we must count this one as (remotely) Antiochene. It certainly does not come from Egypt. Moreover, as opposed to the Alexandrine group, it has Antiochene features, such as the litany-form of public prayer; though the Intercession comes before the Consecration.[1] The Calendar, too, shows traces of Antiochene arrangement. On the other hand, if it is Antiochene, it is only remotely so. If originally it was the rite of Antioch[2] which came to Edessa, it evolved there into something very unlike its original form. The East Syrian rite lacks a great number of peculiarities which we associate with Antioch. So some writers do not see sufficient reason to class it under Antioch at all. It stands apart from the great liturgical group of Apostolic Constitutions VIII, St. James, the Jacobite, Byzantine, and Armenian rites; and so they count it as forming a class of its own.[3]
This ancient Edessene or East Syrian rite then naturally spread to Persia[4] with the Edessene missionaries. It was used in the Persian Church, and then by all Nestorians. It is their speciality; while Jacobites have the liturgy of JerusalemAntioch, and the Orthodox since the 13th century that of Constantinople.[5]
The books used in this rite have not all been translated. The holy liturgy in the strict sense (the Eucharistic service) is naturally what has most been studied. There are many versions and editions of this (p. 151, n. 4). Of the other functions only fragments can be read in a European language.
The services of the East Syrian rite are first the Divine Office (the Canonical Hours), which should be said daily in every church. They are Ramshâ (dramshâ = "at evening") corresponding to
- ↑ Just before the anaphora. The Antiochene place is after the Consecration.
- ↑ In any case before the development of Antioch-Jerusalem represented by St. James's liturgy (The Mass, pp. 80–84).
- ↑ So Baumstark: Die Messe im Morgenland (Kempten and Munich, 1906), 48–52. Renaudot thinks that the reason why Nestorians did not keep the Antiochene rite is that their sect was not formed of native Syrians so much as of fugitives from all parts of the empire, who gathered at Edessa and then in Persia (Lit. Orient. Coll. ii. pp. ii–iii).
- ↑ Brightman calls it "the Persian rite" (Eastern Liturgies, 245–305).
- ↑ The Uniate Chaldees, of course, have the same rite (corrected) as the Nestorians.
