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Amalarius of Metz and the Laying on of Hands in the Ordination of a Deacon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

John Gibaut
John Gibaut
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Toronto
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Extract

Amalarius of Metz (ca. 780–850/851), the premier liturgical scholar of the Carolingian Renaissance, is often cited as a witness to the liturgical usages of the Frankish church in the ninth century. Amalarius's descriptions, critiques, and explanations of the various rites in works such as the Liber officialis appear to many scholars as contrived and visionary. Despite his value as a source for liturgical history, Amalarius's reliability has long been under question.

Type
Notes and Observations
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 82 , Issue 2 , April 1989 , pp. 233 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1989

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References

1 Bishop, Edmund, “The Origins of the Cope as a Church Vestment,” Dublin Review 120(1897) 17–33Google Scholar; cited in Ellard, Gerald, Ordination Anointings in the Western Church before 1000 AD. (Cambridge: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1933) 43.Google Scholar

2 8. Audiamus nunc consecrationem. Scriptum est in libro memorato Actus apostolorum: “Et placuit sermo coram omni multitudine; et elegerunt Stephanum, virum plenum fide et spiritu sancto, et Philippum”; et paulo post, “Hos statuerunt ante conspectum apostolorum et orantes inposuerunt eis manus.”

9. Est libellus quidam apud nos de sacris ordinibus, nescio cuius auctoris, qui dicit solum episcopum debere manus imponere super diaconum, “quia non ad sacerdotium consecratur, sed ad ministerium.” Numquid scriptor libelli doctior atque sanctior apostolis, qui posuerunt plures manus super diaconos, quando consecrabantur, et propterea solus episcopus ponat manum super diaconum, ac si solus possit precari virtutem gratiarum, quam plures apostoli precabantur?

10. An forte ideo non imponit sacerdos manum super eum qui ad diaconatus officium consecratur, ut non fiat quod ipse est, id est sacerdos? Si ita est, nec episcopum oportet ei manum imponere, ut non fiat episcopus. Quod si propterea oportet ei episcopum manum imponere, quia ipse orat pro eo, non solus ille orat, sed omnes qui pie intendunt verbis episcopi ac mente retinent. Imitatio episcoporum apostolorum chorus est. Optimum est bonos duces sequi, qui certaverunt usque ad plenam victoriam. (Amalarius of Metz, Liber officialis, 2.11; ed. J. Hanssens, Amalarii episcopi Opera liturgica omnia, vol. 2: Liber officialis [Studi e Testi 139; Vatican: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 1948] 224).

3 Munier, Charles, ed., Les Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960) 96.Google Scholar

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8 Cited by Reynolds, Roger E. in “A Southern Italian Ordination Allocution,” Mediaeval Studies 47 (1985) 438 n. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Botte, Dom Bernard, “Le rituel d'ordination des Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua,” Recherches de Théologie ancienne et mediévale 11 (1939) 240.Google Scholar

10 Cuming, G., ed. and trans., Hippolytus: A Text for Students (Bramcote, Notts.: Grove, 1984) 13.Google Scholar

11 Munier, ed., Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua, 96.

12 See Reynolds, Roger E., “An Early Medieval Tract on the Diaconate,” HTR 72 (1979) 97.Google Scholar

13 Hillberg, I., ed., Epistula CXLV1, 1–2 (CSEL 56; 1918) 310–11.Google Scholar

14 PL 83. 787.

15 See Reynolds, Roger E., “Patristic ‘Presbyterianism’ in the Early Medieval Theology of Sacred Orders,” Mediaeval Studies 45 (1983) 266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 See Epistle LXVII, 1 and 2, Cypriani Opera omnia (CSEL) III. 1.

17 See Donovan, Daniel, The Levitical Priesthood and the Ministry of the New Testament (Diss. Münster, 1970).Google Scholar

18 Munier, ed., Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua, 89.

19 Ibid., 90.

20 Hanssens, ed. Liber officialis, 213.

21 For an illustration reflecting the non-Amalarian rite of the ordination of a deacon, see the ivory cover of the Sacramentary of Drogo of Metz, reproduced in Reynolds, Roger E., “Image and Text: The Liturgy of Clerical Ordination in Early Medieval Art,” Gesta 22 (1983) 29, fig. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar