, atque in ea potissimum parte qua contestamur dignum et iustum esse Deo gratias agere eumque collaudare, benedicere et praedicare; idcirco ad maiorem splendidioremque tanti Mysterii gloriam, ut fideles quoque, qui die Dominica Missae interesse debent, latius atque apertius Sacrosancti eiusdem Mysterii praeconia audientes, debitum et ipsi servitutis obsequium supremae impendant Maiestati, statuit atque decernit: «Quod singulis Dominicis diebus totius anni, quibus Praefationes propriae per Rubricas non sunt adsignatae, incipiendo a Dominica SS. Trinitatis currentis anni 1759, Sacerdotes omnes utriusque Cleri, Secularis nempe atque Regularis, Praefationem de SS. Trinitate, quae iam inde a vetustissimis temporibus in usu fuisse dignoscitur, in Missa recitare teneantur».
Et ita inviolabiliter observari mandavit. Die 3 Ianuarii 1759.
SS˜mus is of course the abbreviation for Sanctissimus, and likewise SS. stands for Sanctissima/ae as the case may be.
Why won't this font put the tilde on top of the m, by the way?
m͂ isn't anywhere in unicode as far as I can see - it probably isn't used except in Latin abbreviations. You can try to make it up with a combining diacritical mark http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/combining_diacritical_marks but in my experience they tend not to work very well - the tilde U+0303 worked even worse than the "Greek perispomeni" U+0342 used above.
The EF starts Sunday with Vespers including a hymn to the Trinity.
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