Subject:  The ENGLISH Ordinal |
Author:
Ernst
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Date Posted: 00:52:53 05/26/05 Thu
In reply to:
Clement LO
's message, "Prayer Book Ordinal" on 09:29:29 05/13/05 Fri
The ENGLISH Ordinal
We read in the New Testament that the Early Church ordained ministers by the laying on of hands : the seven deacons were thus ordained, after they had been duly elected (Acts vi), by prayer and the imposition of hands; and St. Paul speaks to St. Timothy of the gift, "which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery" ("presbyter" and "priest" being different forms of the same word) and again he exhorts him to "stir up the gift of God, which is in thee through the laying on of my hands" (1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6). The 3rd century Canons of Hippolytus, and the 4th century Testamentum Domini, show that the laying on of hands with appropriate prayer was used for bishops, priests, and deacons mention is also made of minor orders — subdeacons and readers; but these were not ordained by the imposition of hands in the West, nor as yet generally in the East. In the Old Roman services of the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, ordination still consisted entirely of prayer, accompanied by the imposition of hands. These two things, then, are the essential features of the rite.
There were in Rome at this time, and had been for three centuries, five minor orders of ministers (making eight orders in all), viz. subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, doorkeepers: these were appointed by giving them some article required in their ministrations; thus the acolyte was given a linen bag (the receptacle then used for the Sacrament), and the subdeacon a chalice (or a chalice and paten, with a water-cruet and napkin) — his business being to keep these things in order. This was called the "Tradition [i.e. delivery] of the Instruments." The ordination of bishops, priests, and deacons was sharply distinguished from such admission to the minor orders by consisting of the laying on of hands. To this was added in the Gallican use the anointing of the priest's hands, after his ordination. In the Missal of Leofric, Bishop of Exeter (†1072), we find another ceremony, the blessing and giving of vestments — stoles for the deacons and chasubles to the priests — the chasuble, originally a garment common to lay-folk and clergy, being by this time mainly used by priests, though even at the present day it is still worn by deacons at certain seasons such as Lent.
In the 11th century a curious change began. The "Tradition of the Instruments," which had been the way of appointing to the minor orders, and the distinctive mark of this appointment, came to be added to the three chief orders: to the priest was given a chalice with wine and a paten with a wafer; to the deacon, a Gospel-book. In an uncritical age this "Tradition" — being a picturesque and striking ceremony — soon came to be looked upon as essential; and by we find a pope asserting that it is the "matter," i.e. the outward sign, of the sacrament of Holy Order. This came to be accepted in the Roman Communion; and thus it was that some Roman Catholics have thought that Anglican Orders were not valid, because this form of the "Tradition of the Instruments" was dropped in the Second Prayer Book. In 1896 the Pope of Rome found fault with our form of ordination to the priesthood, because the first four English Ordinals (1550, &c.) did not use the word "priest" in immediate connexion with the imposition of hands. As a matter of fact, the services in all our five English Ordinals are called "The Ordering of Deacons," "The Ordering of Priests," and "The Consecration of Bishops" ; and the candidates in all our ordinals are presented "to be admitted Deacons," "to the Order of Priesthood," and "to be consecrated bishop." The Pope's objection was thus rather thin, since the words were plainly used, and, the intention (which he also called in question) perfectly definite. But the question was finally settled by the discovery only three years later, in Bishop Serapion's Sacramentary, that he in the middle of the 4th century did not use the word "priest" at all.
The first English Ordinal was not issued till 1550, the Sarum forms remaining in force for a year under the First Prayer Book. Cranmer and his colleagues acted wisely in reforming the confusion which had grown up in the Middle Ages; for in the Sarum books the primitive and Catholic ordination of a priest by laying on of hands — which we will call (1) — was followed by three additional ordinations, invented in the Middle Ages; (2) Anointing of the hands, (3) Tradition of the Instruments; and (4) a Second laying on of hands, with the words "Receive the Holy Ghost," etc. In the Roman Use this is made worse; for the original imposition (no. 1) has actually disappeared, the bishop merely extending his hands, and only laying them on the candidate at no. 4.
The Reformers brought back the rites to the Scriptural method, which was also that of Rome until the Middle Ages, by restoring to its proper place the imposition of hands; for this end they gave up the anointing (2), altered (3), and added the form of (4) to the original rite, (1). Otherwise they kept to the lines of the Sarum Pontifical, retaining the Presentation of the Candidates, Litany, Instruction, Bidding, Veni Creator, and Holy Communion. They retained also, in deference to current ideas, a reduced form of the Tradition of the Instruments, the First Ordinal, directing the bishop to give to each priest a Bible in one hand, and "the Chalice or cup with the bread" in the other. In the Second Prayer Book the chalice and paten were omitted; and the giving of the Bible thus remains with us to-day, a ceremony eloquent not only for its own significance, but also for its witness as a relic of that other Tradition which once took a larger place in men's minds than the way of ordination set forth in God's Word
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