Agnus Dei (liturgy) whose canons had forbidden the iconographic depiction of Christ as a lamb instead of a man. Based upon John the Baptist's reference in to Jesus ("Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world"), the text in Latin is: which means: The text used in the Roman Catholic and Episcopal Church (Rite Two) is: The following three versions are all found in the Church of England's "Common Worship" liturgical resources, and also in the Episcopal Church's liturgical resources: The version found in the Lutheran Service Book of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod is: The General Instruction of
Mass for Four Voices the B flat strikingly changes to a B natural, producing an unexpected major chord at a key point in the music. A special feature of the mass (as also of the Five-Part Mass) is the final clause of the Agnus Dei. Although text-expression is not generally a feature of sixteenth-century Mass cycles, Byrd clearly regarded the ending of the Agnus Dei text ‘Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem’ as an opportunity for an expressive treatment of the words. He almost certainly identified ‘nobis’ as the persecuted Tudor Catholic community, as he had done with many of the