Pope Benedict, The Mozarabic Rite, and the ultra-valid glue-pot

The 1755 Edition of the Mozarabic Missal ...

Yes; I thought that would encourage a fair number of you to move on fast, or fastish, to the other blogs on your daily lists.

That Missal, BTW, is a trifle odd. It was published in Rome, not in Toledo. Edited by, er, a Jesuit. Oddisher and Oddisher. 

On folio 230 ... I'll wait while the remnants of the readership find the page ... the Forms of Eucharistic Consecration are printed. In the Morarabic rite, that means Hoc est corpus meum quod pro vobis tradetur. And, a tadge down the page, Hic est calix novi testamenti in meo sanguine qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum. 

But Hang On: in the margin, printed in smallish type is the following: Forma ista ponitur consecrationis ne antiquitas ignoretur, sed hodie servetur Ecclesiae traditio. Vide infra.

What do you think that means? "This formula of the Consecration is placed [here] lest Antiquity be unknown [?ignored? forgotten?]. But today, the tradition of the church should be preserved. See below."

 At the foot of the page,  the Verba Domini are indeed printed, verbatim as in the Missal of S Pius V.

So the old Mozarabic Verba Domini count as "History", "Antiquity", and the forms of Consecration in the post-Conciliar Missal ... I mean by that, the post Tridentine Missal ... count as "the Tradition of the Church".

Well, if you say so, Lord Copper.

Did I mention that this Missal was Oddish?

Moreover, the Missal seems to be in two volumes. Unusual ... impracticable ... but most of the second volume is taken up with Notae. 

Even impracticabler. I'd better have a closer look. Yes!! There is Note about the page we've just been looking at. Get this: "Animadvertendum haec verba forma ista ponitur &c. quae modo in margine pag. 230. leguntur, & verba consecratoria Romana, quae ad calcem ejusdem paginae adjiciuntur, ab initio Missali Mozarabico typis edito apposita non fuisse, sed, ut quorumdam scrupulis satisfieret, postea glutine esse affixa, ut cuilibet codices aniquos inspicienti patet."

I.e. the first printed Mozarabic Missal did not contain the marginal note, or the Roman consecratory formulae, "but in order to satisfy the scruples of some people they were subsequently stuck on with glue. It's obvious to anybody who looks at the ancient books". 

Fascinating ... to watch a newer Tridentinish precision about exact Words of Consecration doing battle, via the glue-pot, with older, authentically Spanish, Tradition. 

And, yes, I do not think this Mozarabic Missal was ever meant for use at the Altar. It is a presentation, 'Library', edition.

As the Preface addressed to none other than Pope Benedict XIV doctissimus Maximusque Pontifex makes clear, this book has become incredibly rare and expensive ... so that the commodum and utilitas disciplinae liturgicae demand that the most ancient rites and ceremonies of famous churches should hide away no longer, propemodum ignotae, in the libraries of of princes and sumptuosorum hominum.

I wonder how many copies they sold.

The preface goes on to compliment Benedict who Eucharistici sacrificii ritus omnes omnemque oeconomiam, magna doctrinae sacrae copia, tribus Libris dilucide, eruditeque explicavit.