Liturgies Eastern and Western (Hammond)

...could be interpreted in a way that was consistent with erroneous teachings. When the Church formally declared its own interpretation of such language, it became necessary to clarify the ambiguity. Naturally, however, unorthodox groups retained the old formulas, which they pointed to as evidence in favor of their own views. Thus, regarding orthodoxy, all we can say of the liturgies of heretical communities is that they are somewhat less exact in their theological terminology than those of the Orthodox Church.

Regarding their value for comparison with other liturgies, it is evident that points of agreement carry us back to a period before the date of separation—that is original: "i. e.", at least to the beginning of the fifth century. The mutual hostility between the Church and these separated communities was so great that neither side would have borrowed from the other; therefore, whatever is common to both must have been common to them before the division.

1. The liturgies of the West Syrian Family are characterized by having no variable parts except for the Scripture readings original: "Lections" and subordinate hymns. This is common to all Eastern original: "Oriental" liturgies. The specific peculiarity of this family is that the Great Intercession for the living and the dead original: "Quick and Dead" is placed after the Invocation of the Holy Spirit—that is, after the Consecration is complete (according to Eastern theology).

The Clementine Liturgy may be taken as the original model original: "prototype" of this family, though it perhaps belongs to a period slightly earlier than the time when the different types had fully established themselves. Greek St. James. In any case, the Greek Liturgy of St. James was undoubtedly a direct modification of a liturgy that was nearly, if not entirely, identical to the so-called Clementine. Syriac Liturgies. A sister liturgy to the Greek St. James is the Syriac St. James. This was once no doubt used by the Western and Southern orthodox Syriac-speaking Christians, but it is now the primary liturgy of the Syro-Jacobite A group of West Syrian Christians who rejected the Council of Chalcedon communities. A great part of it agrees very closely with the surviving Greek St. James. From it spring eighty or more Syriac liturgies of later development. Greek St. Basil. From the Greek Liturgy of St. James, the Greek Liturgy of St. Basil was also formed.

The argument that an offering made to Christ cannot be an offering of Christ is only another form of a common Arian Arianism: a 4th-century heresy that denied the full divinity of Jesus Christ, asserting He was a created being objection, and it involves that same heresy.