Here are some thoughts on the Pax as it is presented in the most recent C of E Directory of Public Worship, Common Worship, volume. 1.
If you ask ten different people, “What is The [passing of] The Peace” you will probably get ten different answers. It is a part of modern Anglican worship that is still in search of an explanation and a theology.
The first volume of Common Worship, which provides for Sunday services in the Church of England when The Book of Common Prayer is not used, is the authoritative source for what is called “The Peace” and for its performance in the Sunday service.
For the authoritative text of The Peace one turns to page 175 (contemporary language) or to page 215 (traditional language).
Here is what is said on page 175.
The Peace
The president may introduce the Peace with a suitable sentence, and then says,
The peace of the Lord be always with you.
All. And also with you.
These words may be added
Let us offer one another a sign of peace.
All may exchange a sign of peace.
Comment
What is clear here is that the essence of the Peace is communication through Words – those of the Priest and those of the people in response to the priest. (The latter’s reply should be “and with your spirit” for that is how a reasonable person translates the original Latin & Greek!)
Everything apart from the spoken words is governed by the iussive subjunctive, “may”, which means it is optional.
There is nothing anywhere that suggests that bodily gestures or the use of further words (e.g. “peace be with you”) are necessary for The Peace. Certainly there is no suggestion that walking about and further talking are a necessary or even an appropriate part of the offering of a sign of peace.
The kind of introductory words that the Priest may use to introduce this brief part of the service are provided on page 290, where seven options are provided. For example the first is: “Christ is our Peace…We meet in his name and share his peace.”
Concerning the position of The Peace, we are told on page 333:
“The Peace follows naturally from the Prayers of Intercession and begins the Liturgy of the Sacrament. But this section maybe transposed to be the opening greeting or maybe used later in the service, as part of either the breaking of bread or the Dismissal.”
There is further information on page 335 with reference to the traditional service.
So while it is recommended by liturgists that The Peace be placed where it is in the Service as printed in Common Worship, it is not necessary that it be there at all, but can be used at the beginning, at the ending, or at the place that it had in the BCP of 1549 and in the classic Roman Mass (after the Lord’s Prayer and before the Agnus Dei).
The fact that in this explanation on page 333 we are told that the Peace can be transposed to be the opening greeting or the final dismissal tells us much about the confusion in liturgists minds as to what precisely is The Peace and what is its purpose in the modern Eucharist.
I note that genuine liturgical scholars are NOT confused about the Holy Kiss mentioned in the New Testament (Rom.16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26 & 1 Peter 5:14.) and in the early Patristic Literature, for there are excellent academic studies thereof; but, they are confused as to how one imports the dynamic equivalent of this – a sign of peace as they say – into modern worship. Is it merely a greeting, is it the being reconciled one to another in the body of Christ before taking the sacramental Body of Christ, or is it a kind of nice to see you and goodbye till we meet again or it is all of these and more, a flexible activity? And this confusion as to what is appropriate today has been around since it was first introduced forty years ago.
It would appear that no parish can truly decide whether to have the Peace or not, where to place it in the Eucharist (or in Morning or Evening Prayer – see pages 26,27, 37, 159 of Common Worship), and what form to express it in, until it has decided what precisely the modern “The Peace” is and what it is intended to achieve. The pursuit of these questions in a parish will be fruitful for education but it will probably yield no results that are agreed upon. We must accept the fact that The Peace of modern liturgies is an innovation of modern liturgists (not necessarily liturgical scholars) and none of them has yet produced an authoritative and mutually agreed statement as to what it is!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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