The Sanctus (Latin: Sanctus, "Holy") is a hymn in Christian liturgy. It may also be called the epinikios hymnos (Greek: ????????? ?????, "Hymn of Victory") when referring to the Greek rendition.
In Western Christianity, the Sanctus forms part of the Ordinary and is sung (or said) as the final words of the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer, the prayer of consecration of the bread and wine. The preface, which alters according to the season, usually concludes with words describing the praise of the worshippers joining with the angels, who are pictured as praising God with the words of the Sanctus. In Byzantine Rite and general Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the Sanctus is offered as a response by the choir during the Holy Anaphora.
Tersanctus ("Thrice Holy") is another, rarer name for the Sanctus. The same name is sometimes used for the Trisagion.
Video Sanctus
Text
In Greek
?????, ?????, ????? ?????? ??????· ?????? ? ??????? ??? ? ?? ??? ????? ???, ?????? ?? ???? ????????. ??????????? ? ????????? ?? ??????? ??????. ?????? (?) ?? ???? ????????.
In the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and the Liturgy of St. Basil:
In the Liturgy of St. James:
In Latin
In the Roman Rite:
In the Roman Rite, the Sanctus also forms part of the solemn hymn of praise Te Deum laudamus, but with the addition of a reference to the "majesty" of the Lord's glory in the Pleni sunt verse (the phrase pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua becomes pleni sunt caeli et terra maiestatis gloriae tuae). The Benedictus is not included in the Te Deum, and the Sanctus is therefore included as part of that hymn as follows:
In the Mozarabic Rite:
In English
The Sanctus appears thus in the 1549 Book of Common Prayer (and as set to music by John Merbecke in 1550):
In the 1559 BCP it appears without the Benedictus:
English version of some Lutherans:
In 1973 the International Consultation on English Texts (ICET) produced an ecumenical version that at that time was adopted by Catholics, Anglicans and others:
Since 2011 the Roman Missal in English has:
Maps Sanctus
Sources
As Enrico Mazza writes:
The Sanctus became part of the Roman Eucharistic Prayer only in the first half of the fifth century; all in all, this was a fairly late period, inasmuch as by then the text of the Roman Canon had become fixed and was regarded as a text possessing great authority.
There exist two fundamental types of Sanctus: the Alexandrian and the Antiochene. The Sanctus of the Roman Eucharist derives from the Antiochene liturgy and has two parts: (a) the Sanctus true and proper, consisting of the acclamation from Isaiah 6:3; and (b) the Benedictus, a christological acclamation taken from Matthew 21:9. The Sanctus has been given a christological interpretation and a trinitarian interpretation, and this in both the East and the West. These differing interpretations may be due to the presence, in the text of the Sanctus, of a theological section, namely, the acclamation from Isaiah 6:3, and a christological part, namely the acclamation from Matthew 21:9.
The text of the Sanctus passed from Jewish use to Christian use at a very early time, since it cited in the Apocalypse of John and in the letter of Clement to the Corinthians.
As can be read in the same source, in the Alexandrian tradition on the other hand:
the Sanctus consisted of only the first part, the citation of Isaiah 6:3, and lacked the Benedictus; this was the earliest form taken by the Sanctus in the Eucharist. This early state can be seen in the testimonies of Eusebius of Caesarea, the Mystagogical Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem, and, above all, the Ritual used in the Church of Theodore of Mopsuestia. In the latter, too, that is, in the archaic stage of the Syrian liturgy, the Benedictus was unknown, and the Sanctus consisted solely of the acclamation from Isaiah 6:3.
The first part of the Sanctus, the adaptation from Isaiah 6:3, describes the prophet Isaiah's vision of the throne of God surrounded by six-winged, ministering seraphim. A similar representation is found in Revelation 4:8. In Jewish liturgy, the verse from Isaiah is uttered by the congregation during Kedusha, a prayer said during the cantor's repetition of the Amidah (18 Benedictions):
The text of the second part, beginning with the word Benedictus (Latin for "Blessed") is taken from Matthew 21:9, describes Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, which is in turn based on the first half of Psalm 118:26. In its present liturgical context "it points to the expected presence of the Lord in the eucharistic gifts". Within Anglicanism, the 1552 Book of Common Prayer omitted it and, though it is now permitted, "the choice whether or not to use the Benedictus is still for some a matter of Eucharistic theology and churchmanship".
The Sanctus appears in the Sacramentary of Serapion of Thmuis (the saint died in 360), but may go as far back to Christian liturgy in North Africa in the year 200.
Hymn forms in Eastern liturgies
The present form of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the primary liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church, reads (when in Greek) the following text:
The above differs from the Roman Rite Latin text
- in that the Latin adds to the word Dominus (Lord), which is the regular Latin translation of ????, the Deus (God), which is found in neither the Greek nor the Latin translations nor in the original text of Isaiah 6:3, but is found in Revelation 4:8: "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!"
