silent masses, missee solitarise, at which usually no one is present but the priest, with the attendant boys, who offers to God at a certain tariff the magical, ly produced body of Christ for the dehverance of a soul from purgatory. This insti- tution has also a heathen precedent in the old Roman custom of offering sacrifices to the Manes of beloved dead. On Gregory's doctrine of the mass, which belongs in the next period, comp. the monograph of Lau, p. 484 f. The horrible abuse of these masses for the dead, and their close connection with superstitious impostures of pur- gatory and of indulgence, explain the moral anger of the Reformers at the mass, and the strong declarations against it in several symbolical books, especially in the Smal- cald Articles by Luther (ii. 2, where the mass is called draeonis cauda), and in the Heidelberg Catechism (the 80th question, which, by the way, is wanting entirely in the first edition of 1563, and was first inserted in the second edition by express com- mand of the Elector Friedrich III., and in the third edition was enriched with the epithet " damnable idolatry "). 512 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. and accompaniment. The old liturgies are essentially, and almost exclusively, eucharistic prayers and exercises ; they contain nothing besides, except some baptismal formulas and prayers for the catechumens. The word liturgy .(XeiToi;p7ta), which properly embraces all parts of the worship of God, de- notes in the narrower sense a celebration of the eucharist or the mass. • Here lies a cardinal difference between the Catholic and Evangelical cultus : in the former the sacrifice of the mass, in the latter the sermon, is the centre. With all variations in particulars, especially in the intro- ductory portions, the old Catholic liturgies agree in the essen- tial points, particularly in the prayers which immediately pre- cede and follow the consecration of the elements. They all (excepting some Syriac copies of certain ISTestorian and Mono- physite formularies) repeat the solemn "Words of Institution from the Gospels,' understanding them not merely in a declara- tory but in an operative sense ; they all contain the acts of Con- secration, Intercession, and Communion ; all (except the Ro- man) invoke the Holy Ghost upon the elements to sanctify them, and make them actual vehicles of the body and blood of Christ ; all conceive the Eucharist primarily as a sacrifice, and then, on the basis of the sacrifice, as a communion. The eucharistic action in the narrower sense is called the Anaphora^ or the canon 7nissce, and begins after the close of the service of the catechumens (which consisted principally of reading and preaching, and extended to the Ofiertory, i. e., the preparation of the bread and wine, and the placing of it on the altar). It is introduced with the "Avco Ta<i Kaphia<i^ or Sursuni Gorda^ of the priest : the exhortation to the faithful to lift up their hearts in devotion, and take part