[i]

[ii]

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

London : FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, Manager

Edinburgh : 100, PRINCES STREET
Berlin : A. ASHER AND CO.
Leipzig : F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York : G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta : MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.

All rights reserved

Kalendar of Peterborough Psalter (March)

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (MS. 12). Cent. xiii.

[iii]

THE CHURCH YEAR AND
KALENDAR

BY
JOHN DOWDEN, D.D.,
Hon. LL.D. (Edinburgh), late Bishop of Edinburgh

Cambridge:
at the University Press
1910

[iv]

Cambridge :
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

[v]

NOTE BY THE EDITORS

The purpose of The Cambridge Handbooks of Liturgical Study is to offer to students who are entering upon the study of Liturgies such help as may enable them to proceed with advantage to the use of the larger and more technical works upon the subject which are already at their service.

The series will treat of the history and rationale of the several rites and ceremonies which have found a place in Christian worship, with some account of the ancient liturgical books in which they are contained. Attention will also be called to the importance which liturgical forms possess as expressions of Christian conceptions and beliefs.

Each volume will provide a list or lists of the books in which the study of its subject may be pursued, and will contain a table of Contents and an Index.

The editors do not hold themselves responsible for the opinions expressed in the several volumes of the series. While offering suggestions on points of detail, they have left each writer to treat his subject in his own way, regard being had to the general plan and purpose of the series.

H. B. S.
J. H. S.

[vi]

[vii]

[The manuscript of the present volume was sent to the press only a few weeks before the lamented death of the author, and therefore the work did not receive final revision at his hands. In its original draft the manuscript contained a somewhat fuller discussion of some of the topics handled, e.g. the work of the mediaeval computists, and such technical terms as ‘Sunday Letters,’ ‘Epacts,’ etc., as well as a fuller treatment of the various Eastern Kalendars. Exigencies of space, however, and the scope of the present series, made it necessary for the author to curtail these portions of his work, while suggesting books in which the study of these topics may be pursued by the student. The Editors have endeavoured, as far as possible, to verify the references and to supplement them, where it seemed necessary to do so. In a few cases they have added short additional notes, enclosed in brackets, and bearing an indication that they are the work of the Editors.]

CONTENTS

PLATES

[xi]

INTRODUCTION

The Church’s Year, as it has been known for many centuries throughout Christendom, is characterised, first, by the weekly festival of the Lord’s Day (a feature which dates from the dawn of the Church’s life and the age of the Apostles) and, secondly, by the annual recurrence of fasts and festivals, of certain days and certain seasons of religious observance. These latter emerged, and came to find places in the Kalendar at various periods.

In order of time the season of the Pascha, the commemoration of the death, and, subsequently, of the resurrection of the Saviour, is the first of the annual observances to appear in history. Again, at an early date local commemorations of the deaths of victims of the great persecutions under the pagan Emperors were observed yearly. And some of these (notably those who suffered at Rome) gradually gained positions in the Church’s Year in regions remote from the places of their origin. Speaking generally, little as it might be thought probable beforehand, it is a fact that martyrs of local celebrity emerge in the history of the Kalendar at an earlier date than any [xii] but the most eminent of the Apostles (who were also martyrs), and earlier than some of the festivals of the Lord Himself. The Kalendar had its origin in the historical events of the martyrdoms.

So far the growth of the Kalendar was the outcome of natural and spontaneous feeling. But at a later time we have manifest indications of artificial constructiveness, the laboured studies of the cloister, and the work of professional martyrologists and Kalendar-makers. To take, for the purpose of illustration, an extreme case, it is obvious that the assignment of days in the Kalendar of the Eastern Church to Trophimus, Sosipater and Erastus, Philemon and Archippus, Onesimus, Agabus, Rufus, Asyncretus, Phlegon, Hermas, the woman of Samaria (to whom the name Photina was given), and other persons whose names occur in the New Testament, is the outcome of deliberate and elaborate constructiveness. The same is true of the days of Old Testament Patriarchs and Prophets, once, in a measure, a feature of Western, as they are still of Eastern Kalendars. But even all the festivals of our Lord, save the Pascha, though doubtless suggested by a spontaneous feeling of reverence, could be assigned to particular days of the year only after some processes of investigation and inference, or of conjecture. Whether the birthday of the Founder of the Christian religion should be placed on January 6 or on December 25 was a matter of debate and argument. Commentators on the history of the Gospels, the conjectures of interpreters of Old Testament prophecy, and such information [xiii] as might be fancied to be derivable from ancient annals, had of necessity to be considered. The assignment of the feast of the Nativity to a particular day was a product of the reflective and constructive spirit.

It is not absolutely impossible that ancient tradition, if not actual record, may be the source of June 29 being assigned for the martyrdom of St Peter and St Paul; but a more probable origin of the date is that it marks the translation of relics. Certainly the days of most of the Apostles (considered as the days of their martyrdoms) have little or no support from sources that have any claim to be regarded as historical. They find their places but gradually, and, it would seem, as the result of a resolve that none of them should be forgotten.

Commemorations which mark the definition of a dogma, or which originated in the special emphasis given at some particular epoch to certain aspects of popular belief and sentiment, have all appeared at times well within the ken of the historical student. Thus, ‘Orthodoxy Sunday’ (the first Sunday in Lent) in the Kalendar of the Greek Church is but little concerned with the controversies on the right faith which occupied the great Councils of the fourth and fifth centuries. It commemorates the triumph of the party that secured the use of images over the iconoclasts; this was the ‘orthodoxy’ which was chiefly celebrated; and we can fix the date of the establishment of the festival as A.D. 842. Again, the commemoration of All Souls in the West was the [xiv] outcome of a growing sense of the need of prayers and masses on behalf of the faithful departed. The ninth century shows traces of the observance of some such day; but it was not till the close of the tenth century, under the special impetus supplied by the reported visions of a pilgrim from Jerusalem, who declared that he had seen the tortures of the souls suffering purgatorial fire, that the observance made headway. We then find Nov. 2 assigned for the festival, which came to be gradually and slowly adopted. The feast of Corpus Christi, which now figures so largely in the popular devotions of several countries of Europe, and is marked as a ‘double of the first class’ in the service-books of the Church of Rome, emerges for the first time in the thirteenth century, and was not formally enjoined till the fourteenth. The feast of the Conception of St Mary the Virgin seems to have originated in the East, and to have been simply a historical commemoration, even as the Greeks commemorate the conception of St John the Baptist. The Eastern tradition represents Anna as barren and well stricken in years, when, in answer to her prayers and those of Joachim her spouse, God revealed to them by an angel that they should have a child. This conception was according to the Greek Menology ‘contrary to the laws of nature,’ like that of the Baptist. In the West the festival of the Conception appears at the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century. The controversies as to its doctrinal significance form part of the history of dogma, and are full of instruction: but they cannot [xv] be considered here. Up to the year 1854 the name of the festival in the Kalendars of the authorised service-books of the Roman Church was simply Conceptio B. Mariae Virginis . It was as recently as Dec. 8, 1854, by an ordinance of Pope Pius IX, that the name was changed into Immaculata Conceptio B. Mariae Virginis . It will thus be seen how changes in the Kalendar illustrate the changes and accretions of dogma, facts which are further exhibited by the changes in the rank and dignity of festivals of this kind, at first only tolerated perhaps, and of local usage, but eventually enjoined as of universal obligation, and elevated in the order and grade of festal classification. Again, the considerable number of festivals of the Greek and Russian Churches connected with relics and wonder-working icons throws a light on the intellectual standpoint and the current beliefs in these ancient branches of the Catholic Church.

Not less instructive in exhibiting the extraordinary growth in the cultus of the Blessed Virgin in the West are the inferences which may be gathered from a knowledge of the fact that no festival of the Virgin was celebrated in the Church of Rome before the seventh century, when we compare the crowd of festivals, major and minor, devoted to the Virgin in the Roman Kalendar of to-day. But considerations of this kind are only incidentally touched on in the following pages; and they are referred to here simply with a view to show that the study of the Kalendar is not an enquiry interesting merely to dry-as-dust antiquaries, [xvi] but one which is intimately connected with the study of the history of belief, and is inwoven with far-reaching issues.

In the enquiry into the origins of ecclesiastical observances the discovery within recent years of early documents, hitherto unknown in modern days, enforces the obvious thought that our conceptions on such subjects must be liable to re-adjustment from time to time in the light of new evidence. Until the day comes, if it ever comes, when it can be said with truth that the materials supplied by the early manuscripts of the East and West have been exhausted, there can be no finality. The document discovered some ten or twelve years ago, in which a lady from Gaul or Spain, who had gone on pilgrimage to the East, records her impressions of religious observances which she had witnessed at Jerusalem towards the close of the fourth century, has furnished some important light on the subject before us, as well as on the history of ceremonial. In the following pages this document is referred to as the Pilgrimage of Silvia (‘Peregrinatio Silviae’), without prejudice to the question relating to the true name of the writer. The period when the work was written is the important question for our purposes; and those who are most competent to express an opinion consider that it belongs to the time of Theodosius the Great, and to a date between the years 383 and 394.

The influence of the early mediaeval martyrologists, Bede, Florus, Ado, and Usuard, upon the mediaeval Kalendars, is unquestionable; but the relations of [xvii] their works to one another, the variations of the different recensions and the sources from which they were drawn, are still subjects of investigation. In addition to the brief notices of the martyrologists which will be found in the following pages, the enquirer who desires further information should not fail to study with care the recent treatise of Dom Henri Quentin, of Solesmes, Les Martyrologes historiques .

Of necessity a general outline sketch of the formation of the Kalendar is all that can be attempted in the following pages. Local Kalendars, more especially, for most of our readers, those of the service-books of England, Scotland, and Ireland, present many interesting and attractive features; but it has been impossible to deal with them in an adequate manner. Some space has, however, been devoted to the consideration of the Kalendar and Ecclesiastical Year of the Orthodox Church of the East, including the peculiar arrangement of the grouping of Sundays; and brief notices are given of the fasts and festivals of some of the separated Churches of the East.

The questions concerning the determination of Easter will form the main trial of the patience of the student.

The early controversies on the Paschal question are not free from obscurity; and the interests attaching to the construction of the various systems of cycles, intended to form a perpetual table for the unerring determination of the date of Easter, are mainly the interests which are awakened by the history of human [xviii] ingenuity grappling more or less successfully with a problem which called for astronomical knowledge and mathematical skill. Religious interests are not touched even remotely. Profound as are the thoughts and emotions which cluster around the commemoration of the Lord’s Resurrection, they are quite independent of any considerations connected with the age of the moon and the date of the vernal equinox. The scheme for a time seriously entertained by Gregory XIII of making the celebration of Easter to fall on a fixed Sunday, the same in every year, has much to commend it. Had it been adopted we should, at all events, have been spared many practical inconveniences, and the ecclesiastical computists would have been saved a vast amount of labour. But we must take things as they are.

If anyone contends that the safest ‘Rule for finding Easter’ is ‘Buy a penny almanack,’ I give in a ready assent. It has in principle high ecclesiastical precedent; for it was exactly the same reasonable plan of accepting the determinations of those whom one has good reason to think competent authorities, which in ancient times made the Christian world await the pronouncements as to the date of Easter which came year by year from the Patriarchs of Alexandria in their Paschal Epistles: while for the date of Easter in any particular year in the distant past, or in the future, there are few who will not prefer the Tables supplied in such works as L’Art de vérifier les Dates , or Mas Latrie’s Trésor de Chronologie , to any calculations of their own, based on the Golden [xix] Numbers and Sunday Letters [1] . In the present volume the limits of space forbid any detailed discussion of the principles involved and the methods employed in the determination of Easter by the computists both ancient and modern. A brief historical sketch of the successive reforms of the Kalendar is all that has been found possible. Those who seek for fuller information can resort to the treatises mentioned above or in the course of the volume. The chapter on Easter has for convenience been placed near the conclusion of this volume.

In dealing with both Eastern and Western Kalendars the student will bear in mind that only comparatively few of the festivals affected the life of the great body of the faithful. A very large number of festivals were marked in the services of the Church by certain liturgical changes or additions. Many of them had their special propria ; others were grouped in classes; and each class had its own special liturgical features. Only comparatively few made themselves felt outside the walls of the churches. Some of them carried a cessation from servile labour, or caused the closing of the law courts, or, as chiefly in the Greek Church, mitigated in various degrees (according to the dignity of the festival) the rigour of fasting. The distinction between festa chori and festa fori is always worthy of observation. A relic of the distinction is preserved [xx] in an expression of common currency in France, when one speaks of a person as of insignificant importance, C’est un saint qu’on ne chôme pas .

Although the general scope of the following pages is wide in intention, the origins of the Kalendar and the rise of the principal seasons and days of observance have chiefly attracted the interest of the writer. Later developments are not wholly neglected, but they occupy a subordinate place.

The enactments of civil legislation under the Christian Emperors and other rulers, in respect to the observance of Sunday and other Christian holy days, is an interesting field of study; but it has been impossible to enter upon it here in view of the limits of space at our disposal.

The study of Kalendars brings one into constant contact with hagiology, the acts of martyrs, and the lives of saints. It would however have been obviously vain to deal seriously in the present volume with so vast a subject, even in broadest outline.

A short Bibliography of some important or serviceable works dealing with various branches of the subject before us is prefixed.

[xxi]

A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1]

CHAPTER I
THE WEEK

The Church of Christ, founded in Judaea by Him who, after the flesh, was of the family of David, and advanced and guided in its earlier years by leaders of Jewish descent, could not fail to bear traces of its Hebrew origin. The attitude and trend of minds that had been long familiar with the religious polity of the Hebrews, and with the worship of the Temple and the Synagogue, showed themselves in the institutions and worship of the early Church. This truth is observable to some extent in the Church’s polity and scheme of government, and even more clearly in the methods and forms of its liturgical worship. It is not then to be wondered at that the same influences were at work in the ordering of the times and seasons, the fasts and festivals, of the Church’s year.

The Week and the Lord’s Day.

Most potent in affecting the whole daily life of Christendom in all ages was the passing on from Judaism of the Week of seven days. Inwoven, as it is, with the history of our lives, and taken very much [2] as matter of course, as if it were something like a law of nature, the dominating influence and far reaching effects of this seven-day division of time are seldom fully realised.

The Week, known in the Roman world at the time of our Lord only in connexion with the obscure speculations of Eastern astrology, or as a feature, in its Sabbath, of the lives of the widely-spread Jewish settlers in the great cities of the Empire, had been from remote times accepted among various oriental peoples. It would be outside our province to enquire into its origin, though much can be said in favour of the view that it took its rise out of a rough division into four of the lunar month. But, so far as Christianity is concerned, it is enough to know that it was beyond all doubt taken over from the religion of the Hebrews.

It is not improbable that at the outset some of the Christian converts from Judaism may have continued to observe the Jewish Sabbath, the seventh or last day of the week: and that attempts were made to fasten its obligations upon Gentile converts is evident from St Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians (ii. 16). But it is certain that at an early date among Christians the first day of the week was marked by special religious observances. The testimony of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St Paul shows us the first day of the week as a time for the assembling of Christians for instruction and for worship, when ‘the breaking of bread’ formed part of the service, and when offerings for charitable and religious purposes [3] might be laid up in store [2] . The name ‘the Lord’s day,’ applied to the first day of the week, may probably be traced to New Testament times. The occurrence of the expression in the Revelation of St John (i. 10) has been commonly regarded as a testimony to this application [3] .

In the Epistle of Barnabas (tentatively assigned by Bishop Lightfoot to between A.D. 70 and 79, and by others to about A.D. 130-131) we find the passage (c. 15), ‘We keep the eighth day for rejoicing, in the which also Jesus rose from the dead.’ The date of the Teaching of the Apostles is still reckoned by some scholars as sub judice . But, if it is rightly assigned to the first century, its testimony may be cited here. In it is the following passage:—‘On the Lord’s own day (κατὰ κυριακὴν δὲ Κυρίον) gather yourselves together and break bread, and give thanks, first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure’ (c. 14).

The next evidence, in point of time, is a passage in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians (cc. 8, 9, 10), in which the writer dissuades those to whom he wrote from observing sabbaths (μηκέτι σαββατίζοντες) and urges them to live ‘according to the Lord’s day (κατὰ κυριακὴν) on which our life also rose through [4] Him.’ It is impossible to suppose that in early times the Lord’s day was held to be a day of rest. The work of the servant and labouring class had to be done; and it has been reasonably conjectured that the assemblies of Christians before dawn were to meet the necessities of the situation. Lastly, the passage from the Apology of Justin Martyr ( Ap. i. 67) is too well known to be cited in full. He describes to the Emperor the character and procedure of the Christian assemblies on ‘the day of the sun,’ which we know from other sources to have been the first day of the week. Writings of the Apostles or of the Prophets were read: the President of the assembly instructed and exhorted: bread, and wine and water were consecrated and distributed to those present and sent by the Deacons to the absent: alms were collected and deposited with the President for the relief of widows and orphans, the sick and the poor, prisoners and strangers. Later than Justin we need not go, as the evidence from all quarters pours in abundantly to establish the universal observance of ‘the first day of the week,’ ‘Sunday,’ ‘the Lord’s day,’ as a day for worship and religious instruction [4] .

The Sabbath (Saturday).

Lack of positive evidence prevents us from speaking with any certainty as to whether there was among [5] Christians any recognised and approved observance of Saturday (the Sabbath) in the first, second and third centuries. There is no hint of such observance in early Christian literature; and there are passages which rather go to discountenance the notion [5] .

Duchesne, whose opinion deservedly carries much weight, comes to the conclusion that the observance of Saturday in the fourth century was not a survival of an attempt of primitive times to effect a conciliation between Jewish and Christian practices, but an institution of comparatively late date [6] . Certainly one cannot speak confidently of the existence of Saturday as a day of religious observance among Christians before the fourth century.

Epiphanius [7] , in the second half of the fourth century, speaks of synaxes being held in some places on the Sabbath; from which it may probably be inferred that it was not so in his time in Cyprus.

In the Canons of the Council of Laodicea (which can hardly be placed earlier than about the middle of the fourth century, and is probably later) we find it enjoined that ‘on the Sabbath the Gospels with other Scriptures shall be read’ (16); that ‘in Lent bread ought not to be offered, save only on the Sabbath and the Lord’s day’ (49); and that ‘in Lent the feasts of martyrs should not be kept, but that a commemoration of the holy martyrs should be made on Sabbaths and Lord’s days’ (50). Yet it was [6] forbidden ‘to Judaize and be idle on the Sabbath,’ while, ‘if they can,’ Christians are directed to rest on the Lord’s day. The Apostolic Constitutions go further; and, under the names of St Peter and St Paul, it is enjoined that servants should work only five days in the week, and be free from labour on the Sabbath and the Lord’s day ‘with a view to the teaching of godliness’ (viii. 33). Uncertain as are the date and origin of the Constitutions they may be regarded as in some measure reflecting the general sentiment in the East in the fifth, or possibly the close of the fourth century [8] . From these testimonies it appears that the Sabbath was a day of special religious observance, and that in the East it partook of a festal character. Falling in with this way of regarding Saturday we find Canon 64 of the so-called Apostolic Canons (of uncertain date, but possibly early in the fifth century [9] ) declaring, ‘If any cleric be found fasting on the Lord’s day, or on the Sabbath, except one only [that is, doubtless “the Great Sabbath,” or Easter Eve], let him be deprived, and, if he be a layman, let him be segregated [10] .’ The Apostolic Constitutions emphasise the position of the Sabbath by the exhortation that Christians should ‘gather together especially on the Sabbath, and on the Lord’s day, the day of the Resurrection’ (ii. 59); and again, ‘Keep the Sabbath [7] and the Lord’s day as feasts, for the one is the commemoration of the Creation, the other of the Resurrection’ (vii. 23³). We find also that one of the canons of Laodicea referred to above is in substance re-enacted at a much later date by the Council in Trullo ( A.D. 692) in this form, that except on the Sabbath, the Lord’s day, and the Feast of the Annunciation, the Liturgy of the Pre-sanctified should be said on all days in Lent (c. 52).

In the city of Alexandria in the time of the historian Socrates the Eucharist was not celebrated on Saturday; but other parts of Egypt followed the general practice of the East. Socrates says that Rome agreed with Alexandria in this respect [11] .

It is certain that very commonly, though not universally, in the East the Sabbath was regarded as possessing the features of a weekly festival (with a eucharistic celebration) second in importance only to the Lord’s day. And Gregory of Nyssa says, ‘If thou hast despised the Sabbath, with what face wilt thou dare to behold the Lord’s day.... They are sister days’ ( de Castigatione , Migne, P.G. xlvi. 309).

In the West we find also that the Sabbath was a day of special religious observance; but there was a variety of local usage in regard to the mode of its observance. At Rome the Sabbath was a fast-day in the time of St Augustine [12] ; and the same is true of some other places; but the majority of the Western Churches, like the East, did not so regard it. In North Africa there was a variety of practice, some [8] places observed the day as a fast, others as a feast. At Milan the day was not treated as a fast; and St Ambrose, in reply to a question put by Augustine at the instance of his mother Monnica, stated that he regarded the matter as one of local discipline, and gave the sensible rule to do in such matters at Rome as the Romans do [13] . In the early part of the fourth century the Spanish Council of Elvira corrected the error that every Sabbath should be observed as a fast [14] .

As to the origin of the Saturday fast we are left almost wholly to conjecture. It has been supposed by some to be an exhibition of antagonism to Judaism, which regarded the Sabbath as a festival; while others consider that it is a continuation of the Friday fast, as a kind of preparatory vigil of the Lord’s day. It is outside our scope to go into this question.

A relic of the ancient position of distinction occupied by Saturday may perhaps be found in the persistence of the name ‘Sabbatum’ in the Western service-books. Abstinence (from flesh) continued, ‘de mandate ecclesiae,’ on Saturdays in the Roman Church. For Roman Catholics in England it ceased in 1830 by authority of Pope Pius VIII.

Wednesday and Friday.

Long prior to any clear evidence for the special observance among Christians of the last day of the week we find testimonies to a religious character attaching to the fourth and sixth days.

The devout Jews were accustomed to observe a fast twice a week, on the second and fifth days, Monday and Thursday [18] ; and these days, together with the Christian fasts substituted for them, are referred to in the Teaching of the Apostles (8), ‘Let not your fastings be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week; but do ye keep your fast on the fourth and parasceve (the sixth).’ In the Shepherd of Hermas we find the writer relating that he was fasting and holding a [11] station [19] . And this peculiar term is applied by Tertullian to fasts (whether partial or entire we need not here discuss) observed on the fourth and sixth days of the week [20] . Clement of Alexandria, though not using the word station , speaks of fasts being held on the fourth day of the week and on the parasceve [21] .