- in that the Latin has the plural caeli, and the Greek the singular ??????? for the mention of "heaven", which appears in neither the Latin nor the Greek translation of Isaiah 6:3.
- in that the Greek gives two different forms of the phrase corresponding to Hosanna in excelsis, the second one including an ? article. The article is not found in Matthew 21:9. The form of the hymn without the article is also used in the Greek Liturgy of Saint James, and in modern settings, practises and contexts.
The Liturgy of Saint Basil of the Eastern Orthodox Church has the same form of the Sanctus as the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, with its two variants of the Hosanna phrase.
In older Greek liturgical manuscripts, various forms of the hymn are attested; the ones that will follow below, belong to the ones edited by Swainson in his 1884 book The Greek liturgies; among these forms, there are variations of the hymn being composed of practically only the Old testament part. Others include:
In the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, one of them excludes not only the article ?, but also the article «???»:
The Liturgy of Saint James as given in Swainson reads as follows:
This text not only omits the article ? that is used in the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, but also has Kyrie (vocative case) where the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom has Kyrios (nominative).
In current use, the Liturgy of Saint James may use the nominative rather than the vocative case of ??????; the article ? is also not present in this form at the concluding Hosanna.
Moreover, a different variant of the Liturgy of Saint James is found in the margin of a manuscript that gives only the three words ?????, ?????, ????? in the body: "In the margin, much abbreviated, may be discerned the following: ?????? ??????, ?????? ? ??????? ??? ? ?? ??? ????? ???. ?????? ?? ???? ????????· ??????????? ? ????? ??? ????????? ?? ??????? ??????· ?????? ?? ???? ????????. This produces the text:
This version adds "he who came and" before "he who comes"; in this it resembles the Liturgy of Saint James in the tradition of the Syriac Orthodox Church:
The Syriac Orthodox Church also has what it calls the Liturgy of Saint Dionysius, in which the Hosanna phrase appears only at the end:
The form used in the ancient Liturgy of Addai and Mari is much shorter:
The Coptic version of the Liturgy of Saint Basil also gives a short text of what it calls the Hymn of the Seraphim:
Alternative ancient names and ancient secrecy
The priest's introductions, following the rubrics that set what should be done by whom with each passage, uniformly call the hymn the ????????? ?????, i.e. "the hymn of victory". On the other hand, it used to be that, as Swainson notes about an attested variant form wherein only ?????, ?????, ????? is being quoted:
In the margin, much abbreviated, may be discerned the following: ?????? ??????, ?????? ? ??????? ??? ? ?? ??? ????? ???. ?????? ?? ???? ????????· ??????????? ? ????? ??? ????????? ?? ??????? ??????· ?????? ?? ???? ????????. Chrysostom frequently refers to this: sometimes as ?? ???????? ?????; sometimes as ? ???????? ?????; sometimes as the ????????? ?????. The knowledge of it as a whole was confined to the faithful.
- Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth; pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua
- Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts; Heaven and earth are full of Your glory.
- Hosanna in excelsis
- Hosanna in the highest
- Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
- Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord
Hosanna in excelsis
Musical settings
The Sanctus has been set to numerous plainchant melodies, many of which are given in the Roman Missal, and many more composers have set it to polyphonic music, both in single settings and as part of cyclic mass settings.
Accompanying gestures
In the Tridentine Mass the priest joins his hands while saying the word "Sanctus" and then, bowing, continues to recite the whole of the Sanctus in a lower voice, while a small bell is rung; then, on reaching the words "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini", he stands erect again and makes the Sign of the Cross. He then continues immediately with the Canon of the Mass, while the choir, if there is one, sings the Sanctus. In the pre-1962 form, the choir pauses for the Consecration and continues with the Benedictus part afterwards. As a result of this division, the Sanctus has sometimes been spoken of as "Sanctus and Benedictus". However, in line with Pope John XXIII's revision of the rubrics of the liturgy, the splitting of the Sanctus, when sung to Gregorian chant (though not if sung polyphonically) was forbidden and is thus not allowed in celebrations of the 1962 Tridentine Mass as authorized by Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum.
In the Mass revised in line with the Second Vatican Council, the Sanctus may, of course, not be split, since the whole of the eucharistic prayer is sung or spoken aloud, and the only ceremony prescribed for the priest during the Sanctus is to join his hands. He and the people sing or recite together the whole of the Sanctus, before the priest continues the Eucharistic Prayer.
See also
- Names of God in Christianity
- Kedushah
Notes and references
Notes
References
External links
- Article at Catholic Encyclopedia
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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