Public Occasions Research Articles

The Liberty of the Bishop To Improvise Prayer in the Eucharist

The earliest clear indication that in the eucharist of the early church the bishop was at liberty to improvise in making the long prayer (later to be called the anaphora) after the offerings of bread and wine had been brought to him is perhaps to be found in Justin Martyr's First Apology (67.5). Here, in his description of the normal Sunday eucharist, Justin says: xat 6 o'oeargq eVX xa a ev3aQartagQ, 6ar nSa,pt; avtcl, davaiZ,U e, al 6 Aaad Enevp9lierl A8ycov td 'Ayrv. Here the phrase d6'a SvaptL avirC suggests that the contents and expression of the prayer of the president (who is clearly the bishop) are determined by his ability. Next, Irenaeus in his Adversus Haereses (1.7.2) tells us that in his juggling pseudo-eucharist the heretic Marcus nozrQeta otvco xxeQaFueva neoanotovtevog evXaltaretl, xati l nitov EXTeivcwv ?rv AOyov r7RS e'm:bAaelo. This suggests that the celebrant could decide the length of the great prayer, unless Marcus arrogated to himself the right of improvising prayer as well as the right of producing faked miracles during the eucharist. Not much later Tertullian says that Christians pray manibus expansis, quia innocuis, capite nudo, quia non erubescimus, denique sine monitore, quia de pectore oramus (with hands outstretched because they are innocent, with head uncovered, because we are not ashamed, finally without a prompter because we pray from the heart). In official ceremonies of the Roman religion, a prompter would be employed on public occasions to ensure that the proper formulae were correctly repeated. Tertullian is speaking of praying for the Emperor, and it seems likely that he is referring to Christian public prayer, i.e. the celebration of the eucharist, because nobody could imagine that a monitor would be required in private prayer (Apologeticus 30.4). The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus provides very clear evidence on this point (ed. and tr. G. Dix, 10.4, 5). It tells us:

Some Early London Concerts and Music Clubs, 1670–1720

The growth of the public concert was, perhaps, one of the most important factors which influenced the course of music in England towards the close of the seventeenth century. A number of music clubs were in existence before the Restoration as we know from Pepys and Anthony à Wood, but these, one gathers, were principally for the mutual delight of their mainly amateur participants. Cromwell, too, invited the members of the House of Commons to hear ‘rare music’ at Whitehall in 1657, but this was a State rather than a public occasion. The public concert, as we understand the term, did not come into existence until after the Restoration, when social conditions were established which were conducive to its success. The centralization of social life in London which followed the resumption of Court activities there created a large new audience, eager for all forms of entertainment. The influence of the King's personal preferences has perhaps been overstressed, but it cannot be denied that his hedonistic inclinations set a pattern of behaviour which was only too readily followed by London society. The theatres, closed during the greater part of the Commonwealth period, flourished once again, and in 1672 John Banister established a series of public concerts at Whitefriars which became the model for many similar ventures, at York Buildings and elsewhere.

Corrigenda

1. Professor Alföldi and the Roman Contorniates. In a letter to the Editor of this Journal Professor Alföldi has pointed out that I misrepresented his remarks apropos of the New Year and Roman medallions on p. 40 of his Die Kontorniaten, when I stated (JRS 1945, 118) that he declares that all the bronze medallions were New Year gifts. This, I now see, certainly was an inaccurate statement, for which I owe Professor Alföldi an apology. For actually he allows that the medallionissues, once begun, could be extended to other imperial festivals (‘einmal angefangen konnte die Prägung solcher Medaillen auch auf andere Kaiserfeste ausgedehnt werden’). But he does say that we may seek the starting-point of the whole bronze medallion-series in ‘show’ New Year issues, which were thought of as artistic presents for persons of rank (‘wir möchten aber noch viel weiter gehen und den Ausgangspunkt der ganzen Medaillonprägung in Bronze in solchen prunkhaften Neujahrsprägungen suchen, die als kunstvolle Geschenke für vornehme Herren gedacht waren’). That a large proportion of the medallions, taken as a whole, were undoubtedly struck as New Year gifts I fully agree. I am not, however, convinced that we have evidence that the custom of giving New Year presents set going the whole idea of issuing medallions. Apart from Hadrian's silver Felicitas type, which may possibly refer to New Year luck, our earliest gold and silver pieces, of Augustus (Diana, Principes Iuventutis (if genuine)), Domitian (Minerva, Germania), Trajan (Adventus, Providentia Senatus), and Hadrian (Juppiter), contain no obvious New Year allusions; and of the earliest bronze types, those struck under Trajan and Hadrian, only a small proportion—four (New Year formula in wreath, Hadrian in zodiac frame with Seasons, Four Seasons, Tellus with Seasons) out of the seventy-four types known to me—seem to allude specifically to the calendar New Year, and the first two of these may allude to the regnal New Year. Some of the other types of these two Emperors may have been issued at the New Year, but we have no proof of it. There were other public and ceremonial occasions equally suitable for making presents of this kind. New Year allusions on medallions gather volume under Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus; but not all of these can be connected with the calendar New Year, and types with a wide variety of other associations still abound. It was not only at the New Year that gifts of coins were made (Suet., Aug. 75); and there would seem to be no reason why a whole range of occasions and contexts, of which the New Year was but one, should not have been envisaged for medallion-issues from the start.

