It also included a collection of Orphic hymns, liturgic songs, practical treatises, and poems on various subjects.
This makes it all the more remarkable that Beethoven's second and only important Mass (in D, Op. 123) is not only the most dramatic ever penned but is, perhaps, the last classical Mass that is thoughtfully based upon the liturgy, and is not a mere musical setting of what happens to be a liturgic text.
His Pantheisticon, sive formula celebrandae sodalitatis socraticae, of which he printed a few copies for private circulation only, gave great offence as a sort of liturgic service made up of passages from heathen authors, in imitation of the Church of England liturgy.