smoothly along in a well-ordered channel, without check or disturbance, through the Middle Ages to our own time. Even the powerful attempt made to stem it through the Reformation had no effect.
A briefer demonstration of the existence of the Mass is the so-called proof from prescription, which is thus formulated: A sacrificial rite in the Church which is older than the oldest attack made on it by heretics cannot be decried as "idolatry", but must be referred back to the Founder of Christianity as a rightful heritage of which He was the originator. Now the Church's legitimate possession as regards the Mass can be traced back to the beginnings of Christianity; it follows that the Mass was Divinely instituted by Christ. Regarding the minor proposition, the proof of which alone concerns us here, we may begin at once with the Reformation, the only movement that utterly did away with the Mass. Psychologically, it is quite intelligible that men like Zwingli. Karlstadt and Œolampadius should tear down the altars, for they denied Christ's real presence in the Sacrament. Calvinism also in reviling the "papistical mass" which the Heidelberg catechism characterized as "cursed idolatry" was merely self-consistent since it admitted only a "dynamic" presence. It is rather strange on the other hand that, in spite of his belief in the literal meaning of the words of consecration, Luther, after a violent" nocturnal disputation with the devil", in 1521, should have repudiated the Mass. But it is exactly these measures of violence that best show to what a depth the institution of the Mass had taken root by that time in Church and people. How long had it been taking root? The answer, to begin with, is: all through the Middle Ages back to Photius, the originator of the Eastern Schism (869). Though Wycliffe protested against the teaching of the Council of Constance (1414-18), which maintained that the Mass could be proved from Scripture; and though the Albigenses and Waldenses claimed for the laity also the power to offer sacrifice (cf. Denzinger, "Enchir.", 585 and 430), it is none the less true that even the schismatic Greeks held fast to the Eucharistic sacrifice as a precious heritage from their Catholic past. In the negotiations for reunion at Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439) they showed moreover that they had kept it intact; and they have faithfully safeguarded it to this day. From all which it is clear that the Mass existed in both Churches long before Photius, a conclusion borne out by the monuments of Christian antiquity.
Taking a long step backwards from the ninth to the
fourth century, we come upon the Nestorians and
Monophysites who were driven out of the Church
during the fifth century at Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451). From that day to this they have celebrated in their solemn liturgy the sacrifice of the New
Law, and since they could only have taken it with
them from the old Christian Church, it follows that the
Mass goes back in the Church beyond the time of
Nestorianism and Monophysitism. Indeed, the first
Nicene Council (325) in its celebrated eighteenth
canon forbade priests to receive the Eucharist from
the hands of deacons for the very obvious reason that
"neither the canon nor custom have handed down to
us, that those, who have not the power to offer sacrifice ((
Greek characters)) may give Christ's body to those who
offer ((Greek characters))". Hence it is plain that for the
celebration of the Mass there was required the dignity
of a special priesthood, from which the deacons as such
were excluded. Since, however, the Nicene Council
speaks of a "custom", that takes us at once into the
third century, we are already in the age of the Catacombs
(q. v.) with their Eucharistic pictures, which according to the best founded opinions represent the liturgical celebration of the Mass. According to Wilpert,
the oldest representation of the Holy Sacrifice is in the
"Greek Chapel" in the Catacomb of St. Priscilla (c.
150). The most convincing evidence, however, from
those early days is furnished by the liturgies of the
West and the East, the basic principles of which reach
back to Apostolic times and in which the sacrificial
idea of the Eucharistic celebration found unadulterated and decisive expression (see LITURGIES). We
have therefore traced the Mass from the present to the
earliest times, thus establishing its Apostolic origin,
which in turn goes back again to the Last Supper.
