Does Fr. Adrian Fortescue’s point that the primitive Roman mass was of “an eastern type” “disprove” Western Rite Orthodoxy? (Thread)

(Pictured is a diagram of altar censing in the Roman Mass, likely the use of Trent, from Fr. Adrian’s “The Mass.”)

Before I had this twitter account, I noticed an argument circulated by some on the platform, namely the (now suspended) Orthodoxgerman (RIP).

The argument cited a passage from the book “The Mass” by Roman Catholic priest Fr. Adrian Fortescue. In the passage, Fr. Fortescue describes the primitive/catacomb Roman liturgy as “of an eastern type.”

The case made by Orthodoxgerman (and others) was that this (somehow idk how) shows that there was never an “Orthodox Western liturgy” and that the Orthodox west used the Greek rite.

The first problem with this argument is found when we look at this phrase:
“Of an eastern type”
What does this mean?
“Well, Abraham, it obviously means “eastern rite.””

Okay then, which “eastern rite” is Fortescue referring to? The Alexandrian Rite? The Antiochene Rite? The Armenian Rite? The Constantinopolitan (Byz/Greek) Rite? The East Syriac Rite? The West Syriac Rite?

The second issue with this case is that later on in the book, Fortescue actually says something which flies directly in the face of the anti-WR argument attempting to be made here.

"Essentially the Missal of Pius V is the Gregorian Sacramentary; that again is formed from the Gelasian book, which depends on the Leonine collection. We find the prayers of our Canon in the treatise de Sacramentis and allusions to it in the *4th century.*"

Fortescue then goes on to add, in that same section,
"So our Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world..."

What makes this so humorous is that here we see the book which supposedly "disproves the western rite" in fact vindicating the western rite position - specifically when Fortescue notes that the canon traces to the 4th c.

From the 4th C. to the schism - there were many saints produced in the Orthodox West, and they all knew and understood this Mass in their heart, which has remained virtually unchanged.

(end)

Source: Fr. Adrian Fortescue, The Mass: A Study of the Roman Liturgy, s.l., 1912, pp. 213-15