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West Syrian Rite

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Brightman (pp. lviii-lix) mentions sixty-four Liturgies as known, at least by name. Notes of this bewildering number of Anaphoras will be found after each in Renaudot. In most cases all he can say is that he knows nothing of the real author; often the names affixed are otherwise unknown. Many Anaphoras are obviously quite late, inflated with long prayers and rhetorical, expressions, many contain Monophysite ideas, some are insufficient at the consecration so as to be invalid. Baumstark (Die Messe im Morgenland, 44-46) thinks the Anaphora of St. Ignatius most important, as containing parts of the old pure Antiochene Rite. He considers that many attributions to later Jacobite authors may be correct, that the Liturgy of Ignatius of Antioch (Joseph Ibn Wahib; d. 1304) is the latest. Most of these Anaphoras have now fallen into disuse. The Jacobite celebrant generally uses the shortened form of St. James.
There is an Armenian version (shortened) of the Syriac St. James. The Liturgy is said in Syriac with (since the fifteenth century) many Arabic substitutions in the lessons and pro-anaphoral prayers. The Lectionary and Diaconicum have not been published and are badly known. The vestments correspond almost exactly to those of the Orthodox, except that the bishop wears a Latinized mitre. The Calendar has few feasts. It follows in its main lines the older of Antioch, observed also by the Nestorians, which is the basis of the Byzantine Calendar. Feasts are divided into three classes of dignity. Wednesday and Friday are fast-days. The Divine Office consists of Vespers, Compline, Nocturns, Lauds, Terce, Sext, and None, or rather of hours that correspond to these among Latins. Vespers always belongs to the following day. The great part of this consists of long poems composed for the purpose, like the Byzantine odes. Baptism is performed by immersion; the priest confirms at once with chrism blessed by the patriarch. Confession is not much used; it has fallen into the same decay as in most Eastern Churches. Communion is administered under both kinds; the sick are anointed with oil blessed by a priest—the ideal is to have seven priests to administer it. The orders are bishop, priest, deacon, subdeacon, [[Reader|lector]], and singer. There are many chorepiscopi, not ordained bishop. It will be seen, then, that one little Jacobite Church has followed much the same line of development in its rites as its powerful Orthodox neighbour.
The Syrian Catholics use the same rite as the Jacobites. But (as is the case with most Eastern Rite Catholic Churches) it is better organized with them. There is not much that can be called Romanizing in their books; but they have the advantage of well-arranged, well-edited, and well-printed books. All the great students of the West-Syrian Rite (the Assemani, Renaudot, etc.) have been Catholic. Their knowledge and the higher Western standard of scholarship in general are advantages of which the Syrian Catholics rather than the Jacobites profit. Of the manifold Syrian Anaphoras the Catholics use seven only—those of St. James, St.John, St. Peter, St. Chrysostom, St. Xystus, St. Mathew, and St. Basil. That of St. Xystus is attached to the Ordo communis in their official book; that of St. John is said on the chief feasts. The lessons only are in Arabic. It was inevitable that the Syrian Liturgies, coming from Monophysite sources, should be examined at Rome before they are allowed to Syrian Catholics. But the revisers made very few changes. Out of the mass of Anaphoras they chose the oldest and purest, leaving out the long series of later ones that were unorthodox, or even invalid. In the seven kept for Syrian Catholic use what alterations have been made chiefly the omission of redundant prayers, simplification of confused parts in which the Diaconicum and the Euchologion had become mixed together. The only important correction is the omission of the fatal clause: "Who was crucified for us" in the Trisagion. There is no suspicion of modifying in the direction of the Roman Rite. The other books of the Catholics—the Diaconicum, officebook, and ritual—are edited at Rome, Beirut, and the Patriarchal press Sharfé; they are considerably the most accessible, the best-arranged books in which to study this rite.
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