Homilies and Hymns, Volume 2

And this impression is deepened when we find how an act so intimate and personal as the communion of the people, which one would think could not be too simple, is surrounded with elaborate ceremonial.

"The sacrament goes forth (as Narsai says) . . . with splendour and glory with an escort of priests and a great precession of deacons;" as if figuring in a lively manner before mortal eyes those "thousands of watchers and ministers of fire and spirit (who) go forth before the Body of Our Lord and conduct it. . . . And all the sons of the Church rejoice, and all the people, when they see the body setting forth from the midst of the altar" (pp. 27-28). This is quite in the spirit of a medieval Corpus Christi procession, and reads as if an "early anticipation of it."

. . . From all that preceded a further question arises, which it must be sufficient here to put, namely, how far is the secret recitation of the canon mass, so to speak, a native Western practice? and may it not be that, in this matter, the Churches of the Greek and Latin Patriarchates only followed the lead of the East Syrian?

Robinson also states that the use of the creed and the diptychs in the Qurbana Eucharist/Offering were borrowed by the Greek and the Latins from the Church of the East, likewise the litany, to quote: "The creed was introduced into mass at Antioch between 471-477, at Constantinople 511 and 518; and in the East Syrian Church doubtless in the life time of both writers." 11

Speaking about the liturgy of the Western Assyrians (Syrians) known as 'Jacobites' who were forced by the cruelties of Byzantine to embrace Monophysitism, and comparing their spiritual loyalty to that of the 'Eastern Assyrians' adherents of the Church of the East, the original mother Church of the Jacobites too, the author says: "This is in marked contrast with freedom exercised by the Jacobites in changing and amending their liturgy." Commenting on certain doubts voiced by Mingana and repeated by R. H. Connolly, attributing homily xvii, Exposition of the Mysteries, to a thirteenth century Audishau Bishop of Elam. Robinson, continues. . . "and in the first place we turn to catalogue of the famous 13th century bibliographer, the Nestorian 'Abed-Isho.' or Ebdjesus (Audishau) as he is commonly called."

Having given all the evidence from this source, Robinson says, "That these two homilies together are actually an Exposition of the Baptism spoken of by Ebdjesus, I see no reason to doubt. It follows that the Ebdjesus second title ('An Exposition of the Mysteries and Baptism') is collective, i.e. it refers not to a single treatise, but to two, at least, and in all probability to three separate tracts—the first of the three being the Exposition of the Mysteries. . . I may also say at once, concludes Robinson, that I am satisfied that the rest of the homilies in these volumes are all by one hand. That Narsai was the author there can be no reasonable doubt."