At a much later date than the authorities cited above we find the Apostolic Canons decreeing under severe penalties that, unless for reasons of bodily infirmity, not only the clergy but the laity must fast on the fourth day of the week and on the sixth ( parasceve ). And the rule of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays still obtains in the Eastern Church [22] .

These two days were marked by the assembling of Christians for worship. But the character of the service was not everywhere the same. Duchesne [23] has exhibited the facts thus: In Africa in the time of Tertullian the Eucharist was celebrated, and it was so at Jerusalem towards the close of the fourth century. In the Church of Alexandria the Eucharist was not celebrated on these days; but the Scriptures were read and interpreted. And in this matter, as in many others, the Church at Rome probably agreed with Alexandria. It is certain, at least as regards Friday, that the mysteries were not publicly celebrated on these days at Rome about the beginning of the fifth century. The observance of Friday as a day of abstinence is still of obligation in the West.

[12]

CHAPTER II
DAYS OF THE MARTYRS

We now pass from features of every week to days and seasons of yearly occurrence.

In point of time the celebrations connected with the Pascha are the earliest to emerge of sacred days observed annually by the whole Church. But for reasons of convenience it has been thought better to defer the consideration of the difficult questions relating to the Easter controversies till the origin of the days of Martyrs and Saints has been dealt with.

The Kalendar in some of its later stages exhibits a highly artificial elaboration. But in its beginnings it was, to a large extent, the outcome of a natural and spontaneous feeling which could not fail to remember in various localities the cruel deaths of men and women who had suffered for the Faith with courage and constancy in such places, or their neighbourhoods. The origins of the Kalendar show in various churches, widely separated, the natural desire to commemorate their own local martyrs on the days on which they had actually suffered.

As regards the order of time there is ample reason to convince us that the commemorations of martyrs [13] were features of Church life much earlier than those of St Mary the Virgin, of most of the Apostles, and even of many of the festivals of the Lord Himself.

The marks of antiquity that characterise generally the older Kalendars and Martyrologies are (1) the comparative paucity of entries, (2) the fewness of festivals of the Virgin, (3) the fewness of saints who were not martyrs, (4) the absence of the title ‘saint,’ and (5) the absence of feasts in Lent.

Again, the local character of the observance of the days of martyrs is a marked feature of the earlier records which illustrate the subject. Now and then the name of some martyr of pre-eminent distinction in other lands finds its way into the lists; but it remains generally true that in each place the martyrs and saints of that place and its neighbourhood form the great body of those commemorated. And in addition to the natural feeling that prompted the remembrance of those more particularly associated with a particular place, the fact that the commemorations were originally observed by religious services in cemeteries, at the tombs or burial places of the martyrs, tended at first to discountenance the commemoration of the martyrs of other places whose story was known only by report, whether written or oral.

The day of a martyr’s death was by an exercise of the triumphant faith of the Church known as his birthday ( natale , or dies natalis , or natalitia ). It was regarded as the day of his entrance into a new and better world. The expression occurs in its [14] Greek form as early as the letter of the Church of Smyrna concerning the martyrdom of Polycarp ( c. 18).

There can be no doubt that at an early date records were kept of the day of the death of martyrs. Cyprian required that even the death-days of those who died in prison for the faith should be communicated to him with a view to his offering an oblation on that day ( Ep. xii. (xxxvii.) 2). It is in this way probably that the earliest Kalendars of the Church originated.

Ancient Syriac Martyrology, written A D. 412

(Brit. Mus. Or. Add. 12150, fol. 252 v , ll. 1-20, col. 1.) The plate shows the entries from St Stephen’s Day to Epiphany.

We purpose dealing more particularly with the early Roman Kalendars. The earliest martyrology that has survived is contained in a Roman record transcribed in A.D. 354. It is known, sometimes as the Liberian Martyrology (from the name of Liberius, who was bishop of Rome at the time), sometimes as the Bucherian Martyrology , from the name of the scholar who first made it known to the learned world [24] , and not uncommonly as the Philocalian , from the name of the scribe. It presents many interesting, and some perplexing features, which cannot be dealt with here. We must content ourselves with noticing that, besides recording, as in a serviceable almanack, several pagan festivals, it marks the days of the month of the burials ( depositiones ) of the bishops of Rome from A.D. 254 to A.D. 354, and also the burial-days of martyrs, twenty-five in number. In both lists the cemeteries at Rome where the burials took place are noted. But there are also entered three ecclesiastical [15] commemorations which do not mark entombments, (1) ‘viij Kal. Jan. (Dec. 25) Natus Christus in Bethleem Judeae’; (2) ‘viij Kal. Mart. (Feb. 22) Natale ( sic ) Petri de Cathedra’; (3) ‘Nonis Martii (March 7) Perpetuae et Felicitatis Africae [25] .’ The appearance of St Perpetua and St Felicitas in a characteristically Roman document is a striking testimony to the fame of these two African sufferers for the Faith [26] . The use of the word natale in connexion with St Peter’s chair not improbably marks the dedication of a church; and, at all events at a later period, the word seems sometimes used as equivalent simply to a festival, or perhaps a festival marking an origin or beginning—as, for example, Natale Calicis , of which something will be said hereafter (p. 40). Easter could not appear in the Kalendar properly so-called; but the document contains cycles for the calculation of Easter, and a list of the days on which it would fall from A.D. 312 to A.D. 412.

Early Kalendars would be of much value in our enquiries; but they are few in number. The following three deserve notice. (1) The Syrian Martyrology first published by Dr W. Wright in the Journal of Sacred Literature (Oct. 1866). It was written in A.D. 411-12, but represents an original of perhaps about A.D. 380. It is Arian in origin, and has elements that show connexions with Alexandria, [16] Antioch, and Nicomedia; and its range of martyrs is much wider than that of other early documents of the kind. Yet of Western martyrs we find only in Africa Perpetua and Satornilos and ten other martyrs [27] (March 7) and ‘Akistus (?Xystus II) bishop of Rome’ (Aug. 1). We find St Peter and St Paul on Dec. 28; St John and St James on Dec. 27; and ‘St Stephen, apostle’ on the 26th [28] . (2) The Kalendar of Polemius Silvius , bishop of Sedunum, in the upper valley of the Rhone ( A.D. 448). It contains the birthdays of the Emperors and some of the more eminent of the heathen festivals, such as the Lupercalia and Caristia, but with a view, apparently, of supplanting them by Christian commemorations. The Christian festivals recorded are few in number, those of our Lord being Christmas, Epiphany, and the fixed dates, March 25 for the Crucifixion, and March 27 for the Resurrection. There are only six saints’ days. The depositio of Peter and Paul on Feb. 22; Vincent, Lawrence, Hippolytus, Stephen, and the Maccabees on their usual days. Other features of interest must be passed over [29] . (3) The Carthaginian Kalendar [30] has been assigned as probably about A.D. 500 [31] . It [17] is thus described by Bishop J. Wordsworth, ‘It has, in the Eastern manner, no entries between February 16 and April 19, i.e. during Lent. Its Saints are mostly local, but some twenty are Roman, and a few other Italian, Sicilian, and Spanish. It also marks SS. John Baptist (June 24), Maccabees, Luke [Oct. 13], Andrew, Christmas, Stephen [Dec. 26], John Baptist [probably an error of the pen for John the Evangelist] and James (Dec. 27) [‘the Apostle whom Herod slew’], Infants [Dec. 28] and Epiphany [sanctum Epefania] [32] .’ It may be added that this Kalendar marks the depositiones of seven bishops of Carthage, not martyrs, whose anniversaries were kept.

In one of the African Councils of the fourth century it was enacted that the Acts of the martyrs should be read in the church on their anniversaries. But Rome was slow in adopting this practice [33] .

It will be seen that as time went on the strictly local character of the martyrs commemorated was invaded by a desire to record the famous sufferers of other parts of the Christian world. Rome, with its characteristic conservatism in matters liturgical, seems to have been slower than other places to yield to this impulse. At Hippo we find Augustine commemorating, beside local martyrs, the Roman Lawrence and Agnes, the Spanish Vincent and Fructuosus, and the Milanese Protasius and Gervasius whose bones (as was believed) had been recently discovered. He also commemorated the Maccabees, St Stephen, and both [18] the Nativity and Decollation of the Baptist. On the other hand in the laudatory sermons that have come down to us we find Chrysostom at Antioch commemorating only the saints of Antioch, and Basil, at Caesarea in Cappadocia, only those of his own country.

The Sacramentary, which is called after Pope Leo ( A.D. 440-461), shows signs of a somewhat later date; but it is unquestionably a Roman book; and the Kalendar which we can construct from it represents the Kalendar of Rome as it was not later than about the middle of the sixth century. It gives us the following days; but it must be observed that the months of January, February, March, and part of April are unfortunately missing [34] .

It has been thought well to give in full this list, defective though it is (as lacking the opening months of the year). It exhibits indeed a large preponderance [20] of celebrations of local interest; but there are clear indications that already the martyrs of other places than Rome are securing themselves positions in the Roman Kalendar.

The collection of masses and other liturgical offices known as the Gelasian Sacramentary are not without interest in illustrating the development of the Kalendar, more particularly among the Franks. But we pass on to consider the features of the distinctively Roman service book, which, by a somewhat misleading name, has been called the Gregorian Sacramentary . In its present form (though it contains many ancient elements) it is probably not earlier than the close of the eighth century. Omitting notices of moveable days, and exhibiting the dates by the days of the month in our modern fashion, the Kalendar runs as follows [38] , some remarks being added within marks of parenthesis.

When we examine these lists we find (1) the principal festivals of the Lord, of His Mother, and of His Apostles placed as they are still noted in the Kalendar. It may be observed that Jan. 1 is not [23] styled the Circumcision; and there is no reference to the Circumcision in the collect. In the mass for the Epiphany the leading of the Gentiles by a star and the gifts of the Magi are the prominent features. The use of the name Ypapante as the first name for the Purification (Feb. 2) suggests the Eastern origin of the festival. We find (2) the great majority of the saints recorded to be Roman martyrs—or of martyrs connected with Rome, either in fact or by legend; but (3) there are a few famous martyrs from other regions of the world, as St George, St Vincent, SS. Cosmas and Damian, and St Lucy, of Dec. 13. And Martin of Tours has a place. We also find that some of the obscurer saints of the earlier list disappear. Frequent pilgrimages to the East, together with the interchange of literary correspondence between the churches, are sufficient to account for the appearance of the Oriental martyrs. The leading features of the Western Kalendar, as it prevailed in the mediaeval period, and has subsisted to the present day, are already apparent.

It will be seen that All Saints does not appear on Nov. 1; and yet it was certainly observed in many churches in England, France, and Germany during the eighth century. It is placed at Nov. 1 in the Metrical Martyrology attributed to Bede, who died in A.D. 735. Though therefore this Martyrology, as we now possess it, shows signs of having been re-handled, it seems hazardous to attribute the origin of the festival, as is done by some, to the dedication of a church at Rome ‘in honorem Omnium Sanctorum’ by Pope Gregory III ( A.D. 731-741).

[24]

Much obscurity attends the origin of All Souls’ Day. It would seem that Amalarius of Metz, early in the ninth century, had inserted in his Kalendar an anniversary commemoration of all the departed, and this was probably (as the context suggests) immediately after All Saints’ Day; but the practice of observing the day did not at once become general, and the earliest clear testimony to Nov. 2 does not emerge till the end of the tenth century, when Odilo, abbot of Clugny, stimulated by a vision of the sufferings of souls in purgatory, reported to him by a pilgrim returning from Jerusalem, enjoined on the monastic churches subject to Clugny the observance of Nov. 2. The practice rapidly spread.

The dominant influence of the Roman Church in Europe carried eventually the main features of the Roman Kalendar into all regions of the West. In early times at Rome the anniversary of a martyr was ordinarily kept, not in the various churches of the city and suburbs, but at the particular cemetery or catacomb where he was buried, or at the tomb within some church which had been erected over the place where his remains rested. Outside the walls, and at various distances along the great roads that led from the city, most of these commemorations were celebrated. As M. Batiffol has put it, with substantial correctness, ‘the old Roman Sanctorale is the Sanctorale of the cemeteries [40] .’ It is a striking and impressive illustration of the looking of the Western peoples to Rome for guidance in matters of religion [25] that even obscure saints buried in the cemeteries of the neighbourhood of the Apostolic See now have places in the religious commemorations of all the remotest Churches of the Roman obedience.

The study of the origins of the Kalendar of the city of Rome illustrates the general proposition that the martyrdoms of a particular city or district form the main feature of each local Kalendar. To enter into detail in respect to the early Kalendars of the other provinces and dioceses of Europe, even when the scanty evidence surviving makes the enquiry possible, is too large a task to be attempted here.

The account of the commemorations of the early martyrs may be brought to a close by calling attention to a festival of general and perhaps universal observance before the fifth century—the festival of the pre-Christian martyrs, the seven Maccabees, on Aug. 1. It was not unnatural in the age of persecution, or when the memories of the great persecutions were still fresh, to fasten upon the Old Testament story of heroic constancy. After the Feast of St Peter’s Chains in the West, and the Procession of the Holy Cross in the East had displaced it from a position of primary importance, it was not wholly forgotten; and even now in both East and West in a subsidiary manner the memory of the Maccabees is still preserved in the services of the Church on Aug. 1. Chrysostom speaks of the celebration being attended in his day by a great concourse of the faithful, and we possess three homilies of his for the festival. Augustine shows us that the festival was observed in [26] Africa in his time, and mentions that there was a church called after the Maccabees at Antioch, a city named, he makes a point to inform us, after their persecutor, Antiochus Epiphanes. There are still extant sermons for the festival preached by Gregory Nazianzen, and, at a later date, by Pope Leo the Great.

[27]

CHAPTER III
THE LORD’S NATIVITY: THE EPIPHANY: THE FESTIVALS WHICH IN EARLY TIMES FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY ON THE NATIVITY

It is certain that the assigning of the birth of the Lord to Dec. 25 appears first in the West; and it is not till the last quarter of the fourth century that we find it becoming established in some parts of the East. St Chrysostom in a homily delivered in A.D. 386 distinctly relates that it was about ten years earlier the festival of Dec. 25 came to be observed at Antioch, and that the festival had been observed in the West from early times (ἄνωθεν) [41] . At Constantinople the festival was kept on Dec. 25, apparently for the first time, in A.D. 379 or 380; and about the same time it appears in Cappadocia, as we learn from the funeral oration on Basil the Great pronounced by his brother, Gregory of Nyssa. At Alexandria this date was adopted before A.D. 432. At Jerusalem, however, the Nativity was observed on Jan. 6 not only in the time of the Pilgrimage of ‘Silvia,’ but, if we may credit the Egyptian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, [28] even as late as at the middle of the sixth century. This writer relates that the people of Jerusalem, arguing from Luke iii. 23 (where, as he interprets the passage, Jesus is said to be beginning to be thirty years of age at His baptism) celebrated the Nativity together with the Baptism on Jan. 6 [42] .

But when did the observance of Dec. 25 make its appearance in the West? It must have been a well-marked festival at Rome when it appeared in the Bucherian Kalendar in A.D. 336 (see p. 15). And about one hundred years earlier (as we learn from his commentaries on Daniel) Hippolytus was led to infer, partly from a belief (however it originated) that the Incarnation took place at the Passover, and partly by a process of calculation with the help of his cycle, that the actual Incarnation took place on March 25 in the year of the world 5500 (or B.C. 3), and consequently the Nativity on Dec. 25 [43] .

The Bishop of Salisbury (J. Wordsworth) offers an ingenious conjecture which may possibly point to the early Eastern practice of commemorating the Nativity on Jan. 6 having originated in a similar way. Sozomen, the historian, writing in the fifth century, states that the Montanists always celebrated the pascha on the eighth day before the Ides of April ( i.e. April 6), if it fell on a Sunday, otherwise on the [29] following Sunday ( H.E. vii. 18). The Bishop thinks that the belief that April 6 was the proper day of the pascha ‘may probably have been an opinion quite unconnected with their [the Montanists’] sect.’ But he rightly admits that ‘actual facts are not yet forthcoming [44] .’

Conjectures of this kind, though at present unsupported, are well worth remembering, if for no other reason, because students of early Christian literature are thus put on the alert to note any testimonies which make for, or else go to invalidate, the suggestion offered. I may add that the Montanist notion, as recorded by Sozomen, that the creation of the sun in the heavens took place on April 6, is of a kind that would well fall in, among fanciful speculators, with the notion that the Incarnation also took place on the same day [45] .

Why this time of the year, late in December or early in January, was assigned for the Nativity is a question which it is not possible to answer with confidence. It is conceivable that the insecure and blundering argument alleged, among others, by Chrysostom may have had weight. He supposes that Zacharias, the father of the Baptist, was the High [30] Priest, and that he had entered the Holy of Holies on the day of Atonement when the angel appeared to him. The day of Atonement was in September. Six months later (Luke i. 26) the Annunciation was made to St Mary; and after nine months the Saviour was born.

By others it has been suggested that the festival of Christmas on Dec. 25 did not originate in any such calculations; but was suggested by the pagan festival Natalis Solis Invicti marked at that day. The solstice was passed. The sun was entering on its new increases. ‘The Light of the world,’ ‘the Sun of righteousness’ was to take the place of the sun-god in the heavens [46] .

The Theophany, or Epiphany (Jan. 6), is, like its name, as characteristically Eastern in its origin as the feast of the Nativity (Dec. 25) is Western; but when it passed into the West it was in thought, either at the outset or certainly soon, separated from the Nativity; and eventually, while the baptism of Christ was not ignored, the main stress of liturgical allusion was on the visit of the Magi, so that the festival is not uncommonly designated simply as the feast of the Three Kings. In the East the dominant thought is the manifestation of Christ’s divinity at his baptism: and in the Basilian Menology the day is simply named ‘The Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ And it is to this connexion, baptism among the Greeks being known as ‘illumination,’ that has [31] been attributed another name for the day, ‘the lights’ (τὰ φῶτα) [47] .

It is not improbable that the feast of the Epiphany made its way to the West, through the churches of Southern Gaul, whose affinities with the East are recognised facts of history. At all events it is in connexion with Gaul that we find the first reference to the Epiphany in the West. The pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus, in his account of the Emperor Julian in A.D. 361 visiting a Christian church at Vienne, says that it happened on the day in the month of January which Christians call ‘Epiphania’ ( Hist. xxi. 2).

The Epiphany was observed in the African Church by the orthodox in the time of Augustine, but he tells us that the Donatists did not observe it, ‘because they love not unity, nor do they communicate with the Eastern Church.’ The latter expression falls in with the supposition that the West derived the festival from the East. In the ancient Kalendar called the Kalendar of Carthage (unfortunately of uncertain date) we find at Jan. 6 the entry ‘Sanctum Epefania’ ( sic ). In Spain, as we learn from the canons of the Council of Saragossa (can. 4), the festival was recognised as a considerable commemoration before A.D. 380. For Rome, we have to note the silence of the Bucherian Kalendar; but for the fifth century we have the testimony of Pope Leo, and we possess no fewer than [32] eight sermons of his upon the festival of the Epiphany; in these the manifestation of Christ to the Magi is the truth upon which he chiefly enlarges. Elsewhere in the West we have references to other manifestations of the Deity of Christ, as at His baptism, and His first miracle at Cana. But generally, as in the East the baptism, so in the West the manifestation to the Gentiles is the leading note of preachers or theologians [48] .

Among the Armenians the Epiphany is reckoned one of the five chief festivals: it is preceded by a week’s fast, and is followed by an octave. It is by them still reckoned as the day of the Nativity.

[33]

The festivals of the days immediately following Christmas.

We see that in the Gregorian Kalendar the commemorations of St Stephen (Dec. 26), St John the Evangelist (Dec. 27), and Holy Innocents (Dec. 28), in the order with which we are familiar, were already established in the West. And long before the period of the Gregorian Kalendar we have evidence that in some parts of the East before the close of the fourth century a group of festivals commemorating eminent saints of the New Testament were celebrated between the feast of the Nativity and the first of January. Basil the Great died on Jan. 1 A.D. 379; and his brother Gregory of Nyssa delivered the funeral oration at his burial. In this discourse the preacher speaks of a group of feasts preceding the first of January, namely of St Stephen, St Peter, St James and St John, and St Paul. It may with some reason be believed that the dates of these festivals had no relation, real or fancied, to the days of the deaths of these saints of the Church’s beginnings.

There is little doubt that at the close of the fourth century the churches of Asia Minor had festivals of St Stephen on Dec. 26, St James and St John on Dec. 27, and St Peter and St Paul on Dec. 28 [49] . And in the West our earliest information shows us St Stephen on Dec. 26; but there are variations as regards the other festivals. The ancient Kalendar of Carthage shows us on Dec. 27 ‘St John the Baptist and James the Apostle, whom Herod slew,’ and Holy Innocents on Dec. 28 [50] .

The earliest Roman service-books show us only St John on Dec. 27, and he is St John the Evangelist [51] . Yet in the so-called Martyrology of St Jerome (which, though interpolated, contains many ancient features), we find at this day, together with ‘the Assumption of St John at Ephesus,’ ‘the ordination to the episcopate of James, the Lord’s brother, who was crowned with martyrdom at the paschal time [52] .’ The Holy Innocents (Dec. 28) is [35] known in the Latin books since the sixth century, and may well have been earlier; but Peter and Paul are found together on another day (June 29), the day of their martyrdom at Rome, as was generally assumed. Though we are not able to determine with precision on what day the Innocents of Bethlehem were commemorated in early times, there can be little doubt that there was some commemoration of those whom, as St Augustine says, ‘the Church has received to the honour of the martyrs.’

There are some reasons for conjecturing that the commemoration of the Innocents was at first in association with the Epiphany. In the second half of the fourth century the poet Prudentius has some pretty lines on the Holy Innocents as martyrs in his hymn on the Epiphany [53] . And Leo the Great in more than one of his sermons on the Epiphany has laudatory passages on the martyrdom of the Innocents. Yet in estimating the weight that should attach to such references it should be remembered that Herod’s slaughter of the children at Bethlehem is in the Gospel narrative so closely connected with the visit of the Magi that it would not be unnatural for both poet and preacher to touch on that striking story, although there were no intentional commemoration of the Innocents attached by the Church to that day. In the Byzantine Kalendar the Fourteen Thousand [36] Holy Infants are commemorated on Dec. 29. In the Armenian Kalendar the Fourteen Thousand Innocent Martyrs are commemorated on June 10. It deserves notice that in the Mozarabic Kalendars we find ‘St James the Lord’s Brother’ at Dec. 28; ‘St John Evangelist’ at Dec. 29; and ‘St James the Brother of John’ at Dec. 30.

