The Lichfield Angel

 Stone relief carving of an Angel, made originally in the 8th or 9th century for the new coffin in which the relics of the 7th century Anglo-Saxon Bishop, St. Chad of Lichfield, were to be borne.  Some of the original colour can be seen, since there were all painted.  This is often known as the "Lichfield Angel."

Consecration of Bishop from 8th Century Switzerland

 Consecration of a Bishop, from a wall painting in St. John's Church in Mustair, Switzerland.  The Bishop-Elect to be Consecrated is preparing to kneel at the Altar, while one Bishop behind him is placing the Gospel book on him, and the other Bishops are helping, and preparing to lay hands.  It's very difficult to find a lot of high quality, color, photos of the interior panel and church wall paintings in St. John's Abbey.  It contains probably some of the best preserved church paintings in Western Europe from the 8th century. 

The Humility of God

 "For this end the Only-Begotten Son of God took on Him the Form of our infirmity; for this the Invisible appeared not only Visible, but even despised; for this He endured the jests of contumely, the reproaches of derisions, and the torments of sufferings, that God in His Humility might teach man not to be proud.  How Great then is the Virtue of Humility, since for the sole purpose of truly teaching it, He Who above estimation is Great, became Little, even to Suffering?  For since the pride of the devil cause the origin of our fall, the Humility of God was found out as the Instrument of our Redemption.  For our enemy who was created great above all things, wished to appear exalted above all things.  But Our Redeemer remaining Great above all things, deigned to become Little among all things."

(St. Gregory the Great, the Dialogist [+604], Book 34, Sec. 54, "Morals on the Book of Job"] 

St. Hilary of Poitiers on Dealing with Heretical Hierarchs

 How does heresy take over a Local Church?  Is it sudden or gradual?  Does everyone realize what is happening?  What happened?  Are some ignorant?

St. Hilary of Poitiers had to deal with very difficult problems in the 4th century.  Oftentimes there were those who were heretics, had attacked the First Ecumenical Council, but, did this in sly manners, in ways to provide a sort of  'plausible deniability' as they continued their heretical agenda and punished those who opposed them.  These individuals, in many places, constituted the "Official Church"; in the West, the most grievous offender was the Cappadocian import, Auxentius of Milan, who was an inveterate enemy of St. Hilary of Poitiers.  

In his text "Against Auxentius", St. Hilary explains how the Arians, like Auxentius, were double-tongued, their words always had more insidious meanings:

"They ascribed to Christ the name of God, because this was given to men.  They confessed Him to be truly the Son of God, but only as everyone else is made truly the son of God, by the Sacrament of Baptism.  They allowed Him to be before time and ages, because this may be said of angels and the devil.  So in reality they ascribed nothing more to Christ the Lord, than what was proper to men or angels.  His peculiar property they denied; that He was Christ the True God, that is, of the Same Divinity with the Father.  But all this impiety was for a long time coloured over, and carried on by fraud and artifice.  And so it happened that the people of Christ were not mortally hurt under the priests of Antichrist, while they thought their faith and meaning had been agreeable to their words.  They heard Christ called God, and they supposed Him to be truly so.  They heard Him called the Son of God, and they though the verity of a Son was implied in the Nativity of God.  They heard Him said to be before all time, and they though that being before all time was the same thing as being Eternal.  So the people's ears were much more pious than the hearts of the priests." 

Yet, St. Hilary says, once the clergy and people learn the truth behind the subterfuge of seemingly Orthodox words, action must be taken:

"They ought no longer to communicate with them as ministers of Christ, but to avoid them as antichrists, as angels of Satan, as enemies of Christ, as devils, though by the Emperor's favour they were in possession of the churches.  They should not be so much in love with walls and buildings, as to think the True Church of God was confined to them, and for their sakes have peace with the Arians.  For Antichrist himself was to sit within the walls of the church.  So that mountains, and woods, and lakes, and prisons where the Prophets of God were cast, were safer places than the buildings of the church in such a condition.  Therefore depart from Auxentius, that angel of Satan, that enemy of Christ, that wicked destroyer, that denier of the Faith, which he made profession of before the Emperor, in such a manner as to decieve him; and so deceived him, as to blaspheme Christ.  Let him gather as many synods as he pleases against me; let him proscribe me as an heretic by public titles, as he has often done already; let him stir up the anger of great men as much as he will against me: yet he shall never be any better, in mine opinion, than a devil, because he is an Arian.  Nor will I ever desire to be at peace with any but those, who, according to the rule of the Nicene Fathers, anathematize the Arians, and preach Christ to be the True God." [Contra Auxentium, St. Hilary of Poitiers, as quoted in Bingham's "Origines Ecclesiasticae; or, the Antiquities of the Christian Church," pages 284-285]

1039 Freising Pontifical and the Filioque

 In the 1039 Pontifical of Freising, from Germany, in the section for Baptism, which follows the Old Roman Ordo of apportioning out the Catechumenate, especially in the last week of Lent, we have noticeable items like the tradition [giving] of the Our Father and Symbol. 

https://usuarium.elte.hu/book/838/view

In the section for the giving of the Symbol of Faith [i.e. the Credo in Unum Deum], it gives, like in the Gelasian Sacramentary, the Symbol to be recited in Greek and Latin.  

In the Symbol in Greek (transliterated into Latin letters), we have chant notation above the words; the text is given absent the infamous "Filioque" addition.

However, only a page or two later, when the Symbol is recited in Latin, the notorious addition of "Filioque" is lamentably found in the Latin text.

This, as we have noted in previous posts, is different than in the Pontifical of Poitiers, which gives the Greek and Latin text of the Symbol absent the "Filioque", as well as in the 1025 Subiaco Missal, which similarly gives the Greek and Latin text of the Symbol unaltered as well. 

