Subsequently, and especially in the fifth century, ministers termed the public celebration of the eucharist, _mass_ (or missa, dismissed); because this service took place after the catechumens were dismissed.

This word 'missa' was gradually corrupted into _mass_.

But how did that mode of celebrating this ordinance arise in the Romish Church, _which consisted in the priest's giving the sacrament to himself alone, connected with solemn turnings around, and moving about from place to place, and changes of attitude, resembling in some degree a theatrical exhibition, which is termed mass ?_" He then proceeds to explain the history of the Romish mass here defined.
_Siegel_, in his excellent Manual of Christian Ecclesiastical Antiquities, published at Leipsic, in 1837, in four volumes, presents an extended view of this subject, from which we will extract little more than his definition of the mass.

"The mass, in the Roman Catholic sense of the term, belongs not to the centuries of Christian antiquity, but to a later period." [Note 6] We take up the subject at the time when the Catholic doctrine of _transubstantiation_ was fully developed, (since the Lateran Council of 1215.) In conformity to this view of the sacrament, (the doctrine of transubstantiation,) _the idea of the mass was so developed, as to signify that solemn act of the priest, decorated with many ceremonies, by which he offers the unbloody sacrifice at the altar." [Note 7] The mass service is a commixture of Scripture passages, long and short prayers, extracts from the gospels and epistles (pericopen,) liturgic forms, which are divided into several chief parts, designated by different names, Introitus, Offertorium, Canon missae," &c.

[Note 8] This whole service amounts to some fifteen or twenty octavo pages, including the directions for genuflections, crossings, tergiversations, &c., occupying about an hour in the reading, the performance of which by the priest was termed "reading mass," as the listening of the audience was called "hearing mass." In view of these authorities, we may take for granted, what we suppose no one will deny, that in the Romish Church, not only of the present day, but since several centuries before the Reformation, and, therefore, in 1530, the most common and primary meaning of the word _mass_, was not Lord's Supper; but that long ceremonial, including the consecration of the elements, elevation of the host, and self-communion of the priest, as an offering of the body of Christ a sacrifice for the sins of the living and dead, _which preceded_ the distribution of the sacrament to the people.
_Again_, it will be admitted, that whilst among Papists the above specific meaning of the word mass was the most common one, that term was also not unfrequently used by synecdoche, as a part of the whole, to designate the sacramental celebration in general: just as we use the word "_preaching_" which specifically signifies the delivery of a sermon, for the whole services of public worship in the phrase, "will you go to preaching to-day ?" _Finally_, it will be admitted, that the Reformers, having been educated as Papists, were trained up to this twofold use of the word mass, namely, specifically the extended services above described, which _preceded_ the communion, and sometimes informally the eucharist, communion or sacrament in general.
The question then seems definitely to be reduced to these two inquiries; first, _Did the Reformers retain this distinction in the use of the word mass at the time of the Diet at Augsburg; and, secondly, did they employ the word in its specific sense in the disputed passages of that Confession?
_First Inquiry_.
We shall _first_ inquire whether this distinction in the use of the word mass was observed by the Reformers at and before the time of the Augsburg Diet?
I.And _first_ let us listen to _Luther_ himself.