[37]

CHAPTER IV
OTHER COMMEMORATIONS OF EVENTS IN THE LORD’S LIFE. PENTECOST

The commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was in the nature of things a natural and inevitable outcome of the religious beliefs and feelings of the infant Church. The fixing of days for the commemoration of other events in the life of our Lord came with thought and reflection; they belong to the period of constructiveness, and we have no evidence to show that their appearance was very early. Tertullian is silent about other days than Sunday (the Lord’s Day), the Pasch (including the Passion and the Resurrection), and Pentecost [54] ; and Origen particularises the Lord’s Day, the Parasceve (perhaps in the sense of the weekly Friday ‘station’), the Pasch, and Pentecost, as being days specially observed by Christians [55] .

The Circumcision is obviously dependent on whatever was regarded as the date of the Nativity, and is the result of reflection and ecclesiastical constructiveness. It is eight days after the Nativity [38] on Jan. 1, with all Christendom, save the Armenians, who celebrating the Nativity (together with other Epiphanies of the Lord) on Jan. 6, naturally observe Jan. 13 as the day of the Circumcision. The day is not noted in the Bucherian Kalendar, nor in the Carthaginian. Baillet [56] comes to the conclusion that it appears first as appointed for general observance as a festival, about the middle of the seventh century, and in Spain, where servile work was forbidden on this day. But it would appear from the Canons of the Fourth Council of Toledo that the day was then observed with penitential features (canon 11). From the Sermons of Augustine we learn that in his time Jan. 1 was observed by Christians as a solemn fast, in protest against the licentious revelry and excesses of the pagans at this time of the year [57] . And as late as the Second Council of Tours ( A.D. 567) it is enjoined that, while all other days between the Nativity and the Epiphany are to be treated (in regard to use of food) as festivals, an exception is to be made for the space of three days at the beginning of January, for which time the fathers had appointed litanies to be made ‘ad calcandam Gentilium consuetudinem.’ But it should be remarked that the canon (17) dealing with the subject has special reference to fasts to be observed by monks. It is therefore not impossible that the fast had by this time ceased to be observed by the general body of the faithful, but, in a spirit of conservatism, was regarded as proper to be maintained [39] in the monasteries. The canon is interesting for another reason; it affords perhaps the earliest example of the use of the term ‘Circumcision’ as applied to this day, which appears in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries simply as Octava Domini , i.e. the octave of the Nativity. In the Gelasian Sacramentary there is no emphasis in the service on the Circumcision, while the prayer called Ad populum distinctly points to a prohibition against partaking of the convivium diabolicum of the pagans. And a mass immediately following that for the Octave, entitled Ad prohibendum ab idolis , points in the same direction. The Gregorian Sacramentary shows no reference to the Circumcision in the prayers of the mass [58] .

Even in the early part of the seventh century Isidore of Seville condemns the indecent gaieties indulged in on this day, and recalls the ancient injunction that the day should be observed as a fast [59] . The fourth Council of Toledo (canon 11) represents as the practice of Spain and Gaul the omission of the singing of Alleluia on the Kalends of January, propter errorem gentilium .

In the later Western service-books the thought of the Circumcision is given greater prominence, and intermingles with the thoughts suggested by the Octave. The feast of the Circumcision appears in the Greek Church in the eighth century [60] .

[40]

Commemoration of Passiontide; Holy Week (the ‘Great Week,’ as it is styled in the East). The commemoration of the death of the Saviour is the primitive and essential element: other days were given places as the result of reflection, and of the desire to reproduce liturgically in a mimetic way the events of the Lord’s history during the last paschal week. We possess the early testimony of Tertullian for the dies Paschae , for so he names the day. He tells us that it was a public and general fast, and that the kiss of peace was omitted from the services of the Church [61] . But for Palm Sunday, Coena Domini , and the Great Sabbath we have no evidence till much later. It is from Palestine that we get the earliest notice of the rites of Palm Sunday. In her account of the ceremonies at Jerusalem ‘Silvia’ describes the procession of palm-bearers on the Sunday of the Great Week. The feast of Palms is also mentioned in the life of Euthymius, abbot in Palestine, who died at a very advanced age in A.D. 473. But in the West the carrying of palms does not appear earlier than the ninth century. The commemoration ( Natalis Calicis ) of the institution of the Eucharist on the night before the Lord suffered probably had its rise about the same time as Palm Sunday; and a certain mimetic character was given to the rites of the Thursday by delaying the celebration of the Liturgy till the evening. This was further [41] enhanced in the Church of Carthage ( A.D. 397), which in view of the original institution of the Eucharist having been after supper, made an express synodical declaration that the rule of fasting communion was binding ‘excepto uno die anniversario, quo coena domini celebratur [62] .’ And St Augustine expressly affirms that the practice of the Church did not condemn communion after the evening meal on the Thursday in Holy Week [63] . The name Dies Mandati (which has probably given us our Maundy Thursday ) is not very ancient. In mediaeval times the particular mandate of the Lord was taken to be the feet-washing, before or during which were sung the words ‘Mandatum novum do vobis [64] .’

At Rome, as late as the time of St Leo, in regard to the days specially observed in Holy Week, the only distinction from ordinary weeks seems to have been the commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist on Thursday. The adoration of the Cross [42] on Good Friday (which we find at Jerusalem in the days of ‘Silvia’) and the mass of the pre-sanctified were later additions, and are regarded by Duchesne as having been introduced into the West in the seventh or eighth century [65] . The observances of the Saturday were those of the vigil of Easter.

The Ascension : in the Greek Kalendar, and frequently in Greek writers, with a different connotation, ‘the Taking up,’ ‘Assumption’ (ἀνάληψις) [66] , was celebrated forty days after Easter, as the actual Ascension took place forty days after the Resurrection; it is obviously a festival of the constructive period. There is no mention of it in the earliest Christian writings; but, without here going into details of evidence, it may be stated that the festival was observed, possibly early in, and certainly before, the close of the fourth century. It is noticed by ‘Silvia’ (though the name Ascensa is not given to it) as a day on which at Bethlehem, where the vigil was kept, the bishop of Jerusalem and the presbyters preached, but it does not appear that the Eucharist was celebrated. There was a procession back to Jerusalem in the evening. Augustine classes the day with the Passion, the Resurrection, and the advent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), as observed ‘anniversaria solemnitate [67] .’ In the Sacramentary of Leo many masses in Ascensa (= Ascensione ) Domini are to be found. Both in the East and in some parts of the [43] West it was customary to celebrate the festival outside the cities,—a practice suggested doubtless by Luke xxiv. 50.

It may be remarked that many old English writers, both before and after the Reformation, use the term ‘Holy Thursday’ for this day.

The Transfiguration (Aug. 6 in the Byzantine [68] , Ethiopic, and later mediaeval and modern Roman Kalendars: on the 7th Sunday after Pentecost in the Armenian) is of late appearance. If a certain canon (or prose hymn) on the Transfiguration attributed to John of Damascus be really his, it would point to the probable observance of the day in the eighth century in the East. In the West the festival appears much later; but the evidence indicates its having had a partial and local observance long before it was enjoined by Pope Calixtus III for the Church generally in A.D. 1457. This Pope appointed an office for the day, which was afterwards somewhat altered by Pius V. The action of Calixtus was prompted by thankfulness for a victory over the Turks at Belgrade. Among the Greeks the Transfiguration is a day of great solemnity. It is preceded by a ‘proheortia’ and affects the following eight days. The Armenians observe a preparatory fast for a week [69] .

Pentecost. This word as commonly employed by early Christian writers signifies the whole period [44] of fifty days after the Resurrection. It is thus that the term is used by Tertullian in a passage ( de Idolat. 14) where he compares the number of festival days among the pagans with the number of Christian festivals. The same is probably true where he speaks of Pentecost as ‘ordinandis lavacris latissimum spatium’ ( de Baptismo 19). During that period fasting, and kneeling at prayer, at least in the public assemblies, were forbidden: and Alleluia , which had been silent, was resumed. It seems, however, that once at least Tertullian had in view, in the use of the word, the day on which the period closed [70] . Origen in a similar way uses the word for the whole period, but also seems to distinguish between the general and more restricted signification of the word [71] . Earlier than either of these is the testimony of Irenaeus (if we may accept it as his) cited, as from his lost book On the Pascha , by Pseudo-Justin ( Quaest. et Respons. ad Orthodoxos , 115), where Irenaeus speaks of not kneeling in Pentecost, as that time is of equal dignity with the Lord’s day, ‘Pentecost’ being here used evidently for a season. On the other hand, the compiler, whoever he was, of the Quaestiones , in which Irenaeus is quoted, in the same place speaks of not kneeling ‘from the Pascha to Pentecost,’ using the latter term in its restricted sense. In the newly-recovered Testament of the Lord [72] Pentecost is used for the fifty days between Easter and our Whitsunday [45] (i. 28, 42; ii. 12). An interesting survival of the old signification of Pentecost is still to be found in the Greek service-books, where the term Mesopentecoste is used for special festal observances mid-way between Easter and Whitsunday, commencing on the Wednesday following the third Sunday after Easter, and lasting for a week.

In the forty-third canon of the Council of Elvira ( A.D. 305) we have a clear example of the use of the word Pentecost for the fiftieth day. And after that date the word is widely used in that sense: while the festival itself assumes gradually more and more dignity and importance. ‘Silvia’ describes the elaborate ceremonial observed on this day at Jerusalem towards the close of the fourth century.

There are considerable difficulties attendant on an attempt to assign a precise date to the addition of an octave to this festival; and the festal character of the octave week was affected by the ember days occurring in that week. In the Gelasian Sacramentary, as it has come down to us, we have the ‘propers’ for a mass on the Sunday of the octave of Pentecost. The mass may be described as a mass of the Holy Spirit, praying for protection for the Church from the allurements of the vain and deceitful philosophy of the world; true knowledge of the nature of God was given by the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom, and knowledge, and understanding, and counsel. The benedictions, which immediately follow, on those who return to the Catholic unity from the Arian and other heresies, suggest that it was in [46] this way that the octave of Pentecost came at a later date to be made a festival in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity [73] . The public reception to the Catholic unity of Arian and other heretics would gradually cease to be a feature of the season: but the liturgical colouring of the service would remain, and would have to be accounted for. As a matter of fact, however, the establishment of a festival of the Trinity with a special office and mass was of late date. It makes its appearance in the Low Countries in the tenth century, and made its way but slowly, and with varying success. Pope Alexander II, who died in A.D. 1073, when consulted on the subject, wrote that according to the Roman rite there was no day set apart to commemorate the Trinity any more than the Unity of the Divine Being, and that every day of the year was truly consecrated to the honour of the Trinity in Unity. It was not till the fourteenth century, under the pontificate of John XXII, that the Roman Church received the feast of the Trinity and attached it to the first Sunday after Pentecost [74] .

In England, according to Gervase of Canterbury, Archbishop Thomas Becket instituted the principal feast of the Trinity on the octave of Pentecost [75] .

[47]

CHAPTER V
FESTIVALS OF ST MARY THE VIRGIN

I. Western Kalendars.

The history of the origin of some of the following festivals is obscure; and it is impossible to be precise as to the dates of their first appearance. We speak with some reservation of the Festival of Feb. 2, known first in the West, as well as in the East, by the name Hypapante ( i.e. ‘the Meeting’ of Simeon with the Lord and His Mother), and afterwards as the Purification of the Virgin. It seems at first in the West to have been a festival of our Lord rather than of the Virgin. In the propria for ‘Yppapanti’ ( sic ) in the Gregorian Sacramentary the allusion to St Mary is of the slightest. Hence at the time when it first appeared in the West it may be reckoned as having no special reference to St Mary. The Church of Rome does not appear (according to Duchesne) to have observed any festival of the Virgin before the seventh century, when it adopted the four following festivals from the Church of Byzantium.

1. The Purification (or, in early times, Hypapante). Its date (Feb. 2) is determined by [48] counting forty days from Christmas (Luke ii. 22: compare Levit. xii. 2, 4).

A feast of much dignity and importance ( cum summa laetitia, ac si per Pascha ) commemorating the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple is noticed as celebrated (towards the close of the fourth century) at Jerusalem at the time of the pilgrimage of ‘Silvia.’ It was observed on Feb. 14 (the 40th day after the Epiphany, reckoned as the day of the Lord’s Nativity): but ‘Silvia’ does not appear to have regarded it as in any sense having special reference to St Mary. The words of the pilgrim simply record the incident in the Temple; and it looks as if the feast were only commemorative of a remarkable event in the history of the Lord.

It may be pointed out that the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple is still observed by the Armenians on Feb. 14, as they still celebrate the Nativity on Jan. 6.

The origin of the consecrating of candles and carrying them in procession which has given us the low Latin names candelaria and candelcisa , the French chandeleur , the Italian candelora , the German Lichtmesse , and our English name Candlemas , and which from early times formed a striking feature in the ritual of the Feast, has been conjecturally connected by some with a symbolical setting forth of the words of Simeon (Luke ii. 32); and by others with the ceremonial of the heathen Lupercalia . But the matter is still involved in doubt.

In the East the establishment of the festival [49] throughout the Empire is generally assigned to Justinian in the year 542. The appearance of Hypapante in the so-called Gregorian Sacramentary is, it need scarcely be said, no proof that the festival was observed in the time of Gregory the Great.

The word ‘Hypapante’ lingered long in the West. We find it as the only name of the festival in the Martyrology of Bede; and one hundred and fifty years later the day is marked in Usuard as simply ‘Hypapante Domini.’

2. The Annunciation (March 25) like ‘Hypapante’ was probably originally a feast of our Lord, as marking the time of the Incarnation. Inferentially it may be considered as well established both in the East and West considerably before the close of the seventh century. Duchesne considers that we have very clear testimony to this feast before the Council in Trullo ( A.D. 692), where it was spoken of as already established. Perhaps earlier, or, at latest, almost contemporary, in the West is the testimony of what is known as the tenth Council of Toledo (? A.D. 694) [76] where the complaint is made that in various parts of Spain the festival of St Mary was observed on various days, and it is further added that as the festival cannot be fitly celebrated either in Lent, or when overshadowed by the Paschal festival, the Council ordains that for the future the day should be xv Kal. Jan. (Dec. 18) and the Nativity of the Lord on viii Kal. Jan. (Dec. 25). It is plain that something [50] of the nature of an octave was to follow the festival of Dec. 18; and there is added in a somewhat apologetic tone, ‘nam quid festum matris nisi incarnatio verbi?’ (canon 1). The Trullan Council took a different course. While continuing to prohibit all other festivals during Lent, it sanctioned the celebration of this. In the Milanese rite the feast was celebrated on the fourth Sunday in Advent. In the Mozarabic Missal we find in the Kalendar the Annunciation of St Mary marked both on March 25 and Dec. 18; the latter being distinguished as the ‘Annunciation of the O,’ referring to the great Antiphons sung at that season.

The older titles of the festival were the ‘Annunciation of the Lord,’ ‘the Annunciation of the Angel to the Blessed Virgin Mary,’ or ‘the Conception of Christ.’

The rules in the Roman rite for transferring the Annunciation to another day under certain circumstances will be found in technical works of the commentators.

3. The Nativity of the Virgin (Sept. 8). This also is found in the West towards the close of the seventh century. Durandus, who is often more fanciful than wise, had in this case perhaps some historical foundation for his assertion that the festival was founded by Pope Sergius I in A.D. 695. The story of Joachim and Anna, the parents of St Mary, is found in certain apocryphal Gospels which circulated among the Gnostics [77] .

[51]

4. The Sleep, or (later) Assumption, of the Virgin (Aug. 15) appears in the West about the same time as the Annunciation and the Nativity of the Virgin . All three were unknown to Gregory the Great. It originated in the East, and was there known as the Sleep and (afterwards) the Translation. According to the historian, Nicephorus Callistus, the festival was founded by the Emperor Maurice ( A.D. 582-602). It is beyond our province here to deal with the legend of St Mary’s body as well as soul being taken up to heaven. The festival made its way slowly in Gaul, but was eventually adopted by Charlemagne. As late as the twelfth century it was not universally observed in the East.

The advance in the titles of the festival from depositio , pausatio , dormitio to transitus and assumptio is not without significance. In Bede the name is Dormitio .

It will be observed that all these four festivals came to Rome from Byzantium. In the later mediaeval period they were of universal obligation in the West [78] .

For notices of the observance of the death of St Mary on Jan. 18, see Baillet, op. cit. , VI. 11.

5. The Presentation of St Mary ( praesentatio , illatio , oblatio ) in the Temple at Jerusalem. In the modern Roman Kalendar at Nov. 21, it is a ‘greater double.’ It does not appear in the Kalendar of the Sarum Breviary or Missal; but the Sarum [52] Enchiridion (1530) gives Nov. 21, and the Office is printed in the Breviary. There were many exceptions to this feast being observed [79] . The festival is based on a legend [80] that at an early age Mary was dedicated to the service of God in the Temple, and that there she grew up, and served under the priests and Levites. The first appearance of the festival is at Constantinople; and there is evidence for it there in A.D. 1150. It passed to the West towards the close of the fourteenth century [81] . And with more certainty than is usually possible in such enquiries we can trace its introduction to the impression made by the accounts, brought back from Cyprus, by Philip de Mazières, of the solemnities of the feast in the East. Pius V ( A.D. 1566-1572) withdrew it from the Roman Kalendar; but it was restored by Sixtus V ( A.D. 1585-1590).

6. The Conception of St Mary (Dec. 8). Since Dec. 8, 1854, when Pius IX (in the Apostolic Letters Ineffabilis Deus ) decreed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to be a necessary article of the Faith, the epithet Immaculate has been prefixed to the original title in the service-books of the Roman Communion. In the Greek Church the day observed is Dec. 9, and the title is the Conception of St Anna, grandmother of God , the Easterns connecting the word ‘conception’ with the person who conceived, [53] while the Latins connected it with the person who was conceived. The festival was commanded to be observed throughout the Empire of the East by the Emperor Manuel Comnenus in the middle of the twelfth century.

The evidence seems to point to the fact that, like several other festivals of the Virgin, this originated in the East. In the Greek Horologion we find it related that, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, Anna was barren and well stricken in years, and also that her spouse Joachim was an aged man. In sorrow for their childlessness they prayed to the Lord, who hearing their prayers intimated to them by an angel that they would have a child, and in accordance with the promise Anna conceived [82] . It appears that the festival had no dogmatic significance; and it had its parallel in the historical festival, still observed in the Greek Church on Sept. 23, of the Conception of St John the Baptist, a festival which also had a place in the old Latin Martyrologies.

In the West the local observance of the day is associated commonly with the name of St Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, who, in one form of the story, on a voyage from England to Normandy during a storm vowed to establish the festival. But the day is marked in some English Kalendars just before the Norman Conquest, though at first it had a very limited acceptance [83] . It is plain that at an [54] early date there were some who connected the festival with the belief that St Mary differed from other mortals in being without original sin. For when the Chapter of the Cathedral of Lyons were about to institute the festival in that church, St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote ( A.D. 1140) expostulating with them partly on the ground that though St Mary was, as he believed, sanctified in the womb, yet her conception was not holy. He added that this was a novel festival, ‘quam ritus Ecclesiae nescit, non probat ratio, non commendat antiqua traditio’; and declares that it was the outcome of the simplicity of a few unlearned persons, the daughter of inconsiderateness ( levitatis ), and the sister of superstition ( Epist. 174).

John Beleth, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Paris, towards the close of the twelfth century argued much in the same way as St Bernard. And in the following century, and towards its close, such a leading authority as Durandus, bishop of Mende, in his Rationale says that there were some who would celebrate this festival, but that he could not approve of it, because St Mary was conceived in original sin, though she was sanctified in the womb.

As regards the Church of Rome (properly so called), Innocent III in the beginning of the thirteenth century declares in one of his sermons ( Serm. II de Joan. Bapt. ) that no other conception than that of the Lord Jesus was celebrated in the Church. Nevertheless the celebration of the day spread both in France, and, more particularly, in England. The [55] Council of Oxford ( A.D. 1222) approved of the feast, but distinguished it from the other feasts of the Virgin by leaving it to be observed or not at discretion. In the province of Canterbury the day was made of obligation by Archbishop Simon Mepeham ( A.D. 1328-33).

In 1263 the Franciscans resolved to celebrate the festival publicly in their churches. But even the Franciscans were not agreed among themselves as to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Alvarus Pelagius, the Spanish Theologian, Great Penitentiary of Pope John XXII, in his de Planctu Ecclesiae (1332) declares that ‘the new and fantastic opinion should be cancelled by the faithful.’

As is well known, the Dominicans took a strong and even violent part against the doctrine. The greatest doctor of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, had clearly pronounced that St Mary was not sanctified till the infusion of her anima rationalis . But with regard to the feast of the Conception he states that inasmuch as the Roman Church, though not celebrating the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, tolerates the practice of certain Churches which do celebrate it, the celebration of the feast is not to be wholly reprobated; and he adds that we must not infer from the observance of the day that St Mary was holy in her conception, but because we are ignorant as to the time when she was sanctified, the feast of her sanctification rather than of her conception is celebrated on the day of her conception [84] . [56] Accordingly in Dominican Kalendars we find the day marked as Sanctificatio Mariae .

The Council of Bâle (1439) adopted a constitution applicable to the whole Church that the feast should be observed according to the ancient and laudable custom on Dec. 8, and that it should be known under the title of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, forbidding the use of the name Sanctification , as having a less extended use. The Roman See, not recognising this Council, did not take action till A.D. 1477, when Sixtus IV, who had been a Franciscan, published an ordinance (and it is the very first decree of any Pope on the subject) granting large indulgences to all the faithful who celebrated, or assisted at, the Mass and Office of the Conception on the festival or throughout its octave. In 1483 the same Pope pronounced excommunication on any preachers who asserted that St Mary was conceived in original sin or that those who observed the festival sinned [85] . Clement VIII (1592-1605) raised the festival to the rank of a greater double. The later history of the festival can be pursued in Baillet, and in recent writers dealing with Pius IX.

