The Legacy of SS. Cyril and Methodius in the Counterreformation
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Francis J. Thomson The Legacy of SS. Cyril and Methodius in the Counterreformation The council of Trent and the question of Scripture and liturgy in the Vernacular, together with an account of the subsequent consequences for the Slavo-Latin (glagolitic) rite and the Bible in Croatian translation Nominibus auctorum aut oblivioni aut fabulis traditis, res autem manebat. Eleutherius Scotus Summary At the time of the Reformation the use of modern vernaculars in Scripture and liturgy became one of the hallmarks of Protestantism. When the Old Testament had been translated into Greek and the New into Latin those languages had been vernaculars but their use could be justified by an appeal to the trilingual super- scription on the Cross. This, of course, could not be invoked for the use of the Glagolitic rite in Slavonic in Croatia, Dalmatia and Istria but it was widely be- lieved in the 16th century that St. Jerome had translated the Old Testament not only into Latin but also into his native "Dalmatian", viz. Slavonic, a fact first referred to in the Reformation controversies by Hieronymus Emser in 1524 in his rejection of Martin Luther's form of the mass of 1523. This Hieronymian theory of the origin of the Glagolitic rite remained unchallenged at the Council of Trent and meant that a vernacular translation could not per se be banned. The debates at the Council and the differences between the draft decrees and the final versions are examined: in the latter there is no longer any reference to Latin as a divine instrument consecrated by its use on the Cross or to the greater reverence for the holy mysteries which its use instilled. Even though the intro- duction of Slavonic into Scripture and the liturgy by SS. Cyriland Methodius in the ninth century was never mentioned at the Council – there is not even a record that their names were ever mentioned – nevertheless their legacy had in- fluenced the Council's decrees in a positive way, a fact hitherto overlooked. Contemporary theories as to the role which the brothers had played with regard to the use of Slavonic in the liturgy are also examined and it is concluded that even at the time of the Counter-Reformation and the Catholic Reform the bro- thers' work formed a bridge between East and West and that they hence deserve the epithet of pontifices. Whereas the influence of the Glagolitic rite on the decisions of the Council of Trent had been substantial and beneficial, subsequent events revealed that theory and practice do not always go hand in hand. In the 16th century there had been a trend towards modernizing the language of the liturgical books of the rite but on 18 December 1626 the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, which less than three years after its establishment had become responsible for publishing these books, ruled that they should be adapted to the revised Latin missal and breviary on the basis of archaic Croat Slavonic. From 1627 on Ruthenian Uniats, who considered that the Slavonic of the Slavo-Greek rite was superior to the "corrupt" Slavonic of the Slavo-Latin one, became involved in the work of revi- sion, which led to the "East-Slavonicization" of Croat Slavonic and subsequently to a decline in the rite. Efforts to obtain permission to publish a Bible in verna- cular Croat failed and it was only in 1831 that the first complete Croat transla- tion of the Bible was published. The Council of Trent and the Question of Scripture and Liturgy in the Vernacular How and when the use of Slavonic in the liturgy introduced by SS. Cyril (c. 826/7-869) and Methodius (c. 815-885) first spread to Croatia and Dalmatia is unknown;1 equally uncertain is whether it arrived in a Western or the Byzantine rite, or possibly in a hybrid rite.2 The earliest evidence for the use of Slavonic in the liturgy in Dalmatia dates from only forty years after Methodius' death when Pope John X (914-928) in c. 925 wrote to both Archbishop John of Spalato (fl. 925) and King Tomislav of Croatia (c. 912-c. 928) insisting in no uncertain terms that the liturgy be celebrated in Latin and not in Slavonic.3 Since he did *The author wishes to thank the University of Antwerp (RUCA) for an annual grant towards his research expenses. He also wishes to thank Academician A. Nazor of Zagreb for kindly supplying photocopies of articles in periodicals unavailable in Belgium. As this paper has been written for both theologians and Slavists, the author apologizes for the inclusion of material well known to scholars of one or other of the two disciplines. 