PARTICLE, a term in Theology, used in the Latin church for the crumbs or little pieces of consecrated bread, called in the Greek church μικρὰ. The Greeks have a particular ceremony, called τὰ μικρὰ, of the particles, wherein certain crumbs of bread, not consecrated, are offered up in honour of the Virgin, St John Baptist, and several other saints. They also give them the name of παραφύλαξις, oblatio. Gabriel archbishop of Philadelphia wrote a little treatise expresses τὰ μικρὰ, wherein he endeavours to show the antiquity of this ceremony, in that it is mentioned in the liturgies of St Chrysostom and Basil. There has been much controversy on this head between the reformed and catholic divines. Aubertin and Blondel explain a passage in the theory of Germanus patriarch of Constantinople, where he mentions the ceremony of the particles as in use in his time, in favour of the former; Messieurs de Port Royal contest the explanation; but M. Simon, in his notes on Gabriel of Philadelphia, endeavours to show that the passage itself is an interpolation, not being found in the ancient copies of Germanus,
Particle II Partnership. manus, and consequently that the dispute is very ill grounded.