GOOD
643
GOOD
them, although not regarded by other moralists as
convincing, is that good faitli saves the communicant
from the conscious interposition of any obstacle to the
productive activity of the Sacrament.
Slater, Manual of Moral Theology (New York, 1908); RiCKABY, Aguinas Elhicus (London, 1S96); Ballerini, Opus Theologicum Morale (Prato, 1898).
Joseph F. Delany.
Good Friday, called Feria VI in Parasceve in the Roman Missal, ri ayla kcu tueydXr) irapaaKevfi (the Holy and Great Friday) in the Greek Liturgy, Holy Friday in the Romance Languages, Charjreitag (Sorrowful Fri- day) in German, is the English designation of Friday in Holy Week, that is, the Friday on which the Church keeps the anniversary of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Parasceve, the Latin equivalent of TapaaKev-fi, preparation (i. e. the preparation that was made on the sixth day for the Sabbath; see Mark, xv, 42) came by metonymy to signify the day on which the prepara- tion was made; but while the Greeks retained this use of the word as applied to every Friday, the Latins con- fined its application to the one Friday. Irenseusand Tertullian speak of Good Friday as the day of the Pasch; but later writers distinguish betweenthe Ildirxa (TTavptiainov (the passage to death), and the lldirxa avauTCKniMv (the passage to life, i. e. the Resurrection). At present the word Pasch is used exclusively in the latter sense (see Nilles, II, 253; also Kirchenlex., s. v. "Charfreitag"). The two Paschs are the oldest feasts in the calendar (Biiumer, vol. I). From the earliest times the Christians kept every Friday as a fast day (Duchesne, 22S) and every Sunday as a feast day (Duchesne, 47) ; and the obvious reasons for those usages explain why Easter is the Sunday ipar excel- lence^ antl why the Friday which marks the anniver- sary of Christ's Death came to be called the Great or the Holy or the Good Friday. The origin of the term Good is not clear. Some say it is from " God's Friday" {Gottes Freitag), so Hampson (op. cit. below); others maintain that it is from the Cierman Gute Freitag, and not specially English. Sometimes, too, the day was callecl Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons; so to-day in Denmark.
There is, perhaps, no office in the whole liturgy so peculiar, so interesting, so composite, so dramatic as the office and ceremonial of Good Friday. About the vigil office, which in early times commenced at mid- night in the Roman, and at 3 a.m. in the Galilean Church, it will suffice to remark that, for 400 years past, it has been anticipated by five or six hours, but retains tho.se peculiar features of mourning which mark the evening offices of the preceding and follow- ing day, all three being known as the Tenebrse (q. v.). The morning office is in three distinct parts. The first part consists of three lessons from Sacred Scrip- ture (two chants and a prayer being interposed) which are followed by a long series of prayers for various intentions; the second part includes the ceremony of unveiling and adoring the Cross, accompanied by the chanting of the Improperia: the third part is known as the Mass of the Prcsanctified, which is preceded by a procession and followed by vespers. Each of these parts will lie l^riefly noticed here. The Hour of None being finished, the celebrant and ministers, clothed in black vestments, come to the altar and prostrate themsvilves for a short time in prayer. In the mean- time, the acolytes spread a single cloth on the denuded altar. No lights are used. When the celebrant and ministers ascend the altar, a lector takes his place on the epistle side, and reads a lesson from Osee, vi. This is followed by a tract sung by the choir. Next comes a prayer sung by the celebrant, which is followed by another lesson from Exodus, xii, chanted by the sub- deacon. This is followed by another tract (Ps. exxxix), at the close of which the third lesson, viz. the Passion according to St. John, is sung by the deacons or recited from a bare pulpit — " dicitur passio super
nudum pulpitum". When this is finished, the cele-
brant sings a long series of prayers for different inten-
tions, viz. for the Church, pope, bishop of the diocese,
for the different orders in the Church, for the Roman
Emperor (now omitted outside the dominions of Aus-
tria), for catechumens .... The above order of
lessons, chants, and prayers for Good Friday is found
in our earliest Roman Ordines, dating from about A. D.
800. It represents, according to Duchesne (234), " the
exact order of the ancient Synaxes without a liturgy",
i. e. the order of the earliest Christian prayer meetings,
at which, however, the liturgy proper, i. e. the Mass,
was not celebrated. This kind of meeting for worship
was derived from the Jewish Synagogue service, and
consisted of lessons, chants, and prayers. In the
course of time, as early perhaps as A. D. 150 (see
Cabrol's "Origines Liturgiquss," 137). the celebration
of the Eucharist was combined with this purely eu-
chological service to form one solemn act of Christian
worship, which came to be called the Mass. It is to be
noted that the Mass is still in two distinct parts, the
first consisting of lessons, prayers, and chants; and
the second being the celebration of the Eucharist (in-
cluding the Offertory, Canon, and Communion).
While the Judica, Introit, and the Gloria in Excelsis
have been added to this first part of the Mass and the
long series of prayers omitted from it, the oldest order
of the Synaxis, or meeting without Mass, has been
retained in the Good Friday service. The form of the
prayers deserves to be noticed. Each prayer is in
three parts, (a) The celebrant invites the congrega-
tion to pray for a specified intention, (b) The deacon
then says " Let us kneel " (Flectamus genua) ; then the
people were supposed to pray for a time kneeling in
silence, but at present immediately after the invita-
tion to kneel the subdeacon invites them to stand up
(Levate). (c) Tlie celebrant collects, as it were, all
their prayers, and voices them aloud. The modern
collect is the representative of this old solemn form of
prayer. The first part is reduced to the Oreraus, the
second part has disappeared, and the third part re-
mains in its entirety and has come to be called the
collect. It is curious to note in these very old Good
Friday prayers that the second part is omitted in the
prayers for the Jews, owing, it is said, to their having
insulted Christ by bending the knee in mockery before
Him. These prayers were not peculiar to Good Fri-
day in the early ages (they were said on Spy Wednes-
day as late as the eighth century); their retention
here, it is thought, was inspired by the idea that the
Church should pray for all classes of men on the day
that Christ died for all. Duchesne (172) is of opinion
that the Oremus now said in every Mass before the
Offertory, which is not a prayer, remains to show
where this old series of prayers was once said in all
Masses.
The dramatic unveiling and adoration of the Cross, which was introduced into the Latin Liturgy in the seventh or eighth century, had its origin in the Church of Jerusalem. The " Peregrinatio Sylvije " (the real name is Etheria) contains a description of the cere- mony as it took place in Jerusalem towards the close of the fourth century. "Then a chair is placed for the Bishop in Golgotha behind the Cross ... a table covered with a linen cloth is placed before him; the Deacons stand around the table, and a silver-gilt casket is brought in which is the wood of the holy Cross. The casket is opened and (the wood) is taken out, and both the wood of the Cross and the Title are placed upon the table. Now, when it has been put upon the table, the Bishop, as he sits, holds the ex- tremities of the sacred wood firmly in his hands, while the Deacons who stand around guard it. It is guarded thus because the oistom is that the people, both faith- ful and catechumens, come one by one and, bowing down at the table, kiss the sacred wood and pass on" (Duchesne, tr. McClure, 504). Our present ceremony