1 For recent surveys of the theories see Birnbaum, Writing 69-79; Hamm, Pojava 167-175, and Eggers, Erzbistum 90-94. For a historiography of the question see Petrovi, Susreti 5-54, who rightly concludes, ibid. 48: The first contacts of the Croats with Cyrillomethodian Slav culture nevertheless remain the "most obscure" period of Croat Glagolitism. In view of the fact that well over three hundred historical persons are referred to in this study their People's dates are solely given each time that they are first mentioned. 2 The hybrid nature of the 11th-century Euchologium Sinaiticum is well known, see, for instance, Panteli, Listiima 17-26; Ratko, Poenitential 164-171; Repp, Kritik 315-332. It has been estimated that 77.1% of its contents are of Byzantine origin, 11.9% Moravian, 3.7% Latin, 0.9% Old High German and 6.4% uncertain, see Moszyski, Tradycja 161-162. For a facsimile edition see Lysaght, Euchologium 1r-106v, 1r-3v (with the Cyrillic opposite and an English translation ibid. 1-63), to be supplemented by Tarnanidis, Manuscripts 219-247, for the recently discovered folia. It has to be borne in mind, however, that despite earlier reversals Byzantine authority only disappeared from Dalmatia in the mid 11th century, with the exception of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), which only finally came under Venetian authority in 1205, and that the Greek rite survived until the 12th century in places such as Zara, see below note 4. On the end of Byzantine rule see Goldstein, Disappearance 129-139. The evidence of the earliest fragments of Slavonic translations of Latin masses such as the Kievan and Vienna folia is too disputed to allow the conclusion: In essa i "glagoljai" hanno tenuto fede alla formula cirillo-metodiana: lingua slava, rito romano, thus Graciotti, Episodio 67, to be accepted as proven. The question of such fragments cannot be dealt with here. 3 The epistles are preserved in the longer version of the Historia Salonitana by Thomas of Spalato (1199/1200- 1268), ed. Klai, Historia 71-125; in that to John, ibid. 95-96, see 96, the pope writes: not raise the question of the rite the pope can only have been referring to the use of Slavonic in a Western rite.4 The synod of Spalato did not, however, ban its use entirely but permitted it in places where there was a lack of clergy who knew Latin, provided that prior papal permission had been sought.5 By the 16th century the Glagolitic liturgy6 was in use in two patriarchates and three metropolitan archdioceses, viz. the patriarchate of Aquileia, in the see of Trieste (Trst) but above all in Istria in the sees of Capodistria (Koper), Parenzo (Poreč), Pola (Pula), Pedena (Pićan) and Cittanova (Novigrad), but also in Carniola in the see of Laibach (Ljubljana); in the patriarchate of Venice7 in the archdiocese of Zara (Zadar) and its suffragan sees of Ossero (Osor), Arbe (Rab) and Veglia (Krk); in the metropolitan archdiocese of Spalato (Split) and its suffragan sees of Segna (Senj), Lesina (Hvar), Knin, Modrussa (Modruš), Macarsca (Makarska), Nona (Nin), Scardona (Skradin), Sebenico (Šibenik) and Traù (Trogir), and in the suffragan sees of Cattaro (Kotor) in the metropolitan archsee of Antibari Ita ut secundum mores sancte romane ecclesie Sclavinorum terra ministerium sacrificii peragant in latina scilicet lingua, non autem in extranea. Quia nullus filius aliquid loqui debet vel sapere, nisi ut pater ei insinuaverit. In that to Tomislav, ibid. 96-98, see 97, he writes: Quis etenim specialis filius sancte romane ecclesie, sicut vos estis, in barbara seu sclavinica lingua deo sacrificium offere delectatur? Non quippe ambigo ut in eis aliud maneat, qui in sclavinica lingua sacrificare contendunt, nisi illud quod scriptum est: Ex vobis exierunt et non sunt ex nobis.* Nam si ex nobis essent, manerent utique nobiscum, id est in nostra conversatione et lingua. *1 John 2:19. (The obviously correct readings in the apparatus criticus have been inserted into the quotation). 4 Too little is known about the rite used at this time in Dalmatia to be able to state with certainty that it was the Aquileian, as was later the case. Neither must it be forgotten that Greek still remained in liturgical use at least in Zara at the end of the 12th century; see the epistle of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) to the chapter there of 6 February 1198, ed. PL ccxiv, 14. The Aquileian rite was only definitively replaced by the Roman when Patriarch Francisco Barbaro of Aquileia (1593-1616) introduced the revised editions of the breviary and missal published at Rome in 1568 and 1570 respectively by order of Pope Pius V (1566-1572), who had been requested to do so by the Council of Trent, at a synod held at Udine in October 1596, see the acts ed. Mansi, Conciliorum xxxiv, 1367-1428, see 1378 and 1376 respectively. The synod also decreed that the younger clergy and seminarians should be trained to use Latin, ibid.