Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/44

Before the reading of the Karyâna the deacon exclaims aloud: "Sit down, and be silent;" and, when it is ended, the people rise at the bidding of the same minister, who then gives notice of the short psalm which is to follow, and which is then taken up and sung by the officiating priest. This psalm is called Shoorâya,^[1] and generally consists of two verses taken from the Psalter, to which the Gloria Patri is added. The Shoorâya,⁷ therefore, appears to hold the same place in the Nestorian liturgy, as the tractus does in the Roman, the προκείμενον in the Constantinopolitan, and the psalmellus in the Milan liturgies.^[2]

The Shlieha, or Epistle, as we have already observed, is now recited near the altar, but formerly it was read on the Gagolta,^[3] the name given to an ambon at the western end of the church, consisting of two raised stone platforms, placed opposite to each other, and reached by several steps or stairs. The Turgâma being ended, the deacon proclaims the title of the Epistle, and begins the lesson with the invocation: "Give Thy blessing, Lord," and the apostolic address: "My brethren." At the conclusion of the Epistle, the deacon says: "Praise be to Christ our Lord," after which the Zoomâra, literally a song or hymn, consisting like the Shoorâya, of a couplet from the Psalms, the Alleluia, and the Gloria Patri, is chanted alternately by the officiating priest and deacons. This anthem seems to hold the place of the Alleluia sung after the Epistle in the Roman Liturgy, and of the hymns called prosæ or sequentiæ⁸ of Notker, abbot of S. Gall in Switzerland, and which were sung after the Graduale.^[4]

1. Literally, the beginning; so called perhaps from the notice which the deacon gives of the first words of the appointed psalm.
2. See Palmer's Origines Liturgicæ, Vol. I. chap. iv. § 4.
3. Literally Golgotha, probably so called on account of the steps which led up to the ambon. The Golgotha of the New Testament is supposed to have been a mound or hill. This species of pulpit has fallen into disuse, and has been pulled down in most of the Chaldean churches. The only one which I have met with, is that in the Tâhara, or church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin in Mosul, two views of which are hereto annexed. The churches of the mountain Nestorians are generally so small, and of comparatively so late a date, that I doubt whether the Gagolta was ever erected in them.
4. See Palmer ubi supra.