History of the Roman Canon

By the Canon of the Roman Catholic Mass is meant the part of the Eucharistic Prayer which follows the Preface and the congregation's sung response, Holy Holy. From the 7th century the Canon of the Mass has retained a somewhat similar structure, and was fixed after the 16th century Council of Trent. However, since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and in the light of historical studies twelve new options for the Eucharistic Prayer (and Canon) were approved for use by Roman Catholics. This article deals only the Roman Canon which took form in the seventh century under Pope Gregory I.

It is to Pope St. Gregory I (590-604), the organiser of the Roman Liturgy, that tradition ascribes the revision and arrangement of the Roman Canon. His reign thus provides a natural division in the discussion of the history of the Canon.

Gregory himself thought that the Canon had been composed by "a certain scholasticus," and Pope Benedict XIV discussed whether he meant some person so named or merely "a certain learned man." Gregory himself is credited with adding a phrase to the Canon. The Canon that he left represents in fact the last stage of a development that amounted to a "complete recasting," in which "the Eucharistic prayer was fundamentally changed and recast."

A distinction must be made between the prayers of the Canon itself and the order in which they are now found. The prayers, or at least some of them, can be traced back to a very early date from occasional references in letters of the Church Fathers: the prayers beginning Te igitur, Memento Domine and Quam oblationem were already in use, even if not with quite the same wording as now, by the year 400; the Communicantes, the Hanc igitur, and the post-consecration Memento etiam and Nobis quoque were added in the 5th century.

In the 1st century, as known, the Church of Rome, like all other Christian Churches, celebrated the Holy Eucharist by obeying Christ's direction and doing as He had done the night before he died, commonly called the Last Supper. There were the bread and wine consecrated by the words of Institution and by an invocation of the Holy Spirit; the bread was broken and Communion was given to the faithful. Undoubtedly, too, before this part of the service lessons were read from the Bible, as explicitly stated by Saint Justin Martyr.

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