Irish Church Quarterly The Chalice in the Church. I Author(s): C. A. Webster Source: The Irish Church Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 14 (Apr., 1911), pp. 146-153 Published by: Irish Church Quarterly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30067085 . Accessed: 10/06/2014 23:15 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Irish Church Quarterly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Church Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.34.78.209 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 23:15:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 146 THE CHALICEIN THE CHURCH. THE CHALICE IN THE CHURCH.-I. MUCH has from time to time been written on the Com- munion Plate of some of the English Dioceses, and the value of such records cannot be over-rated. One has only to mention in this connexion Old Church Plate in the Diocese of Carlisle, edited by R. S. Ferguson, F.S.A., I882, and the more recent and beautiful volume published in 1gog, by Canon Braithwaite, on The Church Plate of Hampshire. Of course, the great antiquity of the many ancient pieces of Church Plate to be found in the sister Church gives an interest to such publications that could never be awakened in the more modern pieces that exist in the Church of Ireland. And yet, although our possessions in Ireland are poor and meagre when compared with those of the richer Church, the writer feels that the subject has never received from Irish Churchmen the attention that it really deserves. As a consequence, the custodians of our Com- munion Plate are not as careful about it as they might be; the marks that tell of age and workmanship have not the same interest for those who are responsible for their pre- servation, and there is a general lack of knowledge as to whence the pieces came and at what date they were manu- factured. This is not the place to speak of the alienation of Church Plate from its sacred use; such alienation has been too common in the past. Neither is it the occasion for point- ing out the duties and responsibilities of our Rural Deans1 in the matter. Suffice it to say that the whole subject calls for consideration on the part of our diocesan authorities. Any historical survey of our subject must start from the institution of the Eucharistic Feast, and the Cup stands out prominently in that scene. Of what material 1 In the Constitutions of Simon de Rochfort, Bishop of Meath, made at the Synod of Newtown A.D. 1216, canon 5 commands the newly instituted archpriests (who now took the place of earlier bishops) to return a faithful accounit to the Bishop in synod " de statu et conditione librorum, vasorum, vestimentorum, et aliorum ornamentorum et supellectilium in ecclesiis infra suos decanatus." Wilkins, Concilia i. 547. For Bishop John Jebb's reference to the office of Rural Dean, see his speech in the House of Lords on the Church of Ireland, Practical Theology, vol. ii., p. 368 f. This content downloaded from 195.34.78.209 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 23:15:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE CHALICEIN THE CHURCH. 147 was the Cup of the Upper Chamber? The question leads us into many by-paths; it suggests the further questions: Was the Last Supper the usual Jewish Passover? Was the Cup used by our Blessed Lord one of the cups of the ceremonial of the Paschal Feast ? Was " the cup of bless- the the ing "' third cup-the Kds habberdkhahk-of Paschal celebration? The train of thought here sug- gested would lead us far afield, and it must be sufficient to say that probably the Cup used by Christ was made of glazed pottery or of glass, and differed little, if at all, from one of the ordinary cups used in a Jewish household. It is more probable, too, that at first the Christians used ordinary vessels in their celebration of the Holy Com- munion. The story of the broken chalice,2 which was con- cocted by the accusers of St. Athanasius, would seem to show that chalices of glass were used in the Church of Alexandria. St. Jerome, speaking of Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, and praising his frugality, says that he "ministered the body of Christ in a basket of osiers and the blood in a glass cup."3 Even as late as the tenth cen- tury glass vessels continued to be used on the continent. Marthne4 shows how a community of monks in Flanders, founded by St. Winocus, in that century still used chalices of glass. But local circumstances no doubt regulated then as now the material out of which the sacred vessels in any parti- cular church were made; the poverty or otherwise of the community settled in most instances whether their Com- munion vessels were of glass or of one of the precious metals. In some parts wood and horn were used, but there were objections to both materials. Wood was con- demned by the provincial Council of Trebur,5 held in 895 A.D. Pope Leo IV. (847-855) had already 1 Cor. x. 16. 2 Socrates, E. H. i. 27, Athanasius, Orations against the Arians. Edit. W. Bright, 1884, p. xxV. 3 Hieron., Ep. iv. ad Rustic. Monach. Paris, 1643, P. 41. 4 De AAntiq.Eccl. Bit., iv. 78. 5 Can. 18, after stating that Pope Zephyrinus ordered masses to be celebrated with patens of glass, and that his second successor, Urban, caused all sacred vessels to be of silver, proceeds: Statui- mus ut deinceps nullus sacerdos sacrum mysterium corporis et sanguinis Jesu Christi Domini nostri in ligneis vasculis ullo modo conficere presumat, ne, unde placari debet, inde irascatur Deus." Mansi, Conc., xviii. 142. This content downloaded from 195.34.78.209 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 23:15:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 148 THE CHALICEIN THE CHURCH. ordered in his homily De Cura Pastorali that no one should celebrate Mass with a chalice of wood, lead or glass. It was the use of wood that gave rise to the celebrated apophthegm of St. Boniface of Mainz: "Once golden priests used wooden chalices, but now wooden priests use golden chalices."' Horn also was condemned by the Synod of Celclyth or Chelsea (A.D. 787), inasmuch as it had in it an element of blood ;2 whilst by a decree of the Council of Rheims, held A.D. 847, it was laid down that, if not of gold, chalices should be wholly of silver; tin was only allowed where great poverty could be pleaded." That the Church had her sacred vessels of gold and silver at an early period is evident; the natural tendency to have special vessels for sacred usage asserted itself, and such differentiation showed itself by the Christians adopting costly materials for their chalices, as well as by the adorn- ment- and inscriptions which they put on them. Several instances are cited by Bingham" of the sale of Communion vessels in order to redeem captives or help the poor with the money. The case of Ambrose melting down the vessels of the Church of Milan is an outstanding example; Possidius refers to it in his Life of St. Augustine, and tells how the later saint had in like manner caused the sacred vessels to be broken up and melted down that he might be enabled to release some captives and give relief to the poor.6 There is, however, no need to labour this, for it is perfectly plain that from the fourth century, at least, the Communion vessels of the Church were made of gold or silver, wherever local conditions permitted such outlay and men's devotion prompted them to it. But I desire to treat the subject now as it concerns our own Church of Ireland, and with the aid of such scanty records as we possess. It has been thought that the earliest chalices in the Church of Ireland were made of 1 See Bingham, Origines Ecclesiasticae, ed. 1840, book viii., chap. vi., p. 450, note. 2Haddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, 1871, vol. iii., p. 452. Vetuimus etiam ne de cornu bovis calix aut patina fierct, ad sacrificandum Deo, quia sanguineae sunt. 3 Gratian, Corpus Juris Canonici, dist. i., c. 45. 4Tertullian, De Pud. io: "Praecedant picturae calicum vestrorum . Si forte patrocinabitur pastor, quemn in calicc depingis." 5 Bingham, book v., chap. vi., pp. 93-95. 6 Vita S. Auliustini, 24. This content downloaded from 195.34.78.209 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 23:15:03 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE CHALICE IN THE CHURCH. 149 stone. Miss Margaret Stokes, in her Early Christian Art in Ireland, says: " The rudest, and possibly the oldest, form of chalice of native workmanship in Ireland was of stone. One example, now pre- served in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, is as rude and archaic as the primitive cell in the monastery on the Blasket Island from which it was taken.