For minor festivals of the Virgin, such as ‘St Mary at Snows,’ the Visitation of St Mary, the Espousals ( Desponsatio ), the Most Holy Name of Mary, the Seven Sorrows, the Rosary of St Mary, Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel, the Expectation of the Delivery ( partûs ), and others, the reader may consult Baillet, the Catholic Dictionary , etc.

[57]

II. The Orthodox Church of the East.

A reference to the classification of Feasts in the Eastern Church [86] will show that among the twelve principal Feasts are found (1) The Evangelismos of the Theotokos , March 25, corresponding to the Western feast of the Annunciation; (2) the Repose of the Theotokos, Aug. 15; (3) the Nativity of the Theotokos, Sept. 8; and (4) the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, Nov. 21, corresponding to the Presentation of the Virgin in the West.

To these have to be added the following feasts of lesser dignity: (5) Hypapante (the Meeting of St Mary with Simeon and Anna in the Temple), Feb. 2, corresponding to the Western Purification. This is a day of obligation: but (as has been already remarked) it is perhaps to be regarded rather as a festival of the Lord than of St Mary. (6) The Deposition of the precious Vestment of the Theotokos in the Church of Blachernae at Constantinople, July 2: (7) the Deposition of the precious Zone of the Theotokos at Constantinople, Aug. 31: (8) the Conception of St Anna ( i.e. her conception of St Mary), Dec. 9, a day of obligation: (9) the Synaxis of the Theotokos and Joseph, her spouse, Dec. 26, a day of obligation. This day is also called the Synaxis of the Theotokos fleeing into Egypt. The Greeks consider that the visit of the Magi was exactly one year after the birth of Christ, and that the flight into Egypt was on the day following that visit.

[58]

CHAPTER VI
FESTIVALS OF THE APOSTLES, THE EVANGELISTS, AND OF OTHER PERSONS NAMED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. OCTAVES AND VIGILS

In the Greek Church there has continued to the present day a Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles on the day following St Peter and St Paul (June 29); and in the West we find a commemoration of all the Apostles, connected with the festival of St Peter and St Paul, in the Leonine Sacramentary [87] . There is a Natale Omnium Apostolorum with a vigil in the Gelasian Sacramentary. This festival may have preceded all separate commemorations. It would seem to have been observed close to the date of St Peter and St Paul.

With certain notable exceptions, feasts of the New Testament Saints came but slowly into the cycle of Christian solemnities. With some exceptions, more or less doubtful, there is no reason to think that the days of the deaths of the Apostles were [59] known to those who gave them places in the Kalendars. It is highly probable in some cases, and not improbable in others, that the dates assigned for the festivals really mark some deposition or translation of the supposed relics of those commemorated, or the dedication of some church named in their honour. Considerations of the space at our disposal demand that the subject should be only lightly touched; but references are given to easily accessible works. And we deal only with the more notable festivals, or festivals of early appearance.

St Peter and St Paul (June 29). There is no question that at an early date this festival was celebrated at Rome. The belief was entertained by several ancient writers that these two Saints suffered death upon the same day of the month, but in different years.

We have seen already (p. 33 f.) that in the East at an early date there was a commemoration of St Peter in close connexion with the commemoration of the Lord’s Nativity. But at Rome in the earliest Western Kalendar (the Bucherian) we find two festivals that deserve consideration: (1) Natale Petri de Cathedra at Feb. 22; and (2) Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Os[t]iense , at June 29, to which are added the words, Tusco et Basso Coss . To deal first with the latter entry; as the consulate of Tuscus and Bassus marks A.D. 258, it has been not unnaturally conjectured that the record marks the date of some translation of the Apostles’ relics. But that conjecture does not absolutely exclude the supposition [60] that the day chosen for the translation was the day which was believed to have been the day of their martyrdom. The translation, as Bishop Pearson [88] long ago supposed, was the removal, perhaps with a view to safety, of the remains to a place at the third milestone on the Appian Way, called ‘Ad Catacumbas,’ during the heat of the persecution under Valerian.

The observance of a commemoration of St Paul on June 30 (still so marked in the Roman Kalendar), has been accounted for by the fact that the bishop of Rome celebrating mass first at the tomb of St Peter, and afterwards on the same day having to go a long distance to the tomb of St Paul, there to celebrate again, it was arranged to observe the festival of St Paul on the day after June 29, with a view to avoiding the fatigue and inconvenience of the two functions on the one day.

Cathedra Petri. The entry cited above from the Bucherian Kalendar, Natale Petri de cathedra , ‘the Festival of Peter of the Chair,’ looks very like the record of the dedication of a church, where perhaps a seated statue of the Apostle was placed [89] . We are at once reminded of the large seated figure of Hippolytus discovered in 1551 on the Via Tiburtina. Or, as De Rossi supposes, the festival may have had to do with the actual wooden [61] chair (as was supposed) which St Peter had used, and of which we hear in the time of Gregory the Great. But, whatever may have been the origin of the festival, it came at a later time to be regarded as marking the date of the beginning of St Peter’s episcopate; and there is some evidence that the festival was made much of as a Christian set off against the popular pagan solemnity of Cara cognatio on Feb. 22, when the dead members of each family were commemorated.

Duchesne asserts, with something of undue confidence, that this was without doubt the ground for the selection of the date Feb. 22 for the Christian festival; but without committing ourselves to the acceptance of Duchesne’s view, we may say that it may well have been a reason why efforts were made to draw off the faithful, by means of the Christian solemnity, from the temptation to join in rites incompatible with their profession. The festival was unknown in the East, and, what is more remarkable, equally unknown in the Church of North Africa; but it appeared early in Gaul, and, as has been conjectured, with a view to prevent the festival falling, as would occasionally happen, in Lent, the date was pushed back to Jan. 18. At Rome it continued to be observed on Feb. 22.

It would seem to have been due to the anxiety of the early mediaeval Kalendar-makers and Martyrologists to comprehend in their lists everything in the way of church solemnities recorded in any Kalendar that we have the invention of St Peter’s [62] Chair at Antioch. They found some Kalendars marking Cathedra Petri at Jan. 18, and others at Feb. 22. Might not, they would argue, these double dates be accounted for by the old accounts that St Peter had exercised an episcopate at Antioch before he came to Rome?

Venerable Bede does not mark any Festival of St Peter’s Chair at Jan. 18, but at Feb. 22 writes ‘Apud Antiochiam Cathedra S. Petri.’ But in the Martyrology, known as Gellonense (circ. 800), and in Usuard’s Martyrology we find at Jan. 18, ‘Cathedrae S. Petri Apostoli quâ Romae primo sedit,’ and at Feb. 22 ‘Cathedrae S. Petri Apostoli quâ sedit apud Antiochiam’ ( Gellonense ), ‘Apud Antiochiam Cathedrae S. Petri’ ( Usuard ). There continued to be a variety of use in different dioceses as to the day on which ‘St Peter’s Chair’ was celebrated; and it was not till as late as 1558 that Pope Paul IV settled the question by ordering that the feast of the Roman Chair should be observed on Jan. 18, while Gregory XIII restored Feb. 22 as the feast of the Chair at Antioch. This is not the place to discuss whether there was, properly speaking, any episcopate of St Peter at Antioch. It is significant that the churches of Greece and the East knew nothing of the feast of St Peter’s Chair at Antioch [90] .

[63]

St Peter ‘ad vincula,’ ‘St Peter’s Chains.’ The Eastern Church celebrates the festival of St Peter’s Chain on Jan. 16; the Latin Church celebrates the corresponding festival on Aug. 1. Both festivals not improbably had their origins in the dedication of churches, where what were supposed to be a chain or chains which had bound Peter were preserved. The plural, ‘chains,’ in the Roman name is significant, and will be understood by reference to the 4th and 5th Lections for the feast in the Roman Breviary. The feast does not appear in Western Kalendars till the eighth century.

The seventeenth century building, S. Pietro in Vincoli, on the Esquiline, occupies the site of the church of the Apostles, reconstructed at the expense of the imperial family between A.D. 432 and A.D. 440, where the precious relics were deposited.

In connexion with this feast attention should be called to the fact that in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology at Aug. 1, we find no reference to the chains, but there is the particularly interesting entry: ‘At Rome, dedication of the first church both constructed and consecrated by blessed Peter the Apostle [91] .’

St Andrew (Nov. 30). The Martyrologies agree in giving Nov. 30 as the day of the martyrdom. The festival appeared early at Rome, and was given a place of high dignity [92] . In fact there is authority for [64] the feast being kept at Rome in early times with no less solemnity than St Peter’s Day. It will be remembered that in the prayer Libera nos in the Canon of the Mass Andrew is named together with Peter and Paul. The Sacramentary of St Leo has four sets of ‘propers’ for masses on this festival. It is a day of much importance in the Greek Church, as St Andrew, the Protoclete, is reckoned the apostle of Greece. St Andrew is the patron of the Russian Church [93] . Relics of St Andrew, said to have been brought by a monk named Regulus from Patras to Scotland, gave the name of St Andrew to the place in Fife previously known as Kilrymont; and St Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland. In the Aberdeen Breviary his day is a ‘greater double.’

Bishop Wordsworth remarks that St Andrew’s Day ‘is perhaps the only festival of an Apostle claiming to be really on the anniversary of his death.’ Nov. 30 is given as the day of his martyrdom in the apocryphal Acta Andreae , describing his death at Patras [94] .

St James the Great (July 25), the son of Zebedee, does not appear very early. The day is not noticed in either the Leonine or the Gelasian Sacramentary, and made its way to general acceptance but slowly. In the canons of the Council of Oxford ( A.D. 1222) it does not appear among the chief festivals for general observance in England, although [65] in England it was certainly a festum chori long before that date.

It would seem (Acts xii. 2, 3) that the death of James took place about the time of the Paschal commemoration; the Coptic Kalendar marks St James’s day on April 12, and the Syrian lectionary of Antioch on April 30, on which day also the Greek Church keeps a festival of St James, using for the Epistle Acts xii. 1, etc. The placing of the festival in the West so far from Easter as July 25, suggests that the latter date was connected with some translation of relics, or such like.

As we have already seen (p. 16) the ancient Syriac Kalendar edited originally by Wright, commemorates James together with his brother John on Dec. 27.

St John, Apostle and Evangelist. The principal festival on Dec. 27 is found in the fourth century in the East, where he was conjoined with James. Traces of this conjunction are to be found in the West. It is interesting to find in the Gothic Missal, printed by Muratori, a mass for the Natale of the Apostles James and John placed between St Stephen and Holy Innocents. And in the Hieronymian Martyrology we find at Dec. 27 ‘the ordination to the episcopate of St James, the Lord’s brother [a confusion], and the assumption of St John, the Evangelist, at Ephesus.’

The Greek Church commemorates the metastasis , or migration of John, on Sept. 26, and an important festival in honour of the holy dust (called manna ) from his tomb at Ephesus on May 8.

[66]

St John before the Latin gate (May 6). The story of the caldron of boiling oil is as old as Tertullian ( de Praescript. c. 36). But of the festival there is no notice before the closing years of the eighth century. The day of the month probably marks the date of the dedication of a church near the Latin gate [95] . It is characteristically a Western festival. In the Roman rite it was, about the thirteenth century, a semi-double: it was made a double by Pius V (1566-1572), and a greater double by Clement VIII (1592-1605).

St Matthew (Sept. 21): in the Greek, Russian, Syrian and Armenian Churches, Nov. 16: in the Egyptian and Ethiopic Kalendars of Ludolf, Oct. 9. The festival of Sept. 21 is certainly late in appearing. It is wanting in the Leonine, Gelasian, and Gallican Sacramentaries, and in Muratori’s edition of the Gregorian. It is found, however, generally in the martyrologies, which fact, of course, does not necessarily imply that there was any liturgical observance of the day [96] .

St Luke (Oct. 18); and on the same day generally in the East. The day perhaps marks a translation of relics in the East, as is stated in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology. St Luke does not appear in the older Sacramentaries; but in some manuscripts of the Gregorian we find a proper preface for St Luke on v Kal. Nov. (Oct. 28).

St Mark (April 25): on the same day in the [67] East. The day is of late appearance, not perhaps before the ninth century. The great processional litanies on April 25 appear at Rome long before St Mark’s name was attached to the day. In their origin these litanies were distinctively Roman.

St Philip and St James (May 1). This was the day of the dedication of a church at Rome in their honour in the second half of the sixth century. The word natale is applied at a later time to the day; which may have been in error, or, as can be proved by many examples, the word natale came to be used loosely as equivalent to festival or commemoration. In the Greek Church St James, ‘the brother of God,’ is commemorated on Oct. 23, and St Philip, ‘one of the twelve,’ on Nov. 14. The Greeks celebrate Philip, the deacon, on Oct. 11, and he appears in Usuard’s Martyrology at June 6.

Why Philip and James should be associated we know not. The deposition of relics of both at the time of the dedication of the church at Rome may perhaps account for the conjunction of the names.

St Simon and St Jude (Oct. 28). Legend associates these two Apostles as having together laboured for thirteen years in Persia, and as there dying martyrs’ deaths. In the Sacramentaries they do not appear till they are found in a late form of the Gregorian. In the East the commemoration of these Apostles is divided and a day assigned to each. In the Greek Church Simon Zelotes appears at May 10, and Judas (Thaddaeus) at June 19.

St Thomas, Apostle and Martyr (Dec. 21); [68] his Translation is marked at July 3 in the West. In the Greek Church St Thomas is commemorated on Oct. 6, a day also observed by the Syrians, who add a translation on July 3. In the fourth century there was a magnificent basilica of St Thomas at Edessa, and to this church the remains of the Apostle were translated (from India according to the legend) before the close of the century. St Thomas (at Dec. 21) is not found in the Leonine, and only in some texts of the Gregorian Sacramentary. He appears, however, in the Gelasian.

St Bartholomew (Aug. 24); and at Rome on Aug. 25. The Latin churches generally, including that of mediaeval England, observed Aug. 24. The Greek Church commemorates Bartholomew together with Barnabas on June 11, and a translation of the relics of Bartholomew on Aug. 25. In the West the introduction of the feast was late. There is no trace of it in the early forms of the great Sacramentaries [97] .

St John the Baptist, the Nativity (June 24); so too in the Greek Church. The date was doubtless assigned on the strength of the inference drawn from the Gospels, that the birth of the baptist preceded that of the Saviour by six months. It appeared early, and was a recognised day in the time of St Augustine [98] . It has its masses in the Sacramentaries from the Leonine downwards.

[69]

The Decollation of St John the Baptist (generally Aug. 29). This festival is also early, but, so far as evidence goes, not so early as the Nativity [99] . It was known in Gaul before it was adopted at Rome. The Greek churches celebrate the day on Aug. 29 [100] .

The Conversion of St Paul (Jan. 25), was of late introduction. It does not appear in the correct text of Bede’s Martyrology, and in only late texts of the Gregorian Sacramentary. There is reason for believing that the day was first observed to mark the translation of relics of St Paul at Rome, for so it appears in the Hieronymian Martyrology, and the period of transition seems to be marked in the Martyrology of Rabanus Maurus (ninth century), where we find at Jan. 25, ‘Translation and Conversion of St Paul.’ It is not found in England in the Pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York ( A.D. 732-766), but it appears in the Leofric Missal, in the second half of the eleventh century. It is unknown in the Greek Church.

St Mary Magdalene (July 22), who is identified in the West with the woman who was a sinner, and with Mary the sister of Lazarus, is distinguished from each of these in the Greek service-books which also mark her festival on July 22. Among the Easterns she is thought of as ‘the holy myrrh-bearer,’ one of the women who brought the spices [70] to the tomb of the Lord. In various places in the West, though not at Rome, the day was a day of obligation in the middle ages. It appears in some service-books in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but not in missals, secundum consuetudinem Romanae curiae , till the thirteenth [101] .

There was a festival of St Mary Magdalene (July 22) in the English Prayer Book of 1549. The collect and gospel (Luke vii. 36 to the end of the chapter) show that no English Reformers identified the Magdalene with the woman who was a sinner. The festival disappears in the Prayer Book of 1552.

St Barnabas, the Apostle (June 11). The Greeks commemorate on this day ‘Bartholomew and Barnabas, Apostles.’ The festival probably marks the supposed finding of the body of Barnabas (having a copy of St Matthew’s Gospel in his hand) in the island of Cyprus in the fifth century. Barnabas is not found at June 11 in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology; nor in the Martyrology known as Gellonense , but it is noted in Bede (though there is some doubt whether the entry is not due to Florus), and in the later Martyrologies.

The Greek Church commemorates (many of them with proper names attached) the seventy disciples of Luke x. 1, called in the service-books ‘apostles.’

Octaves. The word Octave is used sometimes for the eighth day after a festival, sometimes (in later documents) for the space of eight days which follow the festival. It may be regarded as an echo [71] or prolongation of the festival. In the Eastern Church what is known as the Apodosis (see p. 135) in a measure corresponds to the Western Octave. It has not unreasonably been conjectured that they owe their origin to an imitation of the festal practices of the Hebrews (Levit. xxiii. 6; Num. xxviii. 17; Deut. xvi. 3). Octaves were originally few: they appear first in connexion with Easter and Pentecost, and, occasionally, with the Epiphany. In the eighth and ninth centuries Octaves became more numerous. Yet in the Corbie Kalendar ( A.D. 826), assuming that the movable feasts of Easter and Pentecost had their Octaves, we find in addition only the Octaves of Christmas, Epiphany, Peter and Paul, Lawrence and Andrew. This falls in well with what is said by Amalarius (about the same date) who, after noticing the Octaves of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost, adds, ‘We are accustomed to celebrate the Octaves of the natalitia of some saints, that is, of those whose festivals are esteemed as more illustrious amongst us’ ( De ecclesiasticis officiis , iv. 36). At Rome we find St Agnes having an Octave (Jan. 28) at a date earlier than that with which we have been dealing [102] ; and even to-day in the Roman Missal and Breviary there is an interesting survival in the persistence of the old name, Agnetis secundo , and of ‘propers’ for the day. Liturgically, the ancient practice in the West was to insert a simple commemoration on the eighth day of festivals.

The prolongation of a festival for eight days may [72] be found illustrated by the practice of the Church at Jerusalem in the fourth century, as recounted by ‘Silvia’ in her descriptions of the Epiphany, the Pascha, and the feast of the dedication of the churches known as the Martyrium and the Church of the Resurrection.

The great multiplication of Octaves in mediaeval times has been attributed to the influence of the Franciscans, who in the language of Kellner ‘provided an inordinate number of Octaves in their Breviary, and observed each day of the Octave with the rite of a festum duplex [103] .’

The somewhat elaborate rules with respect to Octaves and their relation to the observance of other festivals, as enjoined in the modern Roman rite, can be found in such technical works as those of Gavantus and Ferraris. It must suffice here to observe that within the Octaves of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, the Epiphany, and Corpus Christi, Votive and Requiem masses are prohibited.

Vigils. The origin of vigils is obscure. The proper service of each Lord’s Day was preceded in early times by what may be regarded as something like a vigil, a service before the dawn of day; and some think that this view may be deduced from Pliny’s well-known letter to Trajan. But in this there would seem, perhaps, to be a reading into the document of more than its contents warrant. However this may be, we find as early as Tertullian that there were among Christians ‘nocturnae convocationes,’ [73] the solemnities of the Pascha being more particularly referred to [104] . The exact nature and object of these assemblies are not described. Evidence is more full at a later date for vigils of some kind, not only before the Lord’s Day but also before the Sabbath [105] . At the period when ‘Silvia’ visited Jerusalem the faithful seem to have engaged in services before the dawn on every Lord’s Day. And in Gaul in the fifth century, as we gather from Sidonius Apollinaris [106] , the vigils were not all night-watches but services before day-break. About a century later than Tertullian, we find the Council of Elvira, near Granada, some time in the first quarter of the fourth century, enacting a canon (35), declaring that women should not spend the night-watches ( pervigilent ) in cemeteries, ‘because often under the pretext of prayer they secretly commit serious offences ( scelera ).’ There is no further explanation; and the probable conjecture has been offered that it may have been the practice to have vigils in the cemeteries on the night before the oblation was offered at the tomb of one of the martyrs. That there was in Spain at this date some kind of service in the cemeteries seems not improbable from the fact that the canon immediately preceding that which we have noticed forbids the lighting of wax tapers in cemeteries in the day time.

By the end of the fourth century, there is ample [74] evidence for the observance of nocturnal or early morning vigils before the greater festivals in both East and West. Early in the fifth century Vigilantius protested against the scandals which arose from the nocturnal watchings in the basilicas, and for this, among other assaults upon the current abuses and superstitions of the time, he drew upon himself the violent and coarse invective of Jerome. Yet Jerome himself may be quoted for the fact that there were moral dangers attending these nocturnal vigils, for while advising the lady Laeta to inure her daughter, the younger Paula, to days of vigil and solemn pernoctations, he warns her that she should keep the girl close by her side [107] . To Pope Boniface I ( A.D. 418-422) has been attributed the prohibition of nocturnal vigils in the Roman cemeteries.

With regard to the Paschal Vigil, Jerome expresses the opinion that it originated in the belief that Christ would come again in the night of the Pascha [108] .

In process of time, the day before the feast ( dies profestus ) assumed the name of vigil, and was in the West commonly, though not universally, associated with a fast. Mediaeval ritualists, such as Honorius of Autun (who died a little after A.D. 1130), connect the change with the popular abuses of the nocturnal vigils.

There is an interesting letter of Innocent III (about A.D. 1213), laying down the rule in the [75] Roman Church, which still prevails. The vigils of the Apostles are to be observed as fasts, with the exception of St John the Evangelist and St Philip and St James, the former occurring in the season of Christmas, and the latter in that of Easter [109] . Beside the vigils of the Apostles, the vigils of Christmas and the Assumption are fasts de jure , and by custom the vigils of Pentecost, the Nativity of the Baptist, St Lawrence, and All Saints. These rules were often locally modified by papal indults.

[76]

CHAPTER VII
SEASONS OF PREPARATION AND PENITENCE

Advent

Advent, as the term is now employed, signifies a season, regarded as preparatory to the Festival of the Nativity of the Lord, including four Sundays and a variable number of days, as affected by the day of the week upon which December 25 falls.

