Folia Theologica 17. (2006)
Uwe Michael Lang: Early Christian Latin as a Liturgical Language
148 U. M. LANG obviously derived from curial style; 'de tuis donis ac datis' has a parallel in the Anaphora of St John Chrysostom, in the anamnesis prayer after the Institution Narrative, 'thine own of thine own (x a £k xrôv omv) we offer unto thee on behalf of all and for all'.53 The old formula 'hunc panem sanctum et calicem vitae aeternae' is replaced with the more harmonious parallelism 'panem sanctum vitae aeternae et calicem salutis perpetuae'. A significant feature in the fully developed Roman Canon is its prose rhythm or cursus. According to the classical tradition of rhetoric, rhythm was an important factor in the structure and beauty of a prose text. Aristotle teaches that prose should not be metrical, but at the same time it should not be unrhythmical either. What is without rhythm is 'unlimited' and hence not pleasing to the classical ear. Aristotle says that every part of the sentence should have a certain rhythm.54 Cicero equally appreciates the function of rhythm in artistic prose, but he confines it to the most important parts of the colon, that is, the beginning (superiora) and the end of a clause. In the Latin rhetorical tradition shaped by Cicero and Quintilian, the ending or clausula, became the most important part of a sentence to be constructed according to rhythmical principles.55 Most Church Fathers were trained in classical rhetoric and made use of its rules in their writings. Hence it is not surprising to find the use of rhythmic clausulae in the sermons and treatise of authors like Augustine or Leo the Great. Augustine also discusses the use of clausulae in the fourth book of his De doctrina Christiana, which is concerned with the way a preacher should make use of rhetoric. Since the liturgy is about the spoken word, it was quite natural that the use of the clausulae, or 'cursus' in the terminology of the Middle Ages, is found in the public prayer of the Church too. Clausulae are a stock feature of Roman liturgical composition from the late forth century to the middle of the seventh. They are found especially in the collects that were composed in this time and form 53 As MOHRMANN, Liturgical Latin, p. 59, observes, the phrase is indebted to 1 Chronicles 29:14 (Vulgate): tua sunt omnia et quae de manu tua accepimus dedimus tibi. 54 Aristotle, Rhetoric 111,8,1-4. 55 Cicero, De oratore III, 50, 192; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, IX, 4, 60-66.
