_Siegel_, in his excellent Manual of Christian Ecclesiastical
Antiquities, published at Leipsic, in 1837, in four volumes, presents
an extended view of this subject, from which we will extract little
more than his definition of the mass. "The mass, in the Roman Catholic
sense of the term, belongs not to the centuries of Christian antiquity,
but to a later period." [Note 6] We take up the subject at the time
when the Catholic doctrine of _transubstantiation_ was fully developed,
(since the Lateran Council of 1215.) In conformity to this view of the
sacrament, (the doctrine of transubstantiation,) _the idea of the mass
was so developed, as to signify that solemn act of the priest,
decorated with many ceremonies, by which he offers the unbloody
sacrifice at the altar." [Note 7] The mass service is a commixture of
Scripture passages, long and short prayers, extracts from the gospels
and epistles (pericopen,) liturgic forms, which are divided into
several chief parts, designated by different names, Introitus,
Offertorium, Canon missae," &c. [Note 8] This whole service amounts to
some fifteen or twenty octavo pages, including the directions for
genuflections, crossings, tergiversations, &c., occupying about an hour
in the reading, the performance of which by the priest was termed
"reading mass," as the listening of the audience was called "hearing
mass.
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