Note 945 — Chapter VII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH ACCEPTS THE LAY CONTRACT AND CEREMONIAL
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The custom of benediction may have been influenced by Jewish practice. The Hebrew benediction was given "not necessarily by a priest, but by the eldest friend or relative present": Meyrick, in Dict. Christ. Antiq., II, 1107, who gives the benediction in abridged form. Cf. Selden, Uxor ebraica, II, 12.
On the teachings of the Christian fathers as to the form of marriage see Martene, De ritibus, II, lib. I, c. ix, 120-44; Selden, Uxor ebraica, 179-84, 665-69, passim; Schubert, Die evangel. Trauung, 4 ff.; Loening, Gesch. des deutsch. Kirchenrechts, II, 573 ff.; Dieckhoff, Die kirch. Trauung, 20 ff.; Friedberg, Lehrbuch, 337 ff.; Phillips, Lehrbuch, 612 ff.; Biener, "Beiträge," ZKR., XX, 119-27.