On the idea of Sacrifice ef. BECANUS, De triplici sacrificio naturæ, legis, gratiæ (Lyons, 1631); STOCKL, Das Opfer nach seinem Wesen und seiner Geschichte (Mainz, 1861); KOPPLER, Priester und Opfergabe (Mainz, 1886); for scripture proof, of, the exegetical commentaries of KNABENBAUER, SCHANZ, SCHÄFER, etc.; also TRALHOFER, Die Opfer des Hebraerbriefes (Dillingen, 1855); BICKELL, Messe und Pascha (Mainz, 1871); PATRY, Le caractère religieux de la Sainte Cine in Revue chrétienne, LVI (1909), 518; RIGGENBACH, Der Begriff der dafnen im Hebraer brief (Leipzig, 1908); GARDENER, The Origin of the Lord's Supper (London, 1893); MOZLEY, The Meaning of TOUTO TOLère in The Expositor, XXIX (1903), 370 sq.; MACKINTOSH, The Objective Aspect of the Lord's Supper in The Expositor, XXIX, 180 sq.; EAGAR, St. Luke's Account of the Last Supper in The Expositor, XXXIV (1908), 252 sq.; 343 sq.; DENNEY, The Cup of the Lord and the Cup of the Demons in The Expositor, XXXIII (1908), 290 8. BARES, Die moderne protestantische Abendmahls forschung (Trier, 1910). For proof from tradition see WIELAND, Mensa und Confessio I: Der Altar der vorkonstantinischen Kirche (Munich, 1906); IDEM, Der vorirenaische Opferbegriff (Munich, 1909). For a contrary view see DOкSCH, Der Opfercharakter der Eucharistic einst und jetzt (Innsbruck, 1909); GARRETT PIERSE, The Mass in the Infant Church (Dublin, 1909); RENZ, Der Opfer- charakter der Eucharistie nach der Lehre der Vater und Kirchen- schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (Paderborn, 1892); BATIFFOL, Etudes d'histoire et de théologie positive (Paris, 1902); RAUSCHEN, Eucharistie und Bussakrament in den ersten 6 Jahrhunderten (2nd ed., Fribourg. 1910); BRIDGETT, A His- tory of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain (London, 1908); STONE, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (2 vols., FRANKLAND, The Holy Eucharist (London, 1902); DARWELL London, 1909); NAEGLE, Die Eucharistielehre des ht. Chrysosto- mus (Fribourg, 1900); WILDEN, Die Lehre des hl. Augustinus uber das Opfer der Eucharistic (Schaffhausen, 1864); BLANK, Die Lehre des ht. Augustin vom Sakrament der Eucharistie (Pa- derborn, 1907); ADAM, Die Eucharistielchre des hl. Augustin (Paderborn, 1908); FRANZ, Die Messe im deutschen Mittelalter (Freiburg, 1902); RAIBLE, Der Tabernakel einst und jetzt. Eine historische und liturgische Darstellung der Andacht zur auf- bewahrten Eucharistie (Freiburg, 1908); PROBST, Die Liturgie der ersten drei christlichen Jahrhunderte (Tübingen, 1870); IDEM, Die Liturgie des 4. Jahrhunderts und deren Reform (Munster, 1892); IDEM, Die Abendländische Messe vom 5. bis zum 8. Jahr- hundert (Münster, 1896); MONE, Lateinische und Griechische Messen aus dem 2. bis 6. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt, 1850); SWAIN- SON. The Greek Liturgies (London, 1884); MERCATI, Antiche Reliquie liturgiche (Rome, 1902); SEMERIA, La Messa nella sua storia e nei suoi Simboli (2nd ed., Rome, 1907); ERMONI, L'Eucharistie dans l'Eglise primitive (5th ed., Paris, 1908); CABROL, Origines liturgiques (Paris, 1906); BAUMSTARK, Litur- gia Romana e Liturgia dell' Esarcato (Rome, 1904); IDEM, Die Messe im Morgenland (Kempten, 1906); DREWS, Untersuch- ungen über die sogen. Clementinische Liturgic (Leipzig, 1906); WILPERT,"Fractio panis" oder die alteste Darstellung des euchar. Opfers in der Cappella Greca (Freiburg, 1895); IDEM, Die Romischen Katakomben (Freiburg, 1903).
(2) The Nature of the Mass.-In its denial of the true Divinity of Christ and of every supernatural insti- tution, modern unbelief endeavours, by means of the so-called historico-religious method, to explain the character of the Eucharist and the Eucharistic sacri- fice as the natural result of a spontaneous process of development in the Christian religion. In this con- nexion it is interesting to observe how these different and conflicting hypotheses refute one another, with the rather startling result at the end of it all that a new.great, and insoluble problem looms up for investi- gation. While some discover the roots of the Mass in the Jewish funeral feasts (O). Holtzmann) or in Jewish Essenism (Bousset, Heitmüller, Wernle), others delve in the underground strata of pagan religions. Here, however, a rich variety of hypotheses is placed at their disposal. In this age of Pan-Babylonism it is not at all surprising that the germinal ideas of the Christian communion should be located in Babylon, where in the Adapa myth (on the tablet of Tell Amarna) men- tion has been found of "water of life" and "food of life" (Zimmern). Others (e. g. Brandt) fancy they have found a still more striking analogy in the "bread and water" (Pathâ and Mambûhâ) of the Mandæan religion. The view most widely held to-day among
