The American Prayer Book

A scholarly reading edition of the 1937 Scribner volume by Bishop Edward L. Parsons and Professor Bayard H. Jones — a comprehensive history and commentary on the American Book of Common Prayer of 1928, prepared for the lay reader and the student of the liturgy.

Chapters are added as transcription proceeds. Those marked available below are presently complete; the remainder is forthcoming.

1. Dedication
   Dedication

   In memory of Charles Lewis Slattery, distinguished alike as Bishop, Scholar, and Friend.

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2. Preface
   Preface

   Bishop Parsons' preface, recounting the book's origin in the work of the late Bishop Slattery and explaining its purpose as a successor to the standard textbooks of Hart, and of Proctor and Frere.

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3. Abbreviations
   Abbreviations

   Citation key for the standard sources cited throughout the volume — A.C., A.T., Bib., B.C.P., CSEL, DAL, Eisenhofer, E.R., Funk, H.E., Heræus, J.T.S., L. & W., LEW, McClure, P.G., P.L., Proctor and Frere, and Wordsworth.

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1. Chapter I
   Worship

   The meaning of worship as the conscious recognition of God; the inadequacy of purely intellectual or purely emotional religion; Otto on the numinous; the necessity of the social and corporate dimension; and the Prayer Book as the repository of the deep experience of the Church of the ages.

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1. Chapter II
   The Ancestry of the Prayer Book

   Liturgical life and growth; the forming of orders of worship; the fixation of regional rites; medieval service-books; the eve of the Reformation.

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2. Chapter III
   The Forming and Fixing of the English Prayer Book

   The Reformation; the general movement for ritual reform; preliminary moves; the First English Prayer Book of 1549; the Second of 1552 and the Elizabethan Settlement; the Jacobean book of 1604; the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637; the Great Rebellion; and the Restoration.

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3. Chapter IV
   The Prayer Book for the Life of Today

   The story of the Revisions: a 'Broad-Church' draft of 1689; the Nonjurors and the Scottish Church; the First American Prayer Book of 1789; the nineteenth century, the Oxford Movement, and the revision of 1892; the twentieth century; the American Prayer Book of 1928; other recent Anglican revisions.

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1. Chapter V
   The Calendar and Lectionaries

   The Christian Year; the movable feasts (Easter, Lent, Holy Week, Pentecost, Trinity, the Ember and Rogation Days); the immovable feasts, with notes on Christmas, the Epiphany, the Annunciation, Advent, and the slow accumulation of saints' days; the Sunday cycle, traced from the old Roman festal books through the “Gelasian” reorganization to the modern Missal; Anglican calendars from 1549 to 1928; the lectionaries of the daily offices; and the Psalter.

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2. Chapter VI
   Morning and Evening Prayer

   “Common Prayers”; the development of the Hours from the daily devotions of the Synagogue through Hippolytus, Cassian, Basil, and Benedict to the Sarum Breviary; the First Prayer Book of 1549 (Cranmer's consolidation of Matins, Lauds, Prime, Vespers, and Compline); the Second of 1552; the revisions of 1662, 1789, 1892, and 1928; rationale and use; and a note on the Te Deum.

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3. Chapter VII
   The Litany, and Other Supplications

   The origin of the Litany form and its Syrian provenance; Western litanies — Celtic, Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Sergian — with primitive texts quoted in full; Cranmer's English Litany of 1544 and its successive revisions; the structure and character of the Litany; primitive notes; homologues; other forms; the “Lesser Litany” and the Lord's Prayer; Collects; Special Intercessions; the Penitential Office; and a Note on the Use of the Occasional Prayers.

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4. Chapter VIII
   Holy Communion: I. Development of the Historic Rites

   The Eucharist in the Primitive Church (the Last Supper, Jewish table-blessings, the Pauline contribution, the Didaché); the first systematic description in St. Justin Martyr (ca. 148); the first complete text in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (ca. 217), translated in full; the Eastern liturgies — Syrian, Alexandrian, Byzantine, Nestorian; the Western liturgies — Gallican, Mozarabic, Roman, with the genesis of the Roman Canon traced through the De Sacramentis of St. Ambrose; subsequent elaborations of the Lord's Prayer, the Fraction, the Sanctus, the Benedictus qui venit, the Gloria in Excelsis, the Creed, and the private prayers of the celebrant; with appended Notes.

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5. Chapter IX
   Holy Communion: II. Anglican Rites

   The character of the Roman Canon and the aims of the Reformers; The Order of the Communion of 1548 and the First Prayer Book of 1549, with Cranmer's “eloquent paraphrase” of the Canon; the Second Prayer Book of 1552 and the dispersal of the Canon under Continental pressure; the Elizabethan settlement of 1559, the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637, and the English book of 1662; the abortive American book of 1785, the first authentic American Prayer Book of 1789 (with Bishop Seabury's adoption of the Scottish Consecration Prayer of 1764), the revision of 1892, and the last revision of 1928.

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6. Chapter X
   Holy Communion: III. The Present American Rite

   The structural divisions of the Liturgy — service of the Catechumens, service of the Faithful, the consecratory Canon, the Communion; the General Order, the Devotions of the Faithful, and the Canon of Consecration with its rich heritage of the “eloquent paraphrase” of 1549, the Scottish 1764 form, and Bishop Seabury's adoption of it; the Canon of the Communion with its primitive seven-fold structure (Fraction, Blessing, Elevation, Communion, Thanksgiving, Commendatory Prayer, Dismissal); and the Music adorning the rite.

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7. Chapter XI
   Occasional Offices: Baptism, Instruction, and Confirmation

   The baptismal liturgy: baptism in the New Testament and the third century; the seventh century and the Sarum Rite; Anglican services before the last revision; private baptism and other makeshift orders; the American baptismal rite of 1928; rubrics and use; the Offices of Instruction; Confirmation.

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8. Chapter XII
   Other Occasional Offices (forthcoming)

   Marriage; the Thanksgiving after Childbirth; Visitation of the Sick; Communion of the Sick; Burial of the Dead — a full treatment of the remaining Occasional Offices of the American rite, traced from their Jewish, Roman, and Sarum ancestry through the Reformation and into the 1928 revision.

   Newly available
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9. Chapter XIII
   The Ordinal

   Origins; the first text; the fourth century; Western rites of the seventh century; the synthesis of the Latin Ordinal; Anglican ordination services; the genius of the Anglican Ordinals.

   Newly available
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1. Chapter XIV
   Ritual and Ceremonial

   The authority of rubrics; Jus Liturgicum; the discretion of the minister; the authority of custom; the principles of appropriate ceremonial — appropriateness, harmony, unity, and simplicity — as the outward and visible vesture of worship.

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1. Glossary
   Glossary

   Two hundred twenty-five definitions of liturgical, theological, and historical terms used throughout the volume, with Greek and Latin etymologies. Searchable, with an alphabetic jump-strip.

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2. Bibliography
   Bibliography

   One hundred thirty-six numbered citations in four parts — Texts, Historical, Special Studies, and Comments — to which the footnotes throughout the volume refer. Searchable.

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3. Index
   Index

   The full subject index of the volume — over six hundred entries, A through Y, with cross-references and page citations. Searchable, with an alphabetic jump-strip.

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