Dryden's Odes and Draghi's Music

The study of any choral lyric, properly so called, and designed to be sung and otherwise performed by a group of executants on a specific public occasion, must be considerably hampered when its original musical setting is not at hand. Indeed the appreciation of such a poem as Alexander's Feast can be only partial at best if the text is read with the comparatively simple apparatus that one usually brings to bear upon a sonnet by Sidney. When the music to a choral ode was no afterthought but rather an integral part of the whole performance, the divorcement of the words from their setting results in an inevitable loss of understanding and of proper response. The ideal way to absorb any choral lyric, whether it be by Pindar, the author of the Book of Judges, or Dryden, would be to hear, if not to participate in, the complex display of sound through which its author intended it to be proclaimed. And since one cannot be present at the original performance of any save contemporary compositions of the kind, it becomes imperative to reconstruct, through the vigorous use of both study and imagination, the original circumstances and the original music which accompanied the poem.

Address by William J. Mayo, M.D., before the Radiological Society of North America

HomeRadiologyVol. 2, No. 3 PreviousNext EditorialAddress by William J. Mayo, M.D., before the Radiological Society of North AmericaRochester, Minnesota, December 3–7, 1923Published Online:Mar 1 1924https://doi.org/10.1148/2.3.181MoreSectionsPDF ToolsImage ViewerAdd to favoritesCiteTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked In AbstractMr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: First, I wish to express the sentiment of the entire Clinic by saying that we are all very glad to have the Radiological Society meet with us here in Rochester. We are particularly glad because you bring those things that are fresh; you talk these things over before us and they interest all of us and especially those of us who are particularly interested in the things in which you are interested. They are the ones who will absorb those things that you show them today and bring them to the rest of us through the patients to-morrow and thereafter. We are all proud of the radiological staff here and I think we have reason to be. I look around and see Dr. Carman, who has done so much for the radiology of the gastrointestinal tract; Dr. Moore, Dr. Sutherland, Dr. Miller, Dr. Desjardins and Dr. Bowing. These are the men who are working with us every day and who are telling us what to do and why. Dr. Carman speaks of the few times when we are able, perhaps, to catch him in a mistake. He has us on the hip all the time. (Applause and laughter.)I regret very much that my brother is not here. You miss him and he misses you. I really am only taking his place. We used to have here in Rochester a Colonel G., who had been a great soldier in the Civil War. When he came back he used to talk to us on every possible occasion and on every possible subject. He spoke so much that he spoke well. (Laughter.) Once when he went away his son was put on to fill his place on a public occasion. Our newspapers speaking of the affair said that Colonel G. had been called out of town, but that his son had taken his place; that he got up and assumed the well-known attitude of his father, with one hand in the lapel of his coat and the other under his coat tail; but that when he opened his mouth the audience was painfully aware that “Pa was out in South Dakota.” (Laughter.)On an occasion of this kind, when we should all be merry, it is really too bad for me to talk a little shop, especially when I see all the ladies are present here to-night. Incidentally I want to congratulate the members of this Society that their wives are with them. And I want to congratulate the ladies that they are wise enough to be with you. (Applause and laughter.) My wife is here. She will tell me when I get home that I talked badly. (Laughter.) Our wives always tell us the truth.There is not such a lot of joy comes into our lives. We are dealing with sick people all the time. But doctors really like merriment. I heard another Lincoln story the other day from a Canadian. It seems that while Lincoln was running for president he was up in Canada for a little rest, and the Canard got out that Abraham Lincoln was very mercenary. An old clergyman said to him, “Mr. Lincoln, is it true that you want to be president of the United States for the money there is in it? That you love money?” Lincoln replied, “I was born on a farm and our people were very poor.Article HistoryPublished in print: Mar 1924 FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsRecommended Articles RSNA Education Exhibits RSNA Case Collection Vol. 2, No. 3 Metrics Altmetric Score PDF download

Neutralization

A Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who has inherited a taste for epigrammatic expression, made a notable statement on a public occasion not long ago.

The Manchester Municipal Technical School

IN his interesting address on technical education, when distributing the prizes of the Manchester Municipal Technical School, on the 19th inst., Mr. Balfour pointed out that the occasion was an important one, not only in the history of technical instruction in Manchester, in the history of the Corporation of that city, but also in the commercial and manufacturing history of Manchester itself, since this was the first public occasion of the distribution of prizes to the scholars of the Technical School and the School of Art since these schools were taken over by the municipality, and supported out of the public funds of the city. The fact that the Corporation of the northern metropolis has taken possession of the School of Art and of the flourishing Technical School, founded a few years ago on the site of the old Mechanics' Institution, is one which may well claim the attention of the leading statesmen of our time, and Mr. Balfour has done good service to this great educational movement by thus placing proniinently before the country the part which our municipal authorities are now playing in the matter. Fully alive to the revolution which these changes are bringing about in our educational system, Mr. Balfour, speaking to the teachers and students, insisted that there is now thrown upon them something more than personal responsibility, something more than the desire for self-advancement. They are concerned, he said, in a national work, and ought to look at it from a national point of view, and it is this public aspect of the question which justifies and more than justifies the Corporation for having taken up this great work and for having created the greatest technical school at present exsting in England, but which, great as it is, is still in its infancy, and will yet show developments which will astonish those who are now devoting their time to it in so public-spirited a fashion.