As no evidence has been adduced for an established celebration of the Feast of the Nativity before the fourth century, so it is obvious that we cannot expect to find the appointment of a season of preparation before that date. As a matter of fact, it would seem that the earliest distinct notice of such a season, prescribed for general use, belongs to the latter part of the sixth century; and that the practice originated in Gaul. In a small council held at Tours about A.D. 567 there is vaguely indicated a fast for monks in December, to be kept every day ‘usque ad natale domini’ (can. 17). A few years later, in the south of Gaul, we find what seems a canon of general application, but less exacting in regard to the number of days on which the fast was [77] to be observed. In the ninth canon of the Council of Mâcon ( A.D. 581) it is enjoined that from the festival of St Martin (Nov. 11) the second, fourth and sixth days of the week should be fasting days, that the sacrifices should be celebrated in the quadragesimal order, and that on these days the canons (probably meaning the canons of this synod) should be read, so that no one could plead that he erred through ignorance. We have here something that at once reminds us of the pre-paschal season, as observed in some Churches. The season came to be known as Quadragesima S. Martini . But the length of this season (as was also true of Lent) seems to have varied much. The six Sundays which it covered, as we may infer from the canon of Mâcon referred to above, we find indicated probably by the six missae of Sundays of Advent in the Ambrosian and Mozarabic rites. Yet the oldest Gallican Sacramentary records only three Sundays, and the Gothic-Gallican only two [110] .

In England, as we learn from Bede, forty days of fasting ‘ante natale domini’ were observed by Cuthbert († 687) and by Ecbert († 729). In both cases, however, it should be remarked, the observance seems mentioned as an indication of exceptional piety [111] .

At the close of the sixth century Rome, under Gregory the Great, adopted the rule of the four Sundays in Advent; and in the following century [78] this rule became prevalent (though not universal) in the West.

In the Greek Church the general observance of forty days’ penitential preparation for Christmas does not appear to have been established before the thirteenth century. In the Greek Church of to-day the forty days’ preparation begins on Nov. 15. It is sometimes called the Fast of St Philip, doubtless because the festival of St Philip was celebrated on Nov. 14. On Wednesdays and Fridays the fast is rigorous; but on other days, wine, oil, and fish are allowed.

The practice of the Armenians is peculiar: they observe a fast for the week preceding the Nativity, and for one week commencing fifty days before the Nativity. The conjecture has been offered that these two weeks are a survival of a fast that had originally lasted for the whole of fifty days.

In Churches of the Roman Communion at the present day, the practice as to fasting varies. In Great Britain and Ireland Wednesdays and Fridays are expected to be observed; but in many parts of the continent of Europe there is no distinction between weeks in Advent and ordinary weeks.

On December 16 in the West it was the practice to sing as an antiphon to the Magnificat the first of a series of seven antiphons, each beginning with ‘O’; thus, ‘O Sapientia’ (Dec. 16), ‘O Adonai’ (17), ‘O Radix Jesse’ (18), etc. In the Kalendar of the Book of Common Prayer the words ‘O Sapientia’ appear at Dec. 16. This is not, strictly speaking, [79] a survival of mediaeval times; for it was first introduced into the English Prayer Book Kalendar in A.D. 1604.

The rule of the English Book of Common Prayer (1662) for determining Advent runs thus: ‘Advent Sunday is always the nearest Sunday to the Feast of St Andrew, whether before or after.’ As thus expressed, the rule does not seem to contemplate the case of Advent Sunday falling on St Andrew’s Day. It was a mistake not to add the additional words which were in the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637, namely, ‘or that Sunday which falleth upon any day from the twenty-seventh of November to the third of December inclusively.’ The word ‘or’ does not imply that the second part of the rule is an equivalent of the first; but it gives a rule to meet a case not contemplated in the first part.

The Fast preceding Easter (Lent)

That a fast preliminary to the Pascha was observed in the early Church is beyond question. Irenaeus, in his letter to Victor, bishop of Rome [112] , states that at the time there were several differences as to the length of the fast; but in no case was a prolonged series of days prescribed. ‘Some,’ he says, ‘think they ought to fast one day; others, two; others more than two; others reckon together forty hours both of the day and the night as the [80] day [of fasting] [113] .’ And Irenaeus adds that these differences existed long before (πολὺ πρότερον) the time when he wrote. The words about the forty hours may perhaps be illustrated by passages of Tertullian [114] , where he speaks of persons fasting in the days ‘when the bridegroom was taken away,’ or, in other words, the time during which the Lord was under the power of death, i.e. certain hours of the day of the Crucifixion, the twenty-four hours of Saturday, and certain hours of the early part of Easter Day. We shall not delay to discuss the questions connected with the exact time of commencing and of closing the forty hours.

About the middle of the third century at Alexandria the whole week before Easter was observed as a time of fasting by some; but there were those who fasted only on four days; others contented themselves with three or even two; while there were some (evidently exceptional persons) who did not fast even one day [115] . It is plain that as yet no fixed rule was enforced.

In the fourth century we meet with the term τεσσαρακοστή, or Quadragesima. In the fifth canon of the Council of Nicaea it is ordered that one of [81] the two annual provincial Synods should be held before ‘the tessarakoste.’ The sense of the term is assumed to be known, and is not explained. But it must not be inferred that the word necessarily signifies here forty days , or that forty days were assigned to fasting.

The classical authority for the variations of later usages is the passage of Socrates [116] , where he describes many differences of practice in his own day ( c. A.D. 440) and the varieties in the length of the fast in different countries. At Rome, he says, there was a fast of three weeks, excepting Saturdays and Sundays; at Alexandria and in Achaia and Illyricum a fast of six weeks; in other places the fast began seven weeks before Easter, but was limited to fifteen days, with an interval between each five days [117] . Not long after his time there were two prevailing usages—that of the Churches which deducted from the fasting days Sundays and Saturdays (always excepting the Saturday in Holy Week), and that of the Churches which deducted only the Sundays. The former was the prevailing usage in the East; the latter, in the West. The seven weeks in the East, with thirteen days deducted (seven Sundays and six Saturdays), and the six weeks of the West, with only six days deducted, agree precisely in each having only thirty-six fasting days.

[82]

At the time of the Peregrinatio Silviae (about the end of the fourth century), if we may trust the writer, at Jerusalem eight weeks of fasting preceded Easter, which, deducting eight Sundays and seven Saturdays, gave, as she expressly says, forty-one days of fasting. This is highly exceptional, if not unique. At any rate, the practice did not long continue.

The number 36 is nearly the tenth of 365—the number of the days of the year; and this thought struck the fancy of more than one writer. We were bound, they urged, to offer to God the holy tithe, not only of our increase, but of our time. And in the fifth century John Cassian presses this point, and attempts to bring the length of the fast to correspond more closely with the tithe of the year by observing that the fast was prolonged for some hours, ‘usque in gallorum cantum,’ on Easter morning [118] .

At a later period the thought of the fasts of Moses and Elijah, and more particularly of the Lord’s fast of forty days in the wilderness, seems to have suggested that the fast of the faithful should correspond in length. The addition of four days—the Wednesday and three following days immediately preceding the first Sunday in Lent—has been frequently attributed to Gregory the Great. But the writings of Gregory testify to his knowing only thirty-six fasting days. And it is now generally acknowledged that no support for the supposition [83] can be based on the language of the collects for Feria IV and Feria VI in the week begun on Quinquagesima, which speak of the beginning of the fast, and are to be found in the Gregorian Sacramentary [119] . The Sacramentary, as we now possess it, abounds in additions later than the time of Gregory.

It is impossible to say precisely when, or by whom, the additional four days were introduced. Approximately we may assign this change to about the beginning of the eighth century, and to Rome. It did not obtain everywhere. It was not till near the close of the eleventh century that the Scottish Church, at the persuasion of the Saxon princess, Queen Margaret of Scotland, fell into line with most of the other Western Churches, by accepting the four fasting days in the week before the first Sunday in Lent [120] . The Mozarabic Liturgy adopted it only at the instance of Cardinal Ximenes about the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Church of Milan still preserves, among its interesting survivals, the commencement of the rigorous Lenten Fast on the Monday after the first Sunday. But in 1563 St Charles Borromeo, then archbishop of Milan, succeeded, against vigorous local protests, in making the first Sunday in Lent a day of abstinence.

The term caput jejunii was applied sometimes to the Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday, and frequently in service-books to the period of the four days preceding the first Sunday in Lent. Thus, [84] these days are designated ‘Feria IV, Feria V, Feria VI, et Sabbatum, in capite jejunii.’ The distribution of ashes on the Wednesday in the Western Church is a much modified survival and relic of the ancient penitential discipline.

In the Orthodox Church of the East at the present day ‘the great and holy Tessarakoste’ contains, as in the West, six Sundays. But the Lenten offices commence at Vespers on the Sunday (known as Tyrinis, or Tyrophagus) preceding the first Sunday in Lent. In the week preceding this Sunday (corresponding to the Western Quinquagesima) the faithful give up the use of flesh meat, and confine themselves to cheese (τυρός) and other lacticinia . And it may be observed, in passing, that in the Greek Church there are other examples of the week being named from the Sunday which follows it. Thus, ‘the week of Palms’ is the week followed by Palm Sunday [121] . The Sunday (our Sexagesima) preceding Tyrinis is called Apocreos ( Dominica carnisprivii ). It is the last day upon which flesh may be eaten. After the Sunday ‘Tyrinis’ a more rigorous fast is prescribed; but Sundays and Saturdays (except the Saturday in Holy week) are exempted, so that there are only thirty-six days of rigid fasting; five days in each of the first six weeks, and six days in the last week [122] .

The word quadragesima is the source of the [85] Italian quaresima , and the French carême (in old French, quaresme ); while our English word, Lent , is simply indicative of the season of the year when the fast occurs, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon Lencten , the spring-time.

Other Special Times of Fasting

I. Western Church—The three fasts called ‘Quadragesima’; Rogation Days; the Four Seasons.

In addition to Advent, which, as we have seen, is sometimes spoken of as the quadragesima of St Martin , and Lent ( quadragesima ante Pascha ) [123] , we find in the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries in writers of Germany, France, Britain, and Ireland references to a third quadragesima which is styled sometimes the quadragesima after Pentecost, and sometimes the quadragesima before St John the Baptist. In the Paenitentiale of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury († A.D. 690), it is declared that ‘there are three fasts established by law ( jejunia legitima ) for the people generally ( per populum ) [124] , forty days and nights before Pascha, when we pay the tithes of the year, and forty before the Nativity of the Lord, and forty after Pentecost [125] .’ The remarkable collection of canons of the ancient Irish Church, which is known as the Hibernensis , is of uncertain [86] date, but is attributed by such eminent authorities as Wasserschleben, Henry Bradshaw, Whitley Stokes, and J. B. Bury, to the end of the seventh or early part of the eighth century. The three penitential seasons called quadragesima are distinctly referred to [126] . In the Capitula of Charlemagne, priests are directed to announce to the people that these three seasons are legitima jejunia . In the canons collected by Burchard, Bishop of Worms ( A.D. 1006), the three seasons called quadragesima are referred to, and the third is defined as the forty days before the festival of St John the Baptist. Many interesting questions are suggested by these passages with which we are unable to deal here. It must suffice to say that the quadragesima after Pentecost did not long survive. It disappeared, and has left no mark upon the Church’s year.

Rogation Days. There is a general agreement that the observance of the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before the Ascension as days of special prayer and fasting, owes its origin to Mamertus, bishop of Vienne (about A.D. 470), who appointed litanies or rogations to be said, at a time when the people of his city were in great terror by reason of a severe earthquake and a conflagration consequent thereupon. The shaken walls and the destruction of public buildings, as vividly described [87] by Sidonius Apollinaris, may have suggested practical reasons for the litanies being chanted out of doors. The practice of Rogations soon spread through the whole of Gaul, and in the Council of Orleans ( A.D. 511), where thirty-two bishops were present, the three days’ fast, with Rogations, was enjoined upon all their churches. In England, the practice of observing the Rogations had evidently been long established when the Council of Cloveshoe ( A.D. 747) enjoined it ‘according to the custom of our predecessors.’ At Rome, in the opinion of Baillet, and recently of Duchesne, the Rogation days were not introduced till about A.D. 800 [127] .

In the East there is nothing corresponding to the Rogation Days; and the ordinary fast of Wednesday is on the Wednesday before Ascension Day relaxed by a dispensation for oil, wine, and fish; for in the East the dies profestus commonly possesses something of a festal character, anticipatory of the morrow.

In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the term ‘gang-days’ is used more than once for the Rogation days; and in the Laws of Athelstan we find ‘gang-days’ and ‘gang-week.’ The name originated in the walking in procession on these days.

The Fasts of the Four Seasons ( jejunia quatuor temporum ). The earliest distinct reference to these fasts is to be found in the Sermons of Pope Leo I ( A.D. 440-461), who speaks of the spring fast being in Lent, the summer fast ‘in Pentecost,’ the autumn fast in the seventh, and the winter fast in the tenth [88] month. From St Leo we also learn that the fast was on Wednesday and Friday, and that on the Saturday a vigil was observed at St Peter’s [128] . The observance is characteristically Roman, and is found at first only at Rome, and in Churches in immediate dependence on Rome. Duchesne holds that the weeks in which these fasts occurred differed from other weeks mainly in the rigour of the fast, i.e. ‘the substitution of a real fast for the half-fast of the ordinary stations.’ And he adds the suggestion that on the Wednesday of the Four Seasons, if not on the Friday, the Eucharist was from the outset celebrated [129] .

In England the Council of Cloveshoe ( A.D. 747) enjoins that no one should neglect ‘the fasts of the fourth, seventh, and tenth month.’ The omission of any notice of the Ember days in Lent will be noticed later on.

In the Churches of Gaul we do not find the Ember days established long before the time of Charlemagne.

At first we find no trace of a connexion between the Ember seasons and the holding of ordinations; and, as is observed by Dr Sinker, ‘everything points to the conclusion that the solemnity attaching to the seasons led to their being chosen as fitting times for the rite [130] .’

The Sacramentary that is known as St Leo’s [89] exhibits ‘propers’ for masses of the fasts in the fourth, seventh, and tenth months, i.e. June, September and December [131] ; and from these we can gather that on ‘the festival of the fasts’ assemblies and processions had been made on the Wednesdays and Fridays, and a vigil (with the Eucharist) held on the Saturdays. In these there is not only no reference to ordinations of the clergy, but also no reference that would suggest the special intention and significance of these days of fasting. The conjecture is not unreasonable that there was the desire to dedicate in penitence the year in its four several parts to the service of God; but neither the history nor the literature of the early Church is decisive in confirming the conjecture.

The practice of the Church at Rome spread gradually, with some varieties as to the particular weeks in which the three days of fasting were observed. For England the notices of the Ember days are earlier than they are for France. At first, at Rome, the spring fast seems to have been in the first week in March, but afterwards always in Lent. And as soon as it came to be observed in Lent it would (as regards the fast) require no special injunction. This may perhaps account for the omission of any mention of the fast of the first month in the canon of the Council of Cloveshoe referred to above. The fixing of the particular days now observed in the West is generally assigned to about the close of the eleventh century; but in England, as late as A.D. 1222, [90] the Council of Oxford still speaks of the fast in the first week in March [132] .

In the Eastern Church there is nothing corresponding to the fasts of the Four Seasons.

II. Eastern Churches.

The fasts before the Nativity and Easter have been treated of under Advent and Lent. In the Greek Church the season before Easter is called ‘the great Tessarakoste,’ for the word Tessarakoste is also applied to three other penitential seasons, (1) to the fast before the Lord’s Nativity, (2) the fast of the Apostles (Peter and Paul), and (3) the fast of the Assumption of the Theotokos. But, though the word Tessarakoste is applied to each of these, there is no apparent connexion between the number forty and the number of days observed as fasting-days; and this is notably the case in regard to the third and fourth. The fast [91] of the Apostles extends for a variable number of days from the Monday after the Sunday of All Saints ( i.e. the first Sunday after Pentecost) to June 28, both inclusive.

Examination will show that the interval between these two limits can very rarely amount to forty days; and when Easter falls at its latest possible date (April 25) the first Sunday after Pentecost is June 20, so that the Tessarakoste of the Apostles would in that case be only eight days in length.

The length of the Tessarakoste of the Assumption is fixed, and extends only from Aug. 1 to Aug. 14.

It would appear then that the term Tessarakoste has come in practice to signify simply a fast of a number of days, and has lost all reference to the number 40.

The Exaltation of the Cross (Sept. 14), although regarded as a festival (ἑορτή) of the highest dignity, is observed as a strict fast.

The same is true of the Decollation of the Forerunner (Aug. 29), because of ‘the murder of him who is greater than all the prophets.’ When it is remembered that all Wednesdays as well as Fridays are fasting days, it will not be a surprise to be told that the fasting days of the Greek Church amount in each year to some 190 in number.

The Armenians on fast-days abstain from flesh, milk, butter, eggs, and oil. Every day in Lent except Sundays is kept as a fast. Among peculiar observances is (1) the Fast of Nineveh, for two weeks [92] commencing in the week before our Septuagesima. It is called by the Armenians Aratschavor-atz , meaning, it is said, ‘preceding abstinence,’ and this term has taken shape among the Greeks as ‘Artziburion.’ In the frequent controversies between the Greeks and Armenians the former denounce this fast as execrable and satanic. (2) The Armenians also observe as a fast the week after Pentecost. It has been maintained that in early times this fast was observed in the week before Pentecost, and that afterwards, in compliance with the general rule that the days between Easter and Pentecost should not be observed as fasts, a change was made.

Kalendar of Worcester Book (October)

( Portiforium S. Oswaldi. ) Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MS. 391). Circa A.D. 1064.

[93]

CHAPTER VIII
WESTERN MEDIAEVAL KALENDARS: MARTYROLOGIES

The word Martyrology has been sometimes applied to mere records of names placed opposite days of the month, like the document which goes under the name of Liberius (see p. 14), as well as to the fuller and more elaborate accounts of saints and martyrs, with often something of biographical detail, and notices of time and place, and (in the case of martyrs) the manner of the passions, such as are to be found, for example, in the Martyrology of Bede, and more particularly in the additions of Florus, and the Martyrologies of Ado and Usuard.

The study of the Martyrologies is surrounded by many difficulties. They were again and again copied, and re-handled. It demands much knowledge and critical acumen to sever from the documents as they have come down to us later additions, so that we may get at what may reasonably be regarded as the original texts. Such work is always attended with considerable uncertainty, and scholars are often divided in opinion as to the results [133] .

[94]

The influence of the later Martyrologies upon the mediaeval Kalendars of the West is marked. Bede’s valuable work is the outcome of honest and patient research; many days, however, were left blank—an offence to the professional Martyrologist. It was much enlarged, about one hundred years after his death, by one Florus, who (with some differences of opinion) is generally supposed to have been a sub-deacon of Lyons. Ado, bishop of Vienne, some twenty or thirty years later than Florus, prepared an extensive Martyrology, which, together with the work of Florus, was in turn utilised and abridged about A.D. 875 by Usuard, a priest and Benedictine monk of the monastery of St Germain-des-Prés, then outside the walls of Paris, who undertook his work at the instance of the Emperor Charles the Bald. The book when completed was dedicated to the Emperor; and before long Usuard’s Martyrology came in general to supersede previous attempts of the same kind. Its influence on subsequent mediaeval Kalendars is unmistakeable. Usuard came to be adopted almost universally for use.

In monasteries and cathedral churches it was a common practice to read aloud each day, sometimes in chapter, sometimes in choir, after Prime, the part of the Martyrology which had reference to the commemorations of the day or of the following [95] day, together with notices of obits and anniversaries of members of the ecclesiastical corporation and of benefactors, which on the following day would be observed. Indeed, in later times the name Martyrology is not infrequently applied to the mere lists of such obits and anniversaries. The mediaeval martyrologies are generally Usuard’s, but they have local additions.

By the tenth century the general features of Kalendars throughout Europe are substantially identical as regards the greater days of observance. But differences, often of much interest, arise through different churches commemorating saints of local or national celebrity. It often happens that by [96] this means alone we are able to determine, or to conjecture with considerable probability, the place or region where some liturgical manuscript had its origin. When we find in a Kalendar a large proportion of more or less obscure saints belonging to the Rhine valley, we may be confident that the manuscript belongs to that region of Germany. When an English Kalendar contains no notice of St Osmund we may be sure that it did not originate at Salisbury. When we find St Margaret on Nov. 16, St Fillan on Jan. 9, St Triduana on Oct. 8, and St Regulus on March 30, there is an overwhelming probability that the manuscript belongs to Scotland. In the Kalendar of York we find St Aidan (Aug. 31), St Hilda of Whitby (Aug. 25), and St Paulinus, the archbishop (Oct. 10), but these are all wanting to the Sarum Kalendar. St Kunnegund, the German Empress, who died in A.D. 1040, figures largely in German Kalendars. Sometimes we find marked not only her obit, but her canonization, and her translation; and at Bamberg the octave of her translation was observed. Outside Germany she is all but unknown. St Louis is naturally an important personage in French Kalendars; and he appears as far north as the Kalendars of Scandinavia. He never obtained a place in any of the leading ‘uses’ of England. On the other hand, at an earlier date continental influences on ecclesiastical affairs (not unknown before the Conquest) became potent when Norman churchmen poured into this country after A.D. 1066, and obtained places of the highest dignity. [97] It is thus probably that St Batildis, wife of Clovis II (Jan. 30), St Sulpicius, bishop of Bourges (Jan. 17), St Medard, bishop of Noyon, with St Gildard, bishop of Rouen (June 8), and St Andoen, another bishop of Rouen (Aug. 24), obtained days in our English Kalendars. All these are absent from the Anglo-Saxon Kalendars printed by Hampson [134] .

Again, occasionally a Church Kalendar exhibits features which may be attributed to merely accidental circumstances. Relics of some saint belonging to another and distant region may happen to have been presented to some church; and thereupon his name is inserted in its Kalendars. It is thus, with much probability, that Mr Warren accounts for the appearance of the names of one northern bishop and two northern abbots—Aidan, bishop of Lindisfarne,—Benedict, first abbot, and Ceolfrith, second abbot of Wearmouth—in the Kalendar of the Leofric Missal. In William of Malmesbury, we read that in A.D. 703 relics of these saints were brought to Glastonbury. And in the case of two of these, Aidan (Aug. 31) and Ceolfrith (Sept. 25), the Leofric Kalendar adds to each name the word, ‘in Glaestonia.’ Other evidence makes it all but certain that Glastonbury and its history affected the Leofric Kalendar. At Cologne, which claims to possess the heads of the Three Kings, one cannot wonder that their Translation (July 23) is a ‘summum festum.’ In the Kalendars of the Orthodox Church of the East the deposition of relics is frequently the occasion [98] of the annual commemoration of the event, and the insertion of a festival in the Menology. In all countries translations of the bodies of saints are found entered; and when the dates of such translations are known from history, we are at once enabled to say of any particular manuscript service-book that the Kalendar, in which some particular translation is marked prima manu , was written after the known date. On the other side, when we find any important festival absent, or, as is frequently the case, inserted in a later handwriting, the strong presumption is raised that the original Kalendar belongs to a time before the establishment of the festival. Thus, the absence of the Conception of St Mary (Dec. 8) from a Kalendar suggests that it is earlier than the last quarter of the eleventh century; while the appearance of Corpus Christi goes to determine a Kalendar to be later than A.D. 1260.

