this liturgy is roughly as follows: first the Mass of the Catechumens, consisting of prayers, unrhythmical hymns, and readings from the Old and New Testaments (corresponding to our Mass to the end of the Gospel). Then follows the Mass of the Faithful: the bread and wine are solemnly brought to the altar, the Nicene Creed is said, then follow the Kiss of Peace and the "Anaphora," that is, the Consecration prayer, beginning "The Lord be with you," "Lift up your hearts," "It is truly meet and just," &c., as our Preface. The long prayer contains the words of Institution: "Take, eat, this is my Body broken for you and given for the remission of sins," and "Drink of this all; this is my Blood of the New Testament, shed for you and for many and given for the remission of sins." These words are said aloud, and each time the people answer Amen. Then comes the Invocation (Ἐπίκλησις), a prayer that God may send the Holy Ghost to change this bread and wine into the Body and Blood of his Son, some more prayers, the reading of the Diptychs containing the names of people to be prayed for, the Memory of the Saints (our Communicantes), the Our Father, a sort of Elevation with the words "Sancta Sanctis" (τὰ ἁγια τοῖς ἁγίοις), the breaking of the Host of which a part is put into the chalice, the communion of priest and people (always under both kinds), then a prayer of thanksgiving and the blessing and dismissal of the people. That is in general terms the order of the liturgy in Syria in the 5th century. At first there was no special liturgical language. Greek was used where the people understood it best, that is, in Antioch and probably the other chief towns, and Syriac in the country where the people spoke nothing else. Then came the great Monophysite schism after Chalcedon, and each language became a distinctive mark of one of the two sides. The Melkites used Greek,[1] the Jacobites Syriac. But as the Melkite Patriarchate gradually became more and more dependent on Constantinople, it began to use the Byzantine rite, till at last the Greek Liturgy of St. James almost entirely disappeared (p. 395). But the Jacobites always kept their Syrian Liturgy of St. James and evolved out of it with slight changes a number of daughter-rites.
- ↑ There was, however, a Melkite Liturgy in Syriac.