I speculate that that a certain high degree of importance was attached to the Greek text of the Symbol in Latin books, as you will often find chant notation attached to the Greek Symbol over against the Latin in the Catechumenate; this gives a certain degree of added solemnity, and, even in the 11th century as the "Filioque" addition found its place more and more in different books in the Latin West, more often than not the Greek text was always preserved in Latin books free from corruption. 

St. John Maximovitch (+1966) Celebrating Gallican Rite Mass

 "Never, never, never let anyone tell you that, in order to be Orthodox, you must also be eastern. The West was Orthodox for a thousand years, and her venerable liturgy is far older than any of her heresies."--St. John Maximovitch

From the Anglo-Saxon Pentiential

From the Old English Handbook for Confessors:

"Concerning the priest's discretion

He who is the physician of men's souls and the counsellor of their deeds must consider that distinction and that difference: how he shall assign penance to men for their deeds, and yet not condemn them or cause them to despair. When one wishes to confess his misdeeds to him, first listen to him patiently (and learn) how his condition might be advised. If he wishes and knows how to confess his deeds humbly, and you perceive that his sins cause him sorrow, instruct him kindly and compassionately. If he does not know how to confess his deeds and to consider his offenses, ask him about his condition, and wrest the offenses from him, and search out his deeds, and be mindful yourself that you must never pass judgment in the same way on the powerful and the lowly, the free and the enslaved, the old and the young, the well and the sickly, the humble and the proud; the strong and the weak, those in orders and lay people. In every act a prudent judge must distinguish wisely how it was done, and where and when. At no time is wrongdoing allowed, and nevertheless one must also most earnestly be on guard against it during festival seasons and in times of fasting and in festival places. And always, as one is mightier or greater of rank, so must he repent wrongdoing more deeply before God and before the world. For the powerful and the weak are not able to lift up a similar burden, nor the one who is well. And therefore one must take the measure of and discreetly distinguish between after After this let him arise humbly to his confession and then say, first:"I believe in God the great Father, Ruler of all things, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit; and I believe in life after death; and I believe that I will arise on Doomsday, and all this I believe will come to pass through God's power and mercy."And then, with contrite mind and humbly, let him say his confession to his confessor, bending humbly; and say thus "I confess to Almighty God and to my confessor, the spiritual physician, all the sins that ever through cursed spirits, have happened to me in defilement, in deed or in thought, with men or with women or with any creature, natural or unnatural sins of the body. "I confess greediness in eating both before and after time." "I confess all covetousness and envy, and calumnies and deceits, lies and evil boasts, and idle words and wrongful choices, and every ornament that has ever contributed to the injury of my body. "I confess that I was too often a worker of sins, and a helper of sins, and an accomplice of sins, and a teacher of sins. "I confess the mortal sins of my mind, and false oaths, and strife, and pride, and disregard of God's commandments. "I confess all that I have ever seen with my eyes in covetousness or calumny, or heard with my ears to ill use, or said to ill use with my mouth. "I confess to you all the sins of my body, for skin, for flesh, for bone, for sinews, for veins, for gristle, for tongue, for lips, for gums, and for teeth, for hair, and for marrow, for everything soft or hard, wet or dry. "I confess that I have kept to my baptism worse than I promised to my Lord, and my rank, which I ought to have kept in praise of God and his holy ones and for my own eternal salvation, I have held unworthily. "I confess that I have often neglected my canonical hours and sworn false oaths on my Lord's life, and taken my Lord's name in vain. "For all that I ask for my Lord's forgiveness, that the devil may never charge me with fault, so that I (might be) without confession and repentance of my sins. "So today I confess all my sins before the Lord Savior Christ, who rules heaven and earth, and before this holy altar, and this reliquary, and before my confessor and the Lord's masspriest, and am in pure and true confession, and with good will for the repenting of all my sins, and afterwards to desist from those that ever I might commit. "And you, Christ the Savior, be merciful to my soul and forgiving and blot out my sins and my offenses that ever I did, late or early, and lead me to your high kingdom so that I might dwell there with your holy and chosen ones in eternity ever without end. "Now I ask you humbly, priest of the Lord, that you be my witness on Doomsday, so that the devil might not obtain power over me, and so that you be my intercessor with the Lord, so that I might be able to repent all my sins and offenses, and cease from such things. For that may the Lord, he who lives and reigns ever without end in eternity, sustain me. Amen.

And if anyone does something wrong unintentionally, that is not like the one who does wrong wilfully and intentionally; and also he who is the involuntary agent of that in which he does wrong, he is always deserving of protection and the milder judgment, because he was the unwilling agent of that which he did. Let each one distinguish each deed truly before God and before the world.

http://www.anglo-saxon.net/penance/index.php?p=TOEH201_115

 "It is fitting that the priest should ponder the repentance of sinful men, according to the bishop's judgment; and he should never hesitate, neither for the rich nor for the poor, to prescribe correctly for them as the book teaches him. For the Savior says that if the priest does not wish to prescribe penance for the sinful one for his sins, that he (the Savior) would afterwards ask him (the priest) about the soul. That is, the Savior will hold the priest responsible for the lost soul. [Ezekiel 3:18: If, when I say to the wicked, Thou shalt surely die: thou declare it not to him, nor speak to him, that he may be converted from his wicked way, and live: the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at thy hand.] St. Isidore said that it was his opinion that a man's true confession and conversion on his last day would be acceptable to God, for the Savior said, "On whatever day of life a man turns to a good life, he shall live and shall not die." [see Ezekiel] On that account genuine conversion is not to be shunned in whatever time that it might be; for God sees every man's mind and knows the secrets of every man's heart."

[Old English Penitential]
http://www.anglo-saxon.net/penance/index.php?p=TOEP482_1b