From what has been said, it will seen that, even apart from the style of the handwriting, the formation of the various letters, the manner of punctuation, and other palaeographical indications, the mere contents of a Kalendar will often help the student to make a good conjecture as to both the place of the origin of a manuscript and the time when it was penned.

Kalendar of Durham Psalter (September)

Jesus College, Cambridge (MS. Q. B. 6). Cent. xii.

As regards the particular Church for the use of which any Kalendar was intended, attention should be directed not only to the appearance of certain festivals, but to the rank and dignity of the festivals, [99] which are often indicated by some such notes as ‘principal,’ ‘of ix Lessons,’ ‘of iii Lessons,’ ‘greater double,’ ‘lesser double,’ or some other term of classification [135] . Classification in continental Kalendars is often otherwise expressed [136] . In the Kalendar of the Missal of Westminster Abbey the dignity of the greater festivals is marked by indicating the number of copes (varying from two to eight) which were to be used, as has been thought, by the monks who sang the Invitatory to Venite at Mattins. No one will be surprised to learn that at Westminster the Feast of St Edward the Confessor (Jan. 5), and his Translation (Oct. 13) are marked ‘viii cape,’ a dignity which is reached only in the cases of St Peter and St Paul, the Assumption, All Saints, and Christmas: while in the Sarum Kalendar St Edward is marked on Jan. 5 only by a ‘memory,’ and his Translation is but a ‘lower double.’ At Holyrood Abbey, near Edinburgh, Holy Cross Day was naturally one of the greatest festivals of the year, while in the Aberdeen Breviary the Invention of the Cross and the Exaltation were both ‘lesser doubles.’ At Hereford, Thomas of Hereford (Oct. 2) [100] was a ‘principal feast,’ and so was his Translation (Oct. 25); neither day appears in the Sarum Kalendar. The Translation of the Three Kings, already referred to, which is a ‘summum festum’ at Cologne, is all but unknown elsewhere. These examples will suffice for our purpose.

It remains to notice entries of other kinds not uncommon in mediaeval Kalendars. There are notices of what I may call an antiquarian kind, which did not at all, or but seldom, affect the service of the day, but which are not without an interest of their own. Thus, such entries as the following are not uncommon. ‘The first day of the world’ (March 18); ‘Adam was created’ (March 23); ‘Noah entered the ark’ (March 17); ‘The Resurrection of the Lord’ (March 27), by which is meant that the actual resurrection of the Saviour took place on this day of the month, in the year in which the Lord was crucified. This assigned date is of great antiquity. We find it in Tertullian ( adv. Judaeos c. 8); and later it was accepted by Hippolytus and Augustine, and it is frequent in the Kalendars of the early mediaeval period. In the Sarum Kalendar it is marked as a principal feast of three lessons, but there is no service answering to the day in the Breviary. We find ‘Noah comes forth from the ark’ (April 29); ‘The devil departs from the Lord’ (Feb. 15); ‘The Ascension of the Lord’ (May 5); this last mentioned day is plainly a corollary to the date assigned to the Resurrection, but it is not so frequently inserted in the Kalendars.

[101]

We may pass without comment entries of astronomical interest, such as ‘Sol in aquario,’ ‘Sol in piscibus,’ and such like; the solstices and the equinoxes; the days when the four seasons began; and such weather-notes as the dates when the dog-days ( dies caniculares ) began and ended. It will be observed that there was at least ancient precedent for what gave offence to Bishop Wren when he wrote of the Kalendar of the Book of Common Prayer, ‘Out with the dog-days from among the Saints.’

Some of the features just noticed continued to make their appearance in various English Kalendars after the Reformation. The Kalendar, indeed, of the Prayer Book of 1549 looks to our eyes singularly bare, with no days marked other than what we call the red-letter festivals. In 1552, the ‘dog-days’ reappear, and also the astronomical notes as to dates of the sun’s entrance into the various signs of the zodiac. To these are added, for reasons of practical convenience, the Term days. The Prayer Book of 1559 adds further the hours of the rising and setting of the sun at the beginning of each month. In the Primer of Edward VI (1553) the names of a very large number of the old Saints’ Days are introduced, and the convenient reminder of ‘Fish’ is placed at the days preceding the Purification, St Matthias, the Annunciation, St John Baptist, St Peter, St James, St Bartholomew, St Matthew, St Simon and St Jude, All Saints, St Andrew, St Thomas, and Christmas. This Kalendar also, after the manner of many mediaeval Kalendars, marks the first possible day for [102] Easter, and ‘first of the Ascension,’ ‘uttermost Ascension,’ ‘first Pentecost,’ ‘uttermost Pentecost.’ In some of the unauthorised books of devotion issued in Elizabeth’s reign we find some of the dates inferred rightly or wrongly from the Scripture history, which had long before appeared in mediaeval Kalendars, such as days connected with Noah’s story, the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord; and to these many other days of historical interest are added [137] .

In many of the mediaeval Kalendars we find entered at Jan. 28, March 11, and April 15, respectively, the words ‘Claves Quadragesimae,’ ‘Claves Paschae,’ and ‘Claves Rogationum.’ The number of days to be counted from each of these dates to the beginning of Lent, to Easter, and to the Rogation Days, varying according to the place which any given year occupies in the Cycle of Golden Numbers, may be found with the help of a table prefixed to the Kalendar. It should be noted that the ‘terminus’ of the key never falls on the day of the fast or festival sought, and if the terminus of the key for Easter falls on a Sunday, Easter is the following Sunday.

Several of the old Kalendars exhibit the days on which ‘the months of the Egyptians’ and ‘the months of the Greeks’ begin, with the names of these several months. In some early English Kalendars the Saxon names of the months are also inserted. [103] This feature may have been of use to historical students, but having no bearing on ecclesiastical life in the West it is passed over here without further notice.

For a similar reason we do not describe the verses frequently inserted at the various months, with advice as to agricultural operations, blood-letting, rules of health, and the unlucky, or Egyptian days.

The modern Roman Martyrology was preceded towards the close of the fifteenth century and in the sixteenth century by several attempts to provide what was thought to be a more serviceable work than that of Usuard. Among the more remarkable of these are the Martyrology of the Italian mathematician Francesco Maurolico, and that of Pietro Galesini, published first at Milan in the year 1577. The latter work had the effect of making manifest that there was need for the correction of the Roman Martyrology. Gregory XIII appointed a commission to deal with the subject. The result of the labours of the commission was printed in 1584. Further corrections were made by Cardinal Baronius; and the work as revised by him is in substance the modern Roman Martyrology [139] .

[104]

CHAPTER IX
EASTER AND THE MOVEABLE COMMEMORATIONS

I. Paschal Controversies prior to the Council of Nicaea.

The commemoration of the Pascha is the first annual Christian solemnity with which history makes us acquainted. And it will be well that the student should bear in mind that the term ‘Pascha’ was used in early times to signify, more particularly, not Easter (for which it was used in later times), but the day of the Lord’s Crucifixion, more commonly without, and sometimes together with, the succeeding two days, including the day of the Resurrection. But most commonly the word is employed in the earlier literature of the subject to signify the commemoration of the day of the Crucifixion, which was generally held to have corresponded in the history of the Passion to the day upon which the Paschal lamb was sacrificed in the Jewish ritual [140] .

[105]

It is scarcely possible to conceive that, even if the Christian religion had taken its rise in circumstances altogether dissimilar from those amid which as a matter of history it actually emerged, there would have been no commemoration of such great events as the death and rising again of its Founder. But the first disciples of Christ being Hebrews, and their converts at first being also in a large measure Hebrews, it was inevitable that the great Hebrew festival of the Passover should take to itself a new colouring and a new significance in Christian thought. Thus we find St Paul speaking of Christ as ‘our Pascha’ ( i.e. Paschal victim), which ‘hath been sacrificed for us’ (1 Cor. v. 7). And he adds, ‘therefore let us keep the feast ( or keep festival) not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.’ It would indeed be unwarrantable to infer from this passage that a Christian Pascha was actually observed as a festival at the time when St Paul wrote to the Corinthians. But it is obvious that the passage is steeped in reminiscences of the Hebrew festival, and that these are already receiving a new complexion and a new meaning.

The observance of the Christian Pascha first comes into marked prominence about the middle of the second century. At that date it was everywhere a recognised institution of the Church; but there were differences between the Churches of proconsular Asia (the Asia of the seven Churches of the Apocalypse) and the Church at Rome and in [106] other places, as to the particular day upon which the commemoration should be observed. The evidence with regard to the early stages of the dispute is scanty. Such details as we possess are not free from obscurity and have been variously interpreted.

In a work like the present volume we can do no more than lay before the student the results which seem to us to have the greater weight of probability in their favour.

The Asiatics, it would seem, began to celebrate the festival of the Pascha on the fourteenth day of the moon of the Hebrew month Nisan, the day upon which the Jews put away all leaven from their houses and slew the lamb of the Passover. On the whole, the evidence seems to make for the Asiatic Christians terminating the preceding fast on the evening of that day, and on the same evening celebrating the Paschal feast consisting of the Eucharist, accompanied, perhaps, by the Agape. It was on the fourteenth Nisan, according to the prevailing Asiatic belief, that the Lord suffered death upon the cross, and in His sacrifice became the true representative of the Paschal lamb which had been his antitype. Foreign as it must be to us with our habits of thought to conceive of a festival being kept on the day of the Crucifixion (that is, on the evening which was regarded as the beginning of the following day), we must suppose that the realisation of the blessings of the redemption purchased by the Saviour’s blood overtoned (to borrow a term from the art of music) the imaginative presentment of the historical sufferings of the Cross. [107] Our own English term, ‘Good Friday,’ seems to have originated with a similar way of regarding the facts [141] .

From what has been said, it will be apparent that, as the fourteenth day of the moon might fall upon any day in the week, the commemoration of the Resurrection, three days later, might also fall upon any day of the week. At Rome, and in various other places, the festival of the Resurrection was always observed on a Sunday, because it was on the first day of the week that the Saviour rose from the dead. The Asiatics laid stress on the day of the month —the lunar month—on which the Saviour suffered: the Roman Church insisted that the sixth day of the week , Friday, was the proper day for commemorating the Crucifixion, and that the following Sunday should be kept as the feast of the Resurrection. Those who made the fourteenth day of the moon to be necessarily the day for the celebration of the Pascha were known as ‘Quartodecimans [142] .’

The dispute was further complicated by the difference with regard to the observance of the fast. The Asiatics terminated their fast on the evening of the day of the Crucifixion. The Romans continued it till the morning of the day of the Resurrection.

The Asiatics claimed St John and St Philip, the [108] Apostles, as the originators of the usage which they followed; and at the close of the second century they were able to recite a long list of holy bishops and martyrs who had never deviated from the practice of their Churches.

It was some time about the middle of the second century that St Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, the personal disciple of St John, visited Rome, and conferred with Anicetus, the bishop of that city, on this and other subjects. On the Paschal question neither bishop was convinced by the other; but it was agreed that on such a matter it was not essential that there should be uniformity. The discussion was carried on with moderation, the two bishops received the Eucharist together, and Anicetus, ‘out of reverence’ for Polycarp permitted him to act as celebrant in his church [143] .

The subject of the proper time for observing the Christian Pascha continued to excite discussion; and between A.D. 164 and 166, on the occasion of disputes at Laodicea, a defence of the practice of proconsular Asia came from the pen of one of the bishops of that region, Melito, bishop of Sardis. Unfortunately no remains of the work of Melito survive of such a kind as would help us to understand the writer’s argument, or to clear the difficulties which surround the attempt to form a well assured picture of the practice of his part of the [109] Christian world. It has indeed been conjectured that the work of Melito was directed mainly against certain sectaries, perhaps Ebionites, who on the fourteenth day of Nisan feasted after the manner of the Jews upon a paschal lamb. This practice was so distinctly Judaistic, that it was rejected everywhere by the orthodox.

Of vastly more importance and significance, as affecting the whole Church, were incidents which occurred towards the close of the century. Victor, bishop of Rome, successor next but one to Anicetus, was a man of different temper; or, at all events, he attached a much higher importance to uniformity as to the time of observing Easter. Interest in the question was roused in various quarters. Councils of bishops (at the instance of Victor) discussed it in Gaul, in Greece, in Palestine, in Pontus, and as far east as Osrhoene beyond the Euphrates. By this time it was found that what, for convenience, we may style the Western practice was also largely followed in the East. The churches, however, of proconsular Asia still maintained their old position. A letter written by Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, to Victor on their behalf is preserved by Eusebius [144] .

Victor, departing from the moderate policy of his predecessor Anicetus, thought the time had come for dealing more drastically with his opponents on the Paschal question, and sought to cut them off from the communion of the Catholic Church [145] . [110] Victor’s attitude called forth remonstrances from various quarters, and was the occasion of a remarkable letter written by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, in the name of the brethren in Gaul, over whom he presided. He declares that the mystery of the Lord’s Resurrection should indeed be celebrated only on a Sunday, yet he strongly urges the impropriety of Victor’s cutting off ‘whole Churches of God’ because of differences on such a matter. He then adds that the controversy was not only on the question as to the day on which Easter should be celebrated, but also on the length and manner of the preceding fast, varieties as to which he recounts (see p. 79); and he goes on to remind Victor that bishops of Rome in former times, while strictly preserving their own usages, did not break the peace of the Church by excommunications directed against those who followed other ways [146] . Letters of similar purport were addressed by Irenaeus to various other bishops. The result of this intervention was that the Asiatic Churches were for the time left undisturbed in the practice of their traditional usages. How soon the Asiatic Churches fell into line with the majority is not apparent. But it seems evident that the change had taken place before the Council of Nicaea.

We have seen that in the attempts to commemorate on the proper days the death and resurrection of the Lord, the Asiatics thought most of [111] the day of the month , and the Westerns and those who concurred with them thought most of the day of the week . But the latter party had obviously to make some attempt to lay down a rule which would at least approximate the date of their Pascha to the time of the year when the Lord suffered. The vernal equinox was taken by them, and by the Church of Alexandria, as the fixed point to which the date of Easter should bear some settled relation.

It is perhaps impossible to determine with precision when the rule came to be generally accepted that the full moon, which was to regulate the date of Easter, was the first full moon after the vernal equinox. We find that this is the rule which governs the Paschal Tables of Hippolytus (of which more will be said hereafter), and we find it expressly enjoined in that ancient collection of Church law which goes under the name of the Apostolic Canons. The Tables of Hippolytus can, with reasonable certainty, be assigned to A.D. 222. In the Apostolic Constitutions, the date of which it is impossible to determine with any close approach to certainty [147] , the rule runs, ‘Observe the days of the Pascha with all care after the vernal equinox, that ye keep not the memorial of the one passion twice in a year. Keep it once only in a year for Him who died but once [148] .’ The mystical reason assigned here also appears in the letter of the Emperor Constantine, announcing [112] the decision to which the Nicene Council came upon the Paschal question [149] . Later on the reader will find what is probably meant by keeping the Pascha twice in the same year [150] .

It would not perhaps be fitting to pass over in silence the attempt made in the early part of the third century by the Roman ecclesiastic, Hippolytus, to construct a cycle which would make it possible to predict the day on which Easter would fall in any future year.

As to who this Hippolytus was, Eusebius and subsequent students among the Fathers appear to have known scarcely anything. Eusebius speaks of the many writings of Hippolytus, and gives the titles of some of them, and describes one more particularly. This was a treatise Concerning the Pascha , in which was to be found a certain sixteen-year rule (canon) about the Pascha, the boundary of the writer’s computation being the first year of the Emperor Alexander [151] , i.e. Alexander Severus, whose first year was A.D. 222.

The brief statement of Eusebius, dull and prosaic in itself, acquired suddenly a new and extraordinary interest in the year 1551, when during some excavations made in the neighbourhood of Rome, in the Via Tiburtina (the road to Tivoli), a much shattered statue was unearthed, which on being pieced together exhibited, on the sides of the chair in which the figure of a venerable looking man was represented as seated, two elaborate numerical tables, in Greek characters, one showing the day of the month on which the [113] Pascha, or fourteenth day of the moon, would fall from A.D. 222 to A.D. 333: the other showing, for the same number of years, the day of the month upon which Easter ought to be kept. The statue, as restored, may now be seen in the Museum of the Vatican. The Tables are constructed in seven columns of sixteen years each. On the back of the chair were inscribed in Greek the titles of various books, many of which corresponded with the titles of works attributed to Hippolytus by Eusebius. There could be no reasonable doubt that the statue was the statue of Hippolytus, and that the Tables represented his calculations as to the time for keeping Easter.

A further confirmation of the correctness of this inference (though confirmation was indeed scarcely needed) emerged when a Syriac version of the Cycle of Hippolytus was discovered in a chronological treatise by Elias of Nisibis [152] . It corresponds exactly with the Tables inscribed on the chair.

An examination of the Tables of Hippolytus reveals that he assumed ‘that after eight years the full moons returned to the same day of the solar month; and he took notice that after sixteen years the days of the week moved one backward; that is to say, the full moon in the first year of the cycle being Saturday, April 13, after sixteen years it would be Friday, April 13, and so on [153] .’ But for the purposes of what he supposed would be a [114] perpetual Kalendar, Hippolytus desired to ascertain after what interval the full moon would fall not only on the same day of the solar month, but on the same day of the week. He assumed that this would happen after seven cycles of sixteen years.

We can also infer that Hippolytus probably placed the vernal equinox on March 18, for every full moon entered in his Tables is placed either on (as in the case of A.D. 235) or after that date.

Again, the examination of his Tables reveals what may seem to us the somewhat arbitrary regulation that if the full moon fell upon Saturday the Feast of the Resurrection should not be kept on the following day, but on Sunday a week later. The explanation probably is that it was considered that Easter should never be held earlier than the sixteenth day of the moon, that is, two days after the day of the Crucifixion. If the full moon fell upon Friday, then the following Sunday would be Easter; but if the full moon fell upon Saturday, the day of the Crucifixion was taken to be the following Friday, and Easter would be two days after.

No Easter cycle yet devised is free from errors, which have to be met by adjustments; but the Cycle of Hippolytus was such that the errors accumulated rapidly. It was more than two days wrong at the end of the first sixteen years; and five days wrong at the end of the second cycle; at the end of the third cycle it would be nine days wrong [154] . This must [115] have been soon discovered; and the cycle had to be discarded. It is the earliest Easter cycle known to us.

A cycle on the same lines as that of Hippolytus, which has been (probably incorrectly) attributed to St Cyprian, will be found in Fell’s edition of Cyprian (1682), among the works commonly assigned to that writer. By whomsoever it was composed it is ushered in with a great flourish of trumpets, and the author feels sure that he has been led by nothing short of divine inspiration to the discovery. These Tables can be assigned to A.D. 243. One cannot but suspect that the author had got hold of the Hippolytean Tables before their worthlessness was discovered.

Such seem to have been the best efforts of the learning of Western Christendom in the third century to deal with the Paschal problem. Nor at this period was the Church of Alexandria, which at a later date became the paramount authority on such questions, any better equipped. Dionysius, about the middle of the third century, justly styled by Eusebius ‘the great bishop of Alexandria,’ made use of the eight-year cycle, which, like its variant, the sixteen-year cycle, gathered error rapidly.

It was, however, another distinguished Alexandrian, more than a quarter of a century later, who was the first, so far as we know, to make use of the old nineteen-year cycle for the determination of Easter. This was Anatolius, a native of Alexandria, and eminent for learning of various kinds (among which arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy are particularised), [116] who became bishop of Laodicea in Syria Prima in A.D. 270. The nineteen-year cycle, with some modifications, eventually, though slowly, displaced all rivals [155] .

II. The Council of Nicaea and the Easter Controversy.

We may pass on now to the consideration of the determinations on this question arrived at by the Council of Nicaea.

The varieties of usage as to the dates of keeping the Pascha had disturbed the mind of Constantine before he issued his invitations to the bishops of the empire to attend the Council. His trusted adviser, Hosius, bishop of Corduba, had been sent by him to the East in the hopes that by his arguments and persuasion the followers of the Eastern practice might be induced to yield. But the mission was ineffective, and the matter was submitted to the great Council in A.D. 325. We have no record of any of the proceedings connected with the matter beyond what is to be found in a Synodical Letter of the Council, and a circular letter of the Emperor. We cannot help feeling some surprise that the Council did not enact any canon on the subject; but it was probably believed that the adoption of a rigid canon, with an attendant anathema, might have produced a formal schism, while a statement of the [117] opinion of the Council could scarcely fail to be highly influential in eventually securing uniformity. The letter of the Council, preserved by Socrates [156] , is addressed to the Church of Alexandria and the brethren in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis. It simply announces ‘the good news’ that, in accordance with the desire of those to whom the letter was addressed, the question had been elucidated by the Council, and that all the brethren of the East, who had formerly celebrated the Pascha ‘with the Jews,’ will henceforth keep it ‘at the same time as the Romans, and ourselves, and all those who from ancient times celebrated the day at the same time with us [157] .’

The Emperor is more full. He says that it was thought by all that it would be fitting that the Pascha should be kept on one day by all; that it was declared to be particularly unworthy to follow the custom of the Jews who had soiled their hands with the most dreadful of crimes, and who are blinded with error, so that they even frequently celebrate two Paschas in one year. ‘Our Saviour has left us only one festal day of our deliverance, that is to say, of his holy passion; and he has willed that his Catholic Church should be one.’ How unseemly is it that some should be fasting while others are seated at the banquet! He hopes that every one will agree in this. [118] It had been resolved that the Pascha should be kept everywhere on one and the same day [158] .

