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Offices of the Holy Eastern Church
tr. Littledale, 1863
d1
The object of this book, planned some years since, is to facilitate the studies of those who desire to acquire some knowledge of the rites of the Eastern Church.
The Liturgies are, thanks to the labours of Dr. Neale, readily accessible, and for the remaining offices there is no work which gives so much information as his “Introduction to the History of the Holy Eastern Church”. In its pages, as well as in those of Dr. King’s “Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia” (London 1772) several of the offices which I have here inserted will be found translated. There is indeed but little in these pages which has not been before now given to the English reader, save the ordination of Deaconesses and portions of the services for the three chief festivals of the year.
A version of the Lauds of Easter Day has been given by Dr. Neale in his “Introduction”, and the Easter and Christmas Canons have been also translated by him in his “Hymns of the Eastern Church”, to which I refer those who desire to see them treated as poems, as my translation is throughout designed merely to remind the reader that he has hymns and not collects before him. - I have, nevertheless, not hesitated to give them anew, as (setting aside the cost of the “Introduction” and the rarity of Dr. King’s book) in no case is the original text given with these versions. My aim has been to put a ritual Chrestomathy into the hands of those who are commencing liturgical studies, and to smooth away some of the difficulties which beset their path.
How small a sample I have presented may be gathered from the fact that the Euchologion, from which the occasional offices have been given, consists (and that not in its largest issue) of nearly seven hundred quarto pages, while the class of service-books from which the Festal Hours are extracted amounts to sixteen quartos, and about four thousand pages. In the choice of the earlier portions of this book, I have been to some extent guided by the liturgical controversies of the day, and have accordingly given the Eastern version of those rites of the Book of Common Prayer whose withdrawal or revision is sought by a section within the English Church, in order that it may be seen to what extent their demands accord with the teaching of the least changeful of communions. In the second portion, I have simply placed the offices of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost side by side, as shewing most completely the manner in which the dogmatic teaching of the East finds its exponent in its ritual. There are many offices of great beauty which I should gladly have given, such as those of the Prayer-Oil and the Dedication of a Church on the one hand, and those of Palm Sunday and Good Friday on the other, but I could not have done so without unduly swelling the limits of the work. These offices, although in the form given here confined to the small body of Greek-speaking Christians, have a wider and less archeological interest. They are, with but slight modifications (not so great as those of the American Prayer-book when compared with the English), those in use in the vast and increasing Russian Church, whose Slavonic Service-books are direct translations from Greek originals. It is scarcely necessary to observe that nearly all the Hymns in these various offices are in rhyth-
* mical prose, scanned by accent alone, and unfettered by the laws of metre and quantity.
The exceptions are in Trimeter Iambics.
There is nothing in English which gives any clear idea of their structure. The nearest resemblance which [ can suggest is that afforded by some portions of Southey’s Thalaba and ‘Kehama. I hesitated, when undertaking to translate them, whether I should not render them literally into ordinary prose, but I believe that the gain in exactness of meaning would have been more than counterbalanced by the utter unlikeness of form. I have therefore permitted myself a slight deviation from the letter of the text when I have given rhythmical prose. The Iambic hymns, which I have represented by ordinary dramatic verse, are less literal still, and where I have introduced, or, more frequently, just suggested rime, my version is sometimes only an imitation. The translation will not be found free from obscurities, but when the original writer has been careful to involve his meaning, as very often happens, it is not easy to reproduce him in pellucid English without giving a commentary thrice as long as the text.
In quotations from Holy Writ, I have followed the Authorized Version instead of translating from the LXx, save in the case of the Psalms, where the Prayer Book version (as nearer to the Lxx) has been preferred. In numbering the Psalms, I have altered the headings in the English part to suit the Hebrew order, as the most familiar to general readers.
The notes are gathered from a variety of sources, of which it will be sufficient to indicate, in addition to the books already mentioned, Goar’s edition of the Euchologion (Paris 1647), and Martene, De Antiquis Ecclesie Ritibus. They are meant only to suggest to the student how to solve similar problems for himself, and are by no means designed as a history or a rationale of the rites they illustrate. That is a task the execution of which would as far surpass my powers as it would the extent of this book. I believe that the glossary which I have appended will be found the most useful part of my attempt. The rarity and costliness of the lexicons which are necessary for the explanation of the commonest Greek liturgical terms put them, and the studies to which they are the keys, out of the reach of the majority of students, and have, I believe, mainly contributed to the prevalent ignorance of Eastern —ritual. I had at first designed giving only the difficult words which occur in the course of my own selections, but further thought induced me to expand my plan and to collect from DuCange and other sources all the ecclesiastical terms which the student is not likely to find in Passow, Liddell and Scott, or other ordinary lexicons. Many words and meanings I have given which I have met only in Romaic, and a few which I have not been able to find in any glossaries, but which I have noted in the course of my general reading. The plan has been to some extent derived from the “Lexidion” of Dr. H. A. Daniel, but is on a somewhat larger scale than has been adopted by that eminent scholar. I have, for the sake of brevity, usually omitted two classes of words: I. Those which belong, strictly speaking, to theology alone, and which can be found in most good dictionaries. II. Common Latin words, transliterated into Greek without change of orthography or meaning, such as σακέρδως. When Latin words are difficult, or have undergone any notable change, I have given them. I dare not hope that there are no mistakes nor involuntary omissions, and I shall be thankful “for information and suggestions on these heads.