How many ways can we say Gloria Patri?

This semester, I've been doing sung morning and evening prayer on campus. One of the interesting challenges is that sometimes we sing from different hymnals or liturgies in a single service, and thus we sing two (or even three) different Gloria Patri. (Similar changes have been made in the Gloria in Excelsis, but that’s a topic for another time).

The Latin version is nearly 15 centuries old:

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto:
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

New Advent says it was universal throughout christendom by the 17th century. For example, Shepherd (1950: 9) says about the Gloria Patri after the psalms:

Gloria Patri (see commentary, p. 8). The use of this doxology has been traditional in the Church from the earliest times, and is intended to give to the Psalms a Christian reference and intention. 

Blunt (1889: 186) dates it even earlier

Clement of Alexandria, who wrote before the end of the second century, refers to the use of this hymn under this form, …“giving glory to the one Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” and a hymn of about the same date is printed by Dr. Bouth, in which there is an evident trace of the same custom :… “Praise we the Father and Son, and Holy Spirit of God." It is also referred to even earlier by Justin Martyr. 

The 14th and 15th century manuscripts of the Sarum Missal (Legg, 1916: 23) list this text as

chorus. Gloria patri et filio et spiritui sancto.
clerici. Et laus et honor potestas et imperium.
chorus. Sicut erat in principio et nuncet semper et in secula seculorum amen.

400 years of the Book of Common Prayer

In the Daily Office, Cranmer’s original 1549 Booke of Common Praier uses this translation:

Glory be to the father, and to the sonne, and to the holye ghost. As it was in the begynning, is now, and ever shal be, world without ende. Amen.

Except for spelling, we see that in the CoE prayer books through 1662, as well as the (unapproved) 1928 Book of Common Prayer. It’s also in the American prayer books from 1789 to 1928 as

Minister. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
Answer. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

And then came Vatican II.

Vatican II/ICET/ICEL

After Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church began a systematic translation of the liturgy into English (and other local languages). As Hatchett (1988: 132) notes in his summary of Anglican liturgy revisions since the 1950s

Various provinces have participated in ecumenical groups developing common translations of texts (International Consultation on English Texts, or its equivalent for other languages) and have adopted common lectionaries, based on either the post­ Vatican II Roman lectionary or that developed by the Joint Liturgical Group.

In the 1972 and 1975 proposed texts from the International Consultation on English Texts (published in Prayers We Have in Common), the Gloria Patri was rendered as

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as in the beginning, so now, and for ever. Amen.

However, this did not reflect what had already been used in the 1971 Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Hours:

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

This is, of course, also what ended up in the 1979 American prayer book.

Over the years, I was probably not the only one who was confused that both the Rite I (traditional) and Rite II (modern) liturgies have used the same GP. On the one hand, it made sense for simplifying the task of a priest celebrating both Rite I and Rite II in the same parish (a common issue in the 1980s and 1990s). However, it also meant that this part of Rite I is consistently different from the previous 400 years of English language liturgy — even though most of the rest of Rite I is intended to be similar to the historic liturgy.

One of the sources of confusion is that Rite I services can use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer Daily Office canticles (and psalms), as in Hymnal 1940 (and now the Book of Common Praise 2017) — as well as any earlier American, English (or other) resources. So in singing the Daily Office, it matters whether we copy a canticle from H40, BCP17, or the Rite I part of H82.

21st Century Corrections

The Roman Catholic church accounts for more than one third of American Christians. After its 2008 English language correction to its liturgy of the mass  — the Roman Missal (3rd ed.) implemented in 2011 — around 2010 the American Catholic bishops started a related update of its Liturgy of the Hours. However, this new liturgy has not been officially approved, and I was unable to identify its plans for the Gloria Patri.

However, more directly relevant for American Anglicans, the ACNA has released drafts of Texts for Common Prayer, the liturgy its is scheduled to approve in June 2019. In the liturgy of the Daily Office — Morning and Evening Prayer — the new Gloria Patri is rendered as

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

In other words, we are almost full circle. The Gloria Patri of 1549-1928 is back, with one change: consistent with late 20th century contemporary language, “Ghost” has been banished and replaced everywhere with “Spirit.” Under the circumstances, it seems like the most compatible revision of the historic liturgy.

With only about 100,000 members, the ACNA might seem lonely make its change on its own. However, it’s merely emulating the (gently modernized) language used by the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, with its two most recent liturgy books: Lutheran Worship (1982) and Lutheran Service Book (2006). While the LCMS is smaller than the more liberal ECLA, it is still larger than the Episcopal Church and ACNA combined.

Is this liturgical change by the ACNA the first step toward ecumenical cooperation with the most liturgically conservative of the largest Protestant denominations?

References

• Blunt, John Henry, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer, rev. ed., London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1889.
• Hatchett, Marion J., “Prayer Books,” in Stephen Sykes and John Booty, The Study of Anglicanism (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1988), 121-133.
• Legg, J. Wickham, ed. The Sarum Missal. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916.
• Prayers We Have in Common: Agreed Liturgical Texts Prepared by the International Consultation on English Texts, enlarged and revised ed., Philadelphia, Fortress, 1972.
• Prayers We Have in Common: Agreed Liturgical Texts Prepared by the International Consultation on English Texts, 2nd rev. ed., Philadelphia, Fortress, 1975.
• Shepherd, Massey Hamilton, Jr., The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950