There is nothing in these letters to show what rule had been established. All that is laid down is that the Pascha should be kept everywhere on the same day; and it assumed that the Roman and Alexandrian rules as to Easter were identical, and were well known. As a matter of fact, while the Churches of Rome and Alexandria were at one both in keeping Easter on a Sunday, and on a Sunday after the vernal equinox, they were not agreed in their methods of calculating the Sunday upon which Easter would fall. Hence, long after the Council of Nicaea, several instances occur in which a day was taken for the Easter festival at Rome which differed from the day which the Alexandrian experts had calculated to be the correct day.

It is worthy of observation that the Emperor in his letter reprobates what he assumes was the Jewish practice of frequently celebrating two Paschas in the same year. What is probably meant is that the Jews at that time (whatever their earlier practice may have been) did not think it necessary to keep the Passover after the vernal equinox. Now the vernal equinox was taken as the beginning of the tropical or solar year; and it might happen from time to time that the full moon of Nisan fell in one year after the vernal equinox, and in the following civil year before the equinox, which would give two passovers in the same solar year. If this interpretation [119] of the words of Constantine’s letter be correct, it would imply that the Christian Pascha should always be celebrated after the equinox, which was certainly already the general practice. But no specific rule with reference to the equinox is laid down in express terms either by the Fathers of the Council or by the Emperor.

It will be observed that in the Letter of Constantine he states that the Lord has left us ‘only one festal day of our deliverance, that is to say, of his holy passion.’ The dominant thought connected with the word Pascha was still that of the Crucifixion. At a later period writers, for the sake of accuracy, made the distinction between the ‘Pascha of the Crucifixion’ (πάσχα σταυρώσιμον) and the ‘Pascha of the Resurrection’ (πάσχα ἀναστάσιμον); and eventually the thought of the Crucifixion disappears from the connotation of the word, which has given the name for what we call Easter to the French ( pâques ); the Italians ( pasqua ); and the Spaniards ( pascua ) [159] .

After the Council of Nicaea, although the Quartodeciman practice lingered on among unorthodox sectaries, the differences among Catholics were in the main confined to such questions as, When was the equinox? and What Tables should be used for predicting the Sunday which should be observed as [120] Easter Day? The Synod of Antioch in A.D. 341 (can. 1) could now make bold to advance a step beyond the Oecumenical Council, and enacted a canon pronouncing excommunication against any who acted contrary to the command of the great and holy Synod assembled at Nicaea regarding the Pascha [160] . In principle the Church was united; but there were differences in the application of the principle. In A.D. 444, and eleven years later, in A.D. 455, Pope Leo the Great was in perplexity as to the day upon which Easter should be kept. In A.D. 444 he wrote to Cyril of Alexandria on the subject. The answer he received was that the proper day was not March 26 (as the Latins would make it) but April 23. In A.D. 455 Leo was much moved by finding that the Alexandrian computists had given April 24 for Easter Day, while those at Rome had assigned the festival to April 17, a week earlier. The matter seemed to him of sufficient importance to justify his writing to Marcianus, Emperor of the East, whom he now besought to intervene, and direct the Alexandrians not to name April 24, declaring that so late a date was beyond the ancient Paschal limits. Leo also wrote on the same subject to the learned and once beautiful Eudocia Augusta, who, though now spending her old age in retirement and devotion at Jerusalem, was not without influence in church affairs. The Emperor had enquiries made among certain bishops of the East and communicated with the Alexandrians. The result was that the observance of April 24 was reaffirmed, [121] and the bishop of Rome reluctantly submitted for the sake of peace [161] .

The account of the matter lies in the fact that while the Alexandrians had long before adopted the Paschal limits that still continue to rule our Easter, that is, from March 22 to April 25, the Latins, though at this date accepting the prior limit, hesitated as to the later, because the Easter Tables then in use among them had placed the later Paschal limit on April 23.

The position of authority conceded to the Church of Alexandria on the question as to the date of the Pascha was due to the acknowledged learning and skill of the astronomers and mathematicians of that city in matters of chronology and the computation of time. It was the practice of the bishop of Alexandria, as early at least as the middle of the third century, to issue what were styled ‘Festal Letters’ or, at a later date, ‘Paschal Letters,’ commonly of the nature of a homily on the religious lessons of the Paschal season, with an announcement as to the date of the next Pascha. These letters were commonly issued by the bishop a year in advance, and were sent by special messengers to his comprovincial bishops.

It has been supposed by several ecclesiastical historians of repute that the Council of Nicaea [122] expressly authorised the bishop of Alexandria to issue these preparatory notices to the authorities in the various churches of Christendom. The evidence for this opinion is lacking; but certainly, as a matter of fact, the judgment of Alexandria carried great weight. In the West, however, the general practice was that Metropolitans should determine the date, and announce the day to their suffragans. In the sixth century the Council of Orleans ( A.D. 541) directs that if the Metropolitan were in doubt he should consult the Apostolic see (Rome), and act in accordance with its decision (can. 1). About one hundred years later it would appear from the fifth canon of the Council of Toledo ( A.D. 633) that the Spanish Metropolitan bishops did not receive information as to the date of Easter from any external source. They are directed to enquire among themselves by letter three months before the Epiphany, and make the announcement; and the reason assigned for this canon is that erroneous Easter Tables had caused differences.

To attempt anything like a detailed account of the varieties in the methods adopted for the determination of Easter which held their ground for a time, some in the East, some in the West, would be unsuitable in an introductory work like the present. The extraordinary persistence exhibited by the Celtic Churches of Britain and Ireland in maintaining for a long time their own method of computing Easter against the Roman method introduced by Augustine of Canterbury and his followers, is an [123] important and interesting feature in the history of Christianity in these countries. It is enough here to say that the native Churches were not Quartodecimans (as has sometimes been incorrectly alleged), but were adhering to a cycle which they had received long before the Roman missionaries arrived in Britain [162] . We must here be content with briefly noticing some of the leading features in the history of the change which gradually led up to the adoption of the Nineteen-Year Cycle as modified and propounded by Dionysius Exiguus in the early part of the sixth century.

After the abandonment of the Cycle of Hippolytus there is found in use at Rome an 84-year cycle. In this the date of Easter is believed to have oscillated between March 25 and April 21; and between the fourteenth and twentieth day of the moon. This system, according to the results of recent research, was modified in A.D. 312 and again in A.D. 343. This cycle (still of 84 years) came to be known as the supputatio Romana . Easter could not now fall earlier than the sixteenth, nor later than the twenty-second of the moon, while its date limits were March 22 and April 21. This supputatio , with some modifications, served the bishops of Rome during the fourth and the greater part of the fifth century. The Alexandrians, on the other hand, had about A.D. 277 come to use the more exact Nineteen-Year cycle, with possible Easters between March 22 and April 25, [124] and between the fifteenth and twenty-second of the moon [163] .

In the pontificate of Leo the Great the differences which he had with the Church of Alexandria as to the date of Easter caused him to direct his archdeacon, Hilary (who afterwards succeeded to the papal throne), to investigate the whole question. Hilary resorted to the aid of Victorius of Aquitaine, who happened to be then at Rome. Victorius devised, or adopted, a cycle of 532 years, a combination of the lunar cycle of 19 years with the so-called solar cycle of 28 years (19 × 28 = 532). His Easter limits were March 22 and April 24.

The cycle of Victorius met with favourable acceptance, more particularly in Gaul, where it continued in use till nearly the end of the eighth century.

At Rome, whatever may have been the position actually attained by the cycle of Victorius, it and all other devices for determining Easter gave way in the sixth century ( A.D. 527) before the Paschal Tables of Dionysius Exiguus. This remarkable person, who came to occupy an eminent place in the science of chronology generally, as well as in the computations necessary for ecclesiastical purposes, was a monk, a Scythian by birth, who settled in a monastery at Rome. It is to him that we owe in chronology the adoption by Western Christendom of what we know as the ‘Christian Era’ and ‘the year of our Lord,’ now in universal use for the [125] dating of the events of history, and of all our documents public and private.

The system of Dionysius was, practically, the adoption of the Nineteen-Year Cycle of the Alexandrians. It fixed the date of the vernal equinox at March 21, placed the Paschal limits at March 22 and April 25, and declared Easter to be the next Sunday after the Paschal full moon. We have here in full the rule which eventually came to prevail everywhere. But its adoption was not immediate in all countries [164] .

The space at our disposal will not allow of our treating in detail of the work of the computists, and of the ‘Sunday Letters,’ ‘Epacts,’ and other technical terms which appear in the old Church Kalendars. For these, as well as for such terms as ‘Indiction,’ ‘Lunar Regulars,’ ‘Solar Regulars,’ and ‘Concurrents,’ reference may be made to such books as Sir Harris Nicholas’ Chronology of History , and Giry’s fuller and lucid Manuel de Diplomatique .

The Gregorian Reform.

The defects of the Nineteen-Year Cycle became apparent after some lapse of time. There were two grave sources of error. First, the Kalendar proceeded [126] on the assumption that the solar year consisted of 365¼ days; but the true solar year is 11 minutes and some seconds shorter than the Kalendar year, and the accumulation of this error gradually brought confusion into the system. In one hundred and thirty years the Kalendar will have gained on the true solar year by almost exactly one day. At the date of the Council of Nicaea ( A.D. 325) the vernal equinox was placed at March 21, but in the year A.D. 450 the true vernal equinox would be on March 20. In A.D. 585 the equinox would be on March 19; in A.D. 715 on March 18, and so on. And thus it will be seen that in A.D. 1582, when the Kalendar was reformed, the real vernal equinox was about ten days earlier than the March 21 of the Kalendar.

The second source of error lay in the assumption that at the close of a cycle of nineteen years there was an exact agreement of solar and lunar time. Nineteen solar years, of 365¼ days, make 6939 days and 18 hours; but 235 moons of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3 seconds and a fraction make 6939 days, 16 hours, and a fraction over 31 minutes. So it comes about that the solar time in nineteen years is nearly 1½ hours in excess of the real lunar time. In other words, the moons in the second cycle of nineteen years make their changes nearly 1½ hours earlier than they did in the first cycle. It is easy then to show that in about 308 years this difference would amount to a whole day; and in A.D. 1582, when the Gregorian reform was effected, the moon in the heavens made its changes nearly four days before [127] the time which was indicated for these changes in the Kalendar.

We must omit any notice of the various schemes for reforming the Kalendar prior to the reformation of Gregory XIII. After he had consented to the general idea that a reformation should be undertaken, various schemes were proposed. Of these, that of Luigi Lilio, a physician and astronomer of the city of Rome, obtained the preference [165] . And it is on the lines suggested by Lilio that the work was accomplished, mainly by a German mathematician then resident at Rome, the Jesuit, Christopher Schlüssel (or, in the Latin form of his name, Clavius), who afterwards published at Rome, in folio, an exposition of the work done, under the title Romani Calendarii a Gregorio XIII Pontifice Maximo restituti Explicatio (1603).

Leading Features of the Gregorian Reform

The Gregorian Reform is an ingenious and, indeed, brilliant practical solution of the problems presented by the condition of the Kalendar at the close of the sixteenth century. The characteristic features of the Gregorian system will now be described.

1. It was known that the true vernal equinox was at this date (1582) about ten days earlier than [128] March 21 as marked in the Kalendar. Should the equinox be fixed as at March 11? It was resolved to keep the equinox at the nominal date of March 21, and to bring the date into conformity with facts by the simple process of striking out ten nominal days. It was decreed that the day following Oct. 4, 1582 (when what is known as the New Style was to make its beginning), should be counted, not as Oct. 5, but as Oct. 15. And thus in the following year, 1583, the true vernal equinox would fall on March 21, as it was supposed to have fallen in A.D. 325, the date of the Council of Nicaea.

2. But how was it to be provided that in the future the same errors which had vitiated the old Kalendar should not come in time to vitiate the new?

It will be remembered that the time of the old Kalendar had gained on true solar time at the rate, almost precisely, of one day in every 130 years. If the counting of one day could be suppressed in every 130 years, the end would be obtained. For purposes of practical convenience the reformers of the Kalendar assumed that 133 years should be taken as the period in which the Kalendar time exceeded the solar time by one day. The difference, for the purpose in hand, was insignificant; and, as will be seen hereafter, this deliberately chosen error will not affect the Kalendar to the extent of one day till A.D. 5200, while it makes calculations much simpler.

Now the plan adopted to prevent the accumulation of the error in the old Kalendar was as follows: if one day could be withdrawn in every 133 years, [129] or, what is the same thing, three days in every 399 years, the object would be attained.

In the Old Style, every year of an exact century—every centurial (or, as it was sometimes called, secular) year—was a leap-year of 366 days. What would be the effect of treating every centurial year as a common year of 365 days? We should have suppressed four days at the end of four centuries when we ought to suppress only three in 399 years. So it was suggested that while three successive centurial years should be regarded as common years, the fourth centurial year should be treated as a leap-year. Thus, in both Old and New Style the years 1600 and 2000 are leap-years; but 1700, 1800, and 1900, which in the Old Style were leap-years, are in the New Style treated as common years of 365 days. And the rule laid down in the Gregorian system was that if the number expressed by the first two figures of the century was exactly divisible by 4 it should be a leap-year, but if not exactly divisible by 4 it should be treated as a common year. The numbers 16 and 20 are exactly divisible by 4, but 17, 18, and 19 are not so divisible. The years 1600 and 2000 are in the New Style leap-years, but the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are in the New Style common years.

It is true that the adoption of 133 years, instead of 130 years, as the time in which in the Old Style one day was gained by the Kalendar on the sun, imports an error into the system, which causes the Kalendar to fall behind the sun. This error, as has been said, will accumulate to the extent of one day in A.D. 5200. [130] It may be thought that, if men be on the earth at that date, they will know how to deal with the case. Yet it is suggested for the instruction of our remote posterity that they will have only to make A.D. 5200 a common year, instead of a leap-year, to bring things back to correctness [166] .

For the Sunday letters in the New Style and for the Cycle of Epacts in the Gregorian Kalendar, see Dr Seabury, Theory and Use of the Church Calendar .

The work of the Gregorian reformation is marvellous in its elaborate ingenuity. It even provides for a case which will not occur till Dec. 31, A.D. 8600. Yet it does not reach the attainment of an exact correspondence with astronomical phenomena. And it has been frequently observed that the new moons of the Kalendar may occur one, two, or even three days later than the new moons of the astronomer. In fact the astronomical new moon rarely occurs on the date marked for the ecclesiastical new moon. But care has been taken that the new moon of the Kalendar never occurs earlier than the new moon of astronomy.

The adoption of the New Style.

As was to be expected, the countries of Europe which recognised the authority of the bishop of Rome were not long in accepting the reformation [131] of the Kalendar. Spain, Portugal, and part of Italy made the change on the same day as at Rome, that is on Oct. 15 (5), 1582. In France and Lorraine the change was made on December 20 (10) in the same year; in the Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland in 1583 or 1584; in Poland in 1586; in Hungary in 1587. In Protestant countries and countries where Protestants were numerous the alteration was more slowly effected. But Denmark was an exception, for the New Style was adopted in 1582. In Holland and the Low Countries the provinces were divided in their acceptance of the New Style, and in some places the change was not effected till the year 1700. In Germany we also find a variety of usages: Austria and Roman Catholics in other parts accepted the change in 1584, but Protestants did not yield till 1700, when they adopted the Kalendar of the German astronomer, Erhard Weigel, which differed from the Gregorian Kalendar only in the rule for determining Easter. This variation brought about the result that the Protestants and Roman Catholics sometimes celebrated Easter on different days. In 1778 Frederick the Great ordained that from that time Easter should be kept at the time ascertained from the Gregorian Paschal moon. Weigel’s Kalendar was also adopted in the Protestant cantons of Switzerland in 1700. In Russia, Greece, and throughout the Christian East the Old Kalendar is still in use [167] .

[132]

Great Britain was the last of the countries of Western Europe to adopt the New Style. It is true that as early as March 16, 1584-5, a bill was introduced in the House of Lords under the title, ‘An Act giving her Majesty [Queen Elizabeth] authority to alter and new make a Calendar according to the Calendar used in other countries.’ The bill was read a second time in the House of Lords, and proceeded no further.

Through an extraordinary blunder, it has been stated by writers of repute that Scotland adopted the New Style in A.D. 1600. The error originated in the fact that King James VI, with the advice of the Lords of his Privy Council, ordered by proclamation dated Haliruidhous, Dec. 17, 1599, that on and after Jan. 1, 1600, the year should be held to begin on Jan. 1 instead of March 25: but there was no rectification of the Kalendar by the omission of nominal days. In England the legal year continued to begin on March 25 till 1752. The accession of James VI to the throne of England on the death of Elizabeth occurred on March 24, 1602, according to the English style, but on March 24, 1603, according to the Scottish style. In this and such like cases the double dates may be wisely employed, thus, March 24, 1602-3. But Scotland did not use the New Style till it was adopted in 1752, in accordance with the provision of the Act of Parliament of Great Britain (24 George II, c. 23), entitled ‘An Act for regulating the commencement of the Year, and for correcting the Calendar now in use.’

[133]

CHAPTER X
THE KALENDAR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF THE EAST

The modern Kalendar of the Byzantine Church is here dealt with. The early Menologies (which corresponded pretty closely to the Martyrologies of the West) show the usual phenomena of comparative simplicity passing into forms of great elaboration. The best known are the Menology of Constantinople of the eighth century and that which is known as the Basilianum , now most commonly associated with the Emperor Basil II ( A.D. 976-1025), at whose instance it is said to have been composed [168] .

The history of the growth and variations of the Kalendar of the Greeks cannot be here attempted; we confine ourselves to the Kalendar now in use.

I. Immoveable commemorations.

This Kalendar, or the Kalendar of Saints, begins on Sept. 1, the first day of the year of the Indiction. [134] With us in the West the civil year has left no mark upon the services of the Church. In the Greek Church in the hymns the divine blessing is invoked on the new year; and two of the lessons at Vespers are chosen as bearing references applicable to the day.

The services of the Church have frequently several commemorations of various saints upon the same day; and this general statement may be illustrated from Sept. 1. In addition to the propria of the new year, we find commemorations of Simeon Stylites senior; his mother, St Martha; forty women martyrs with the Deacon Ammun; and a miraculous icon of St Mary. To these must be added a commemoration of the Old Testament worthy, Joshua, the son of Nun. This specimen will suffice to show that it would be impossible in the space at our disposal to exhibit the commemorations of every day in the year [169] . We shall confine ourselves to exhibiting the Greek classification of festivals, and marking the dates of some of the more eminent commemorations. But it must be observed that days that are not regarded as festivals frequently contain canons (metrical hymns) which commemorate saints or martyrs. Indeed the offices of the Eastern service-books are packed with an extraordinary abundance of hagiological reference and allusion.

As regards dignity and importance in the Greek Church, in addition to Easter, which stands pre-eminent [135] and is known by way of distinction as ‘the Feast’ (ἡ ἑορτή), there are twelve festivals of the first rank, some of them being moveable. These are: (1) the Nativity of the Lord, Dec. 25; (2) the Theophany (Epiphany), Jan. 6; (3) Hypapante (Purification), Feb. 2; (4) the Annunciation of the Theotokos, March 25; (5) the festival of Palms, which with the Sabbath of Lazarus on the preceding day makes one festival; (6) the Ascension of the Lord; (7) Pentecost; (8) the Transfiguration, Aug. 6; (9) the Repose of Theotokos, Aug. 15; (10) the Nativity of Theotokos, Sept. 8; (11) the Exaltation of the Cross, Sept. 14; (12) the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple ( i.e. her presentation), Nov. 21.

Each of these is marked first by the day preceding ( proheortia ) partaking of a festive character, and secondly, by having an echo of the festival on certain following days, which are known as the apodosis of the feast; but the name is often applied to the final day of the observance. The apodosis, unlike the Western Octave, is in some cases shorter than a week and in some cases longer. Thus, the apodosis of the Nativity of the Virgin (Sept. 8) terminates on Sept. 12; while the apodosis of the Theophany (Jan. 6) ordinarily extends to Jan. 14.

Next in dignity are four festivals of high rank, though not having either proheortia or apodosis . They are: (1) the Circumcision, Jan. 1; (2) the Nativity of the Forerunner (St John Baptist), June 24; (3) St Peter and St Paul, the Koryphaeoi, June 29; (4) the Decollation of the Forerunner, Aug. 29.

[136]

The twelve of the first group and the four of the second may be taken as together corresponding in a measure to festivals of the first class in the Roman classification.

Similarly corresponding to feasts of the second class in the West is a group which is divided into greater and lesser. The greater feasts of this group are marked liturgically by the singing of a canon of the Virgin in addition to the canon proper to the feast. The lesser are marked by the singing in the service of what is known as Polyeleos , a name given to Psalms cxxxiv, cxxxv (Pss. cxxxv, cxxxvi in the enumeration of the English Prayer Book).

The greater feasts of the middle class are: (1) the common festival of the three Doctors of the Church [Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen], Jan. 30; (2) St George, martyr, April 23; (3) St John the Evangelist, May 8; (4) the Translation of the image of Christ, made without hands, from Edessa, Aug. 16; (5) the Migration of St John the Evangelist, Sept. 26. This festival is based on the ancient legend that St John did not die, but was translated; (6) St Sabbas, the Sanctified [Abbot of Palestine, who died A.D. 531], Dec. 5; (7) St Nicholas of Myra, the wonder-worker, Dec. 6.

The lesser feasts of the middle class include: (1) St Anthony, hermit, Jan. 17; (2) the forty Martyrs [of Sebaste, under Licinius], March 9; (3) St Constantine and St Helena, May 21; (4) St Cosmas and St Damian, the unmercenary physicians, July 1; (5) St Elias, the prophet, July 20; (6) St [137] Demetrius, Great Martyr [of Thessalonica, under Diocletian], Oct. 26; (7) Synaxis of the Archangel, St Michael, Nov. 8; (8) St Andrew the Apostle, Nov. 30.

There is a third class subdivided into ( a ) festivals with the great doxology, and ( b ) festivals without the great doxology [170] . Festivals of the third class are very numerous, but they are festivals rather of the service-books than of actual life, upon which they leave little or no impression. The number of festivals kept by the Greeks and observed either by a complete or a partial cessation from trade and servile labour far surpasses the festivals so observed in any of the countries of Western Christendom.

The Russian Kalendar corresponds largely to the Byzantine; but there are, as might be expected, not a few commemorations of persons, events, and of miraculous icons , peculiar to Russia.

A few explanatory observations may here be added: (1) The Eastern Kalendars contrast in a striking way with the Western in the prominence given to commemorations of the saints and heroes of the Old Testament. All the prophets and many of the righteous men of Hebrew history have their days. And the service-books contain a common of Prophets as well as a common of Apostles, etc.

