May
19-- 350th Birthday of the
1662 Prayer Book
(Fr. Tony's May Trinitarian Article)
Last
year, 2011, marked the 400th anniversary of the 1611 publication of
the King James Version (KJV) of the Holy Bible.
This so-called “Authorized Version” was prepared by committees under the
leadership of Anglican Bishop Lancelot Andrewes and promulgated by James I as an
antidote to the more radical “reformation” versions of the English Bible then
circulating, mainly the Geneva Bible of 1560, translated by Protestant exiles
of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary. A
literary and cultural hallmark, the King James Bible has now become dated as a
translation, overtaken by changes in the English language, advances in Biblical
scholarship and textual discoveries. Apart
from lovers of its literary majesty and role in the shaping of the language and
culture, the KJV is now preferred only by reactionary Protestants and
fundamentalists.
Puritans
at the time, however, tended to question the “King’s Bible” as part of a plot to
establish popery and the “idolatrous” forms of worship of English bishops such
as Archbishop William Laud, who supported the use of cassock and surplice as
“decent and orderly” clerical attire rather than “plain and simple” street
clothes or academic robes and Genevan preaching tabs. These were presenting issues for much deeper
conflicts about political freedom and the class-based society based in nobility
and monarchy that broke into outright bloodshed in the English Civil war and
its aftermath.
The puritans,
who ruled in a series of governmental schemes from 1649 to 1660, tried and
executed both Archbishop Laud and his King, Charles I. They disestablished the Church and ended the
monarchy, and banned bishops, the Prayer Book, fine clothes, and even the
celebration of Christmas. By the time
the monarchy was restored in 1660, people had learnt that republicans could be
just as tyrannical as kings. Most were ready for a modified, constrained
monarchy and a return to earlier ways.
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Thus when
Parliament begged Charles II to come back from exile in France and succeed his father,
he and the clergy who had fled with him insisted that the restoration of the
monarchy required also the restoration of the Church of England together with
its Bishops and Book of Common Prayer. But
which Prayer Book?
The
first Book of Common Prayer was written in 1549 by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
under Edward VI, a product of the English Reformation following the break with
Rome. The 1549 BCP was the first to contain
the forms of service for daily and Sunday worship in English and to do so
within a single volume. It included Morning
and Evening Prayer, the Litany, and Holy Communion as well as occasional
services like Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, Prayers for the Sick, and a
Funeral Service. It gave an Epistle and Gospel Lectionary for Sunday Communion
Services as well as one for Old and New Testament readings for Daily Prayer as
well as one for Psalms and Canticles, mostly biblical, to be sung between the
readings.
The
1549 book was rapidly succeeded by a reformed revision in 1552 also under
Cranmer’s editorial direction. It never
came into use because on the death of Edward VI, his half-sister Mary I
restored Roman Catholic worship. On her death, a compromise version, largely the
reformation 1552 versions supplemented with a few amendments from the 1549 book
(mainly in rubrics and tending toward a more catholic sensibility of the rites),
was published in 1559.
Prior
BCPs thus had lurched between essentially an English language version of Roman
liturgies (1549) to radically protestant rites (1552), and a major point of
conflict between Laud and Charles on the one side and the Puritans on the other
had been the royalists’ opinion that the 1552 Book had gone too far in the
direction of Geneva. The major point of
difference is how the Eucharist was seen--
the “catholic” editions saw it as a sacrament where Christ was truly and
literally present in the consecrated Eucharistic elements, where the
“protestant” ones saw it more as a mere commemorative meal, and “ordinance.” Parliament proposed a compromise that would
accommodate all parties, and that hopefully would reduce conflict by reducing
many of the rubrics (the red-ink instructions on how to conduct the ceremonies)
to the lowest common denominator between the “catholic” and “Protestant”
parties. They thus sought to heal the
rifts in society still reeling from disestablishment and regicide. But not much was left of either system of
rites.
Charles
II, his nobles, and his clergy would have nothing to do with this, feeling that
such a resolution would only intensify the rifts, and reduce common worship to
the least attractive and the weakest elements of both camps. They would have nothing less than the via media or middle path for English Christianity established by
Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen. The dictum “Catholic in worship and Evangelical in
doctrine” summarizes their approach and their desire to draw on the strongest
of each camp’s traditions and not their weakest points.
It is
thus that on May 19, 1662, a new edition of the Book of Common Prayer was
promulgated by the new King, having been approved by parliament. It was put
into use in churches that fall, on August 24, 1662 (St. Bartholomew’s Day). Thus 2012 marks the 350th
anniversary of the 1662 Prayer Book, the definitive Book of Common Prayer,
which remains the official prayer book of the Church of England and the
literary and beauty-in-worship standard by which all subsequent Prayer Books
are judged.
The
Prayer Book is deeply rooted in the Bible: not only does it make full provision
for the reading of Scripture, but its services are in substance and language
scriptural throughout.
The 1662
Book of Common Prayer appears in many variants in churches inside and outside
of the Anglican Communion in over 50 different countries and in over 150
different languages. Again in many parts of the world, including the U.S., more
contemporary books have replaced it in regular weekly worship.
Traditional
Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian prayer books have borrowed from the Book
of Common Prayer, and the marriage and burial rites have found their way into
those of other denominations and into the English language. Like the King James
Bible and the works of Shakespeare, many words and phrases from the Book of
Common Prayer have entered popular culture. Such phrases as “ashes to ashes,
dust to dust,” “for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,” and “until
death you do part” come from Cranmer’s richly cadenced language, still presence
in many of our rites.
Gracious God, we thank
you for giving us the heritage of the Book of Common Prayer and in teaching us
thereby to worship you in the beauty of your holiness, pray to you in
conversation with believers of many lands and ages, study you Holy Word, and
share our faith with all your children.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
--Fr. Tony+
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