EPIKLESIS OR INVOCATION: In the strict sense of the term, the liturgical prayer by which generally in the ancient Church, and to this day in the Eastern, the sacramental elements (water, oil, bread sad wine) are consecrated; a prayer in which God is asked to send down the Holy Ghost upon the elements, the assumption being that such a prayer has the mysterious power of bringing the Holy Ghost into such relation with the elements that they become operative for their purpose. Since this purpose is the sanctification of the receivers of the sacrament, a prayer for this also is usually included in the epiklesis. Its position in the liturgy is generally after the thanksgiving and words of institution. As a rule it begins with what
is called the anamneaia or commemoration, followed by the anaphora or oblation, after which comes the epikleais proper. It has a natural affinity with the prayers of consecration in the so-called Sacramentals (q.v.), but is to be distinguished definitely from them. See Holy Water.
The oldest evidence for the epikleais in the form of a prayer of consecration for the baptismal water is found in Tertullian (Debaptismate, iv.); but there is no doubt that it was a constant feature of the baptismal rite in both text and West throughout the third and fourth centuries. In the West the next oldest evidence is scarcely Gyp-
In the rian, who speaks only of a "cleansing Baptismal and sanctifying" of the baptismal
Service. water (Epist., lxa. 1), but rather the Synod of Carthage of 256, with its phrase "The water sanctified by prayer." Am broee asserts (De spiritu sancto, I. vii. 88) that the descent of the Holy Ghost, effected by the prayer of the priest, hallows the water, and Jerome (Con tra Luciferum, vi. and vii.) is unable to conceive any true baptism without such a descent. Augus tine bears unmistakable witness to the same usage; yet he, together with Ambrose, was to a great ex tent responsible for upsetting the universal belief in the efficacy of the epikleaia and replacing it, as the central point in the action of the Eucharist at least, by the words of institution. In his conflict with the Donstists be felt obliged to place the con secrating power less in a prayer of epikleais, which was clearly in his time not uniform in its wording, than in a fixed, authoritative formula, such as was that of baptism, resting upon the words of institu tion of the sacrament. This opened the way for a new view of consecration, which in the Eucharist especially came to be of decisive importance.It was not long before Augustine's teaching bore fruit. . It is combined with the older view in the pseudo-Ambrosian treatise De sacramenh's (II. v. 14), and probably determined the inclusion of the words of institution in the epikleais of the sacramentary of Gelasius, a formulary which, with some changes, is still used in the Roman Catholic Church at the benediction of the baptismal water. The corresponding formulary in the Greek Church is a simple epiklesis without the words of institution.
In ths case of the Eucharist, plenty of evidences from the fourth and fifth centuries, both Eastern and Western, attribute the consecration of the elements to the epiklesis; but the agreement is not so universal as in the case of baptism, nor is it safe to assume that the epiklesis was in use from the beginning as a prayer of consecration, which it came to be considered in the East. The oldest witness for the Eucharistic epikleaia is Irenæus, who says (IV. xviii. 5) " The bread which receives the invocation of God is no longer common
In the bread but the Eucharist "; but that Eucharist this phrase can not be pressed is shown by the occurrence in the preceding section of another in which that bread is said to be the body of the Lord " over which thanks have bin given," and the context shows that this giving of thanks (eucharistein) is not to be taken se simply a general term for consecration. The epi-
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Bibliography: From the Catholic standpoint: L. A. Hoppe, Die Epikleaia der griechischen and o»entalischen Liturgien und der römischen Konaekrat%onakanon, Sahaffhausen, 1884; J. Franz, Der eucharastische Konaekratiomment, Würzburg, 1875; idem, Die euehariatische Wandlung oral die EpikLeae, ib. 1880; F. Probst, Salcramente and Sakramentalien, Tübingen, 1872; idem, Liturgie des 1,. Jahrhunderts, Münster, 1893; idem, Die abendlandische Mesas vam 6. bia zum 8. Jahrhunderte, ib. 1898; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vii. 721, 728 sqq.; KL, iv. 686-898.
From the Protestant standpoint: P. Zorn, Diaaertatio. de eVwAqoe&, Rostock, 1705; J. W. F. Hofling, Das Sakrarnent der Taufe, i. 470 sqq., Erlangen, 1846; G. Anrich, Dag antike Myaterienuxaen in seinem Einfduea aut das Christentum, Göttingen, 1894.
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