(2) Honorary epithets are freely bestowed upon the various saints without any very precise significance. Thus ‘God-bearing’ ( theophorus ), which is [138] a natural epithet in the case of Ignatius, as being used of himself in his writings, is bestowed on various distinguished ascetics, as Anthony, Euthymius, Sabbas, Onuphrius.

(3) The ground for the distinction between ‘Martyrs’ and ‘Great Martyrs’ is not apparent. ‘Hieromartyrs’ are martyrs who were bishops or priests; ‘Hosiomartyrs’ are martyrs who were living as religious. Thekla, as well as Stephen, is ‘Protomartyr.’

(4) The word ‘Apostle’ is not confined to the twelve. The seventy disciples whom the Lord sent forth are the ‘Seventy Apostles,’ among whom were reckoned many of the persons named in the salutations of St Paul’s Epistles. And the word is also applied to certain companions or acquaintances of St Paul, as e.g. Ananias of Damascus, Agabus, Titus, etc. ‘Equal to the Apostles’ ( Isapostolos ) is applied ( a ) to very early saints, e.g. Abercius of Hierapolis, Mary Magdalene, Junia, Thekla, etc.; and ( b ) to great princes who were distinguished for their services to the Church, as Constantine and Helena.

‘Wonder-worker’ ( thaumaturgos ) is used of various saints famous for their miracles, as e.g. Charilampes (Feb. 10), Spiridion (Dec. 12), Gregory, bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus (Nov. 17), the Saint Elizabeth (April 24), of uncertain date, who never washed her body with water, and others.

John, son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, who with us is the Baptist, appears as the Precursor or Forerunner ( Prodromos ). He figures much in the services [139] of the Church: and several days are dedicated to his honour; his Conception (Sept. 23), his Nativity (June 24), his Decollation (Aug. 29) and the great feast known as his Synaxis (Jan. 7). In addition, the first and second finding of his head is commemorated on Feb. 24, and the third finding of his head on May 25.

St Mary the Virgin is almost invariably the Theotokos, and Joachim and Anna are the Theopator and Theometor (Sept. 9).

The ‘unmercenary’ ( anarguroi ) saints are generally physicians who took no fees, as Cosmas and Damian, Cyrus and his companion John, and Pantaleon.

The term Synaxis in such phrases as the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael (Nov. 8), the Synaxis of the Theotokos (Dec. 26), the Synaxis of the seventy Apostles (Jan. 4), the Synaxis of the Forerunner (Jan. 7), the Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel (March 26), the Synaxis of the twelve Apostles (June 30), is not easily rendered into English; and its precise significance (as used in the Kalendar) is not obvious. It is sometimes used for a gathering or assembly of people; but more commonly it is employed to signify a Eucharistic Communion [171] .

It is customary after the great feasts of our Lord and of the Virgin Mary to subjoin on the following day the commemoration of saints associated with the event commemorated on the preceding day. Thus, the Epiphany (Theophany) in the Greek Church being [140] chiefly concerned with the Baptism of Christ, we have on the following day (Jan. 7) the feast of St John Baptist; after the Hypapante, or meeting with Simeon and Anna in the Temple (on Feb. 2, the day of the Purification of the Virgin, in the West), we find (Feb. 3) Simeon and Anna the prophetess; after the Nativity of the Lord, the synaxis of the Theotokos, Dec. 26; after the Nativity of the Virgin (Sept. 8) we have on Sept. 9 Joachim and Anna, her parents; after the Annunciation (March 25) we have on March 26 the synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel, who made the great announcement.

It remains to be added that, as in the Orthodox Church of the East Wednesdays and Fridays are observed as strict fasts alike by the clergy, the monks, and the laity, most of the important festivals carry with them either a partial dispensation (as in some cases for the use of oil and wine, and in others for the use of oil, wine, and fish) or a dispensation for all kinds of food, when a festival falls on one of these fast days.

We now proceed to describe the annual cycle of Sundays.

II. The Dominical Kalendar of the Orthodox Church of the East.

The arrangement of the Sundays falls into two divisions, the first beginning with the Sunday before our Western Septuagesima; and the second, immediately after our Trinity Sunday, which, with the [141] Greeks, is called the Sunday of All Saints. In the following table, opposite the names of the Sundays for the earlier part of the Dominical cycle, as given in the Greek service-books, are placed the names of the corresponding Sundays in the West, as known to English churchmen.

The following Sundays are numbered the Second, Third, Fourth after Pentecost, and so on, till we [142] reach the Sunday of the Publican (the Sunday before Septuagesima) in the following year. But while the numbers are continuous, special names are given to certain Sundays. Thus we find the Sunday before and the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross (Sept. 14); the Sundays before and after the Nativity; the Sundays before and after the Lights ( i.e. the Epiphany).

Again, we sometimes find the Sundays after Pentecost referred to as the First, Second, Third, etc., of Matthew; because the liturgical Gospel on these Sundays, on to the Exaltation of the Cross, is taken from St Matthew. Similarly, after the Exaltation of the Cross and on to Apocreos the liturgical Gospel for the Sundays is taken from St Luke, and the Sundays are named First, Second, Third, etc., of Luke.

It is the subject-matter of the Gospel for the day which gives its name to the Sundays called the Publican, the Prodigal, St Thomas, the Myrrh-bearers ( i.e. the women bringing spices to the tomb), etc.

On the Sunday of Orthodoxy (the first in Lent) some sixty anathemas against heresy of various kinds are recited, including several against the Iconoclasts who were condemned at the second Council of Nicaea ( A.D. 787). Tyrinis (or Tyrophagus) and Apocreos are explained elsewhere [173] .

The name ‘Antipasch,’ for the first Sunday after Easter (Low Sunday; Dominica in Albis ), implies that it is ‘over against’ or ‘answering to’ the Pasch. [143] On the Sunday of the Three hundred and eighteen holy Fathers of Nicaea a canon (or metrical hymn) in honour of the Council is sung.

The naming of the week in relation to the Sunday is peculiar, and does not follow, as in the West, a consistent rule. In some cases, the week preceding a Sunday is given its name: in other cases the week is called after the Sunday with which it begins. And when the determination of dates is in view the student should be on the alert. Thus, the week of Apocreos (the last week of flesh-eating) precedes the Sunday Apocreos; the week of Tyrine (when cheese, butter and milk are allowed) precedes the Sunday of that name; and the first week of the Lenten fast precedes the Sunday that is the first in Lent. On the other hand, after Antipascha and on to the second Sunday after Pentecost the weeks are named from the Sunday which they follow: while the naming the week from the Sunday which follows is resumed at the latter date [174] .

The period from the Sunday of the Publican to Easter Eve inclusive is sometimes called the time of the Triodion (Τριῴδιον), because the propria for that time are contained in a service-book which bears that name; while the period from Easter Day to the Sunday of All Saints (first Sunday after Pentecost), both inclusive, is called the time of the Pentekostarion (Πεντηκοστάριον) from the name of the service-book used at that time.

A few words must be said on certain week-days [144] observed with special dignity, the position of which in the almanack varies with the position of Sundays as affected by the incidence of Easter. It will be remembered that in the East the Sabbath (Saturday) is reckoned as a day of special religious observance; and some Sabbaths are distinguished by special names. The Sabbath of Apocreos is a day for the solemn commemoration of all the faithful departed; and vigils are kept during the night. It is known as the Sabbath of the Dead. The next following Sabbath serves for the commemoration of religious and ascetics; it is named the Sabbath of Ascetics. On the Sabbath of the first week of Lent (known as the Sabbath of Kollyba) there is a commemoration of St Theodore Tyro, martyr, who, according to the legend, in the time of Julian the apostate, appeared to the bishop of Constantinople, and ordered him in a great emergency to make Kollyba and distribute them to the people. The bishop said in reply that he did not know what Kollyba were, and the saint explained that they were wheaten cakes. We need not pursue the story further. The Sabbath before the fifth Sunday in Lent is the Sabbath of the Akathist. A hymn, so called, in honour of the Virgin, was sung throughout the night by the people, not sitting down . The Sabbath before the Sixth Sunday commemorates the raising of Lazarus, and is called the Sabbath of Lazarus. Easter Eve is the ‘Great Sabbath.’

It may be observed that while in the West the word Parasceve is used exclusively for Good Friday, [145] in the East the word is used for every Friday, and Good Friday is distinguished by the epithet Great .

A detailed exhibition of the Byzantine Kalendar cannot be attempted here, but the student will find it treated by J. M. Neale in the General Introduction to his History of the Holy Eastern Church (vol. II .) and with great fulness in Nilles’ Kalendarium manuale utriusque Ecclesiae .

Notes on the Kalendars of some of the separated Churches of the East will be found in Appendix III.

[146]

APPENDIX I
THE PASCHAL QUESTION IN THE CELTIC CHURCHES

The controversies as to the calculation of Easter between the Roman ecclesiastics, on the one hand, and, on the other, the ecclesiastics of Ireland (Scotia), Scotland (Alban), and Wales, arose from the fact that our native Churches continued to follow a cycle which had, at the beginning of the fourth century, prevailed at Rome, but which was afterwards abandoned by the Church of that city. An admirable account of the matter will be found in Prof. Bury’s Life of St Patrick , 371-374. The improved Roman computation was eventually adopted in the south of Ireland about A.D. 650; in the north of Ireland in A.D. 703; among the Picts of Scotland in A.D. 710; at Iona in A.D. 716; and in South Wales in A.D. 802.

[147]

APPENDIX II
NOTE ON THE KALENDARS OF THE SEPARATED CHURCHES OF THE EAST

I. The Armenians. The year is counted from the year 551 of our era, when the Catholicos, Moses II, who reformed the Kalendar, ascended the patriarchal throne. Thus A.D. 1910 is the year 1359 among the Armenians.

One noteworthy feature of the Armenian observance is that, with the exception of the Nativity (Jan. 6), the Circumcision, the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, and the Annunciation, various important festivals are transferred to the following Sunday. Certain minor Holy Days, if they fall on Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday, are in some cases omitted, while others are transferred to the following Saturday. In regard to days of fasting, in addition to Lent, the most remarkable feature is ‘the fast of Nineveh,’ kept for two weeks, one month before the beginning of Lent. The days of the week following Pentecost are fast days (see p. 91 f.). For details see E. F. K. Fortescue’s Armenian Church , and Nilles, op. cit. (vol. II. ).

II. The Eastern Syrian (Chaldean, Assyrian, Nestorian) Church. The Kalendar, Lectionary, and a list of days of Martyrs and others for which no special lessons are appointed will be found in Bishop A. J. Maclean’s East Syrian Daily Offices . One of the most interesting features is the frequency with which Friday is observed as a commemoration of saints; and sometimes the Friday commemoration is related in history or in thought with [148] the event commemorated on the preceding Sunday or great festival. Thus St John Baptist is commemorated on the Friday after the Epiphany (Jan. 6), of which festival the baptism of the Lord is the dominant thought. The festival is popularly called at Urmi ‘The New waters.’ For details see Maclean.

III. The Coptic (Egyptian) and Abyssinian Churches, both Monophysite. The Copts compute their years according to ‘the era of the martyrs’ (of Diocletian), commencing A.D. 284. The year begins on the first of the month Tout, a day corresponding to Sept. 10. Each month consists of 30 days; and the five (or in leap-year six) days necessary to complete the solar year are called ‘the little month.’ There are fourteen principal feasts. The most peculiar features are commemorations of the Four-and-twenty Elders, and of the Four Beasts, of the Revelation.

The Ethiopic Kalendar runs on broadly similar lines; but it is a peculiar feature of this Kalendar that there are monthly celebrations of the Lord’s Nativity (except that the Lord’s Conception is substituted on March 25), as well as of St Mary, of St Michael, and of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Pontius Pilate is commemorated on June 25. See Neale’s Eastern Church ( II. 805-815).

[149]

APPENDIX III
NOTE ON THE HISTORY OF THE KALENDAR OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND SINCE THE REFORMATION

As early as 1532 we find a Petition of the Commons (really emanating from the Court) to Henry VIII that, with the advice of his most honourable council, prelates, and ordinaries, holy days, ‘and specially such as fall in the harvest,’ may be ‘made fewer in number.’ To this the ordinaries answered, objecting to change, and, with reference to holy days in harvest, stating that ‘there be in August but St Lawrence, the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, St Bartholomew, and in September the Nativity of our Lady, the Exaltation of the Cross, and St Matthew the Apostle, before which days harvest is commonly ended [175] .’ The reference both in the Petition and the answer is obviously to holy days carrying with them a cessation of labour.

In 1536 Convocation passed an ordinance abrogating superfluous holy days. It was ordained that in term time no holy days should be kept except Ascension Day, the Nativity of the Baptist, Allhallen, and Candlemas, nor in harvest except feasts of the Apostles and our Lady. St George was to continue to be celebrated. The feast of the patron of each church was to be abolished; and the [150] feast of every church’s dedication was to be observed on the first Sunday in October. By this ordinance the great festival of St Thomas Becket, the translation of his relics (July 7), fell, as occurring in the season of harvest. Two years later by a royal proclamation the festival of his martyrdom (Dec. 29) met the same fate.

The Kalendar of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI (1549) exhibits a clean sweep of all festivals except the red-letter days still observed, together with ‘Magdalen’ (July 22), for which a collect, epistle, and gospel are supplied. St Matthias is placed at Feb. 24.

The Kalendar of the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI (1552) differs from that of the First Prayer Book, by omitting St Mary Magdalene and St Barnabas (June 11): but this latter would seem to have been omitted only per incuriam , as the collect, epistle, and gospel are found in the body of the book; and by the insertion of the following black-letter days, St George (April 23), Lammas (Aug. 1), St Lawrence (Aug. 10), St Clement (Nov. 23), together with Term days, ‘Dog days,’ ‘Equinoctium’ (March 10) and the days of the entrance of the sun into the several signs of the zodiac. It is an interesting problem how in the Prayer Book, which represents emphatically the action of the more thorough-going of the Protestant party, these black-letter days came to be inserted.

In the Prayer Book of 1559 ‘Barnabe Ap.’ reappears; the astronomical notes are somewhat fuller, and the hours of the rising and setting of the sun at certain dates are recorded.

As regards the black-letter days in the present Kalendar of the Church of England we have first to call attention to the Latin Prayer Book issued by the authority of Elizabeth in April 1560. It seems to have been ready for the press as early as Aug. 11, 1559. Its Kalendar is adorned with a great crowd of black-letter saints; and there are but few days blank. In 1561 appeared a new Kalendar in English, the work of Ecclesiastical Commissioners acting [151] upon a royal letter. The Commissioners were directed to peruse the order of the lessons throughout the year, and to cause some new Kalendars to be imprinted, ‘whereby such chapters or parcels of less edification may be removed, and others more profitable may supply their rooms.’ As a matter of fact the Commissioners went beyond their instructions, and inserted in the Kalendar the names of black-letter saints almost as they were a century later approved by Convocation in 1661. These were inserted in the later issues of Elizabeth’s Prayer Book.

After the accession of James I the Birth-Day of Queen Elizabeth ceased to appear in the Kalendar at Sept. 7, and St Enurchus takes its place.

The only changes made in 1661 were the addition of Ven. Bede (May 27), St Alban (June 17), and the continuance of St Enurchus (Sept. 7), together with the shifting (probably through mistake) of St Mary Magdalene from July 22 to July 21.

With regard to the date of St Mary Magdalene a reference to the photo-zincographic facsimile of the Black-Letter Prayer Book, in which corrections were made at the last revision, will show at once how easily the scribe who copied from this book might make the mistake.

St Enurchus, who had appeared in this form of the name in the Prayer Book of 1604, and still earlier in the Kalendar of the Preces Privatae (which had been issued, as Regia authoritate approbatae , in 1564), is obviously a faulty form, arising from an error of transcription, for St Euurtius. The first letter u , after the initial E , was read as n (the confusion of u and n is one of the most frequent of the errors of copyists), and the ti (in a manner not surprising to those familiar with sixteenth century script) was apparently read as ch . It may be added that Bede and Alban had also appeared in the Kalendar of the Preces Privatae . We have stated that St Enurchus appears in the Kalendar of the Prayer Book of 1604, and it was introduced then as the only addition to the black-letter [152] saints of the Kalendar of 1561. It is perhaps impossible to account for its introduction; but the conjecture has been offered that it was inserted to fill the gap caused by the omission of the Nativity of Queen Elizabeth which had formerly occupied Sept. 7 [176] .

The above are not the only errors of our present Kalendar. The revisers of 1661 added explanatory comments to the names of the saints, and in doing so have sometimes blundered. Thus they found ‘Cyprian’ at Sept. 26, and they added ‘Archbishop of Carthage and Martyr.’ If they had taken the trouble to look at the old Sarum or York Kalendars they would have seen that the Cyprian commemorated on this day was the converted magician of Antioch. This error is probably to be traced to Cosin’s Devotions (1627).

It must be confessed that the black-letter saints of the modern English Kalendar form by no means an ideal presentation of the worthies and heroes of the Church Catholic. The Bishop of Salisbury (J. Wordsworth) has some admirable remarks on the future reform of our English Kalendar in his Ministry of Grace (pp. 421-425).

Certain errors in the placing of the Golden Numbers in the Kalendar of the Prayer Book of 1662 for the month of January were soon discovered. They are noticed in Nicholl’s Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer (1712).

Among the red-letter days of 1662 were ‘King Charles. Martyr’ (Jan. 30), ‘King Charles II. Nativity and Restoration’ (May 29), ‘Papists’ Conspiracy’ (Nov. 5). These days have the authority of the Act of Uniformity of 1662, all of them appearing in the Book annexed to the Act. On the authority of a Royal Warrant (Jan. 17, 1859), the legal sufficiency of which has been questioned, these days have ceased to be entered in the Kalendars of modern Prayer Books.

[153]

It may be added that the Kalendar of the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637 (known commonly, though not correctly as ‘Archbishop Laud’s Prayer Book’) exhibited, in addition to the black-letter saints of the English Prayer Book of the day, the following national or local commemorations:—David, King, Jan. 11; Mungo, Bishop, Jan. 13; Colman, Feb. 18; Constantine III, King, March 11; Patrick, March 17; Cuthbert, March 20; Gilbert, Bishop, April 1; Serf, Bishop, April 20; Columba, June 9; Palladius, July 6; Ninian, Bishop, Sept. 18; Adaman ( sic ), Bishop ( sic ), Sept. 25; Margaret, Queen, Nov. 16; Ode, Virgin, Nov. 27; Drostan, Dec. 4.

The Kalendar of the Prayer Book of the Church of Ireland has since 1877 omitted all black-letter days. The same is true of the American Prayer Book since 1790.

[154]

INDEX

[ See also Table of Contents , p. vii. ]

• Abyssinian Kalendar, see Kalendar
• Ado, martyrology of xvi , 93 , 94
• Advent, observance of 76 ff.
• Agnes, St, octave of 20 , 71
• Akathist, sabbath of 144
• Alexandria, church of, its authority in settling date of Easter 121
• All Saints (Allhallen), festival of 23 , 149 ;
• Sunday of 91 , 141 ;
• vigil of 75
• All Souls’ Day xiii , 24
• Ambrosian rite 77
• anarguroi , see Unmercenary
• Anatolius, Paschal cycle of 115
• Andrew, St, commemoration of 17 , 19 , 22 , 63 f. , 137 ;
• octave of 71 ;
• relation of Advent to festival of 79
• Anna, St, conception of, see Mary, festivals of
• Annunciation, see Mary, festivals of
• Antipasch 141 , 142
• Antiphons, in Advent 78 f.
• Apocreos, Sunday of 84 , 141 , 143 ;
• Sabbath of 144
• Apodosis 71 , 135
• Apostles, commemoration of 22 , 58 ff. ;
• Fast of the 90 f. ;
• Synaxis of the Twelve 58 , 139 ;
• Seventy 70 , 138 , 139
• Apostolic Canons 6 , 111
• Apostolic Constitutions 6 , 111
• Aratschavor-atz 92
• Armenians, their observance of Epiphany and Christmas 32 , 38 ;
• rules of fasting 78 , 91 f. ;
• Kalendar of 36 , 43 , 147 f.
• Artziburion 92
• Ascension, commemoration of 18 , 42 f. , 135 , 149
• Ascetics, Sabbath of 144
• Ash Wednesday 82 , 83 f.
• Asiatics, commemoration of the Pascha by 106 ff.
• Assumption, see Mary, festivals of
• Baptism, of Christ, commemoration of 30 , 31 n. , 32 , 139 f.
• Barnabas, St, commemoration of 70 , 150
• Baronius, Cardinal 103
• Bartholomew, St, commemoration of 68
• Basilian Menology, see Menology
• [155] Basilidians, festival of Baptism of Christ kept by 31
• Becket, Thomas, institution of festival of Trinity by 46 ;
• feasts of his martyrdom and translation 150
• Bede, martyrology of xvi , 23 , 49 , 62 , 69 , 70 , 93 , 94
• Borromeo, Charles 83
• Candlemas, meaning of 48 ;
• festival of, see Purification
• caput jejunii 83
• Cara cognatio , pagan solemnity of 61
• Celtic churches, Paschal cycle of 122 , 146
• Charlemagne, Capitula of 86
• Christmas, see Nativity
• Circumcision, feast of 22 f. , 37 ff. , 135 , 147
• claves quadragesimae, Paschae, Rogationum 102
• Clavius, see Schlüssel
• Coena Domini 40
• Conception, see Mary, feasts of
• Constantine, letter of, on Paschal question 111 f. , 117 ff.
• Coptic Kalendar, see Kalendar
• Corbie Kalendar 71
• Corpus Christi, feast of xiv , 98 ;
• octave of 72
• Cross, Holy, adoration of 41 f. ;
• Sunday of Adoration of 141 ;
• Exaltation of 22 , 99 , 135 , 142 , (a fast in Eastern Church) 91 ;
• Invention of 99 ;
• Procession of 25
• Cyprian, St, Paschal cycle attributed to 115 ;
• commemoration of, in English Prayer Book 152
• Dead, Sabbath of 144
• Decollation, see John Baptist
• depositiones , of martyrs and bishops 14 , 16 , 17
• dies caniculares 101
• dies profestus 74 , 87
• Dionysius of Alexandria, Paschal cycle of 115
• Dionysius Exiguus, Paschal cycle of 123 , 124 f.
• dominica carnisprivii , see Apocreos
• dominica in albis 142
• Dominical Kalendar, of Orthodox Eastern Church 