British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 880

CHAPTER XXII.

obvious development the bishop of the most important city in a district soon came to assume jurisdiction over his fellow bishops in the same region : it is from this development that are derived the office and title of archbishop and metropolitan. There followed the creation of the office of Patriarch, whose holder exercised jurisdiction over the whole episcopate within his Patriarchate. During the first four and a half centuries (until A.D. 451) there were three Patriarchates, namely, in order of precedence, those of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, with the Bishop of Rome as the acknowledged head of the whole Church;_ the bishoprics of Constantinople and Jerusalem were raised to Patriarchal rank at the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 in the circumstances which will be described hereafter.

4. The gradual development of the various Christian liturgies is thus summarised by Dr. Adrian Fortescue * : "We have therefore this concept of all the old Christian liturgies : first there was a practically universal, but still vague, rite used at least in all the chief centres during the first three centuries. For this rite we have the allusions of early Fathers and remnants in the somewhat later 'Church Orders' **. From the fourth century the older fluid rite is crystalised into four parent liturgies. those of Antioch, Alexandria, Rome and Gaul. All others*** are developments of one of these types".

5. There was at first no special liturgical language: each Christian community celebrated divine service in its own tongue. By far the most widespread language was Greek, which was spoken by the Roman Christians, as well as by those of all centres such as Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and others for at least the first two centuries of the Christian era : similarly the earliest inscriptions in the Roman catacombs are written in the Greek language. It is probable that Latin was first used by Christians in Africa : the first Pope to use it was Victor I (A.D. 190-202) who was himself an African. Scholars are not agreed on the exact period when Latin replaced Greek in the liturgy which subsequently developed into the Latin (as distinct from the Greek} Rite; but it was probably not earlier than the second half of the third century or later than the end of the fourth. In any
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* The Muss . a. study of the Roman Liturgy. Pages 107-108 .
** A series of documents relating to liturgical matters compiled in or shortly after the IVth century, but. containing much material or an earlier period.
*** Including the Byzantine Rite, the most widespread Rite in Christendom after the Roman Rite. The Byzantine Rite is derived from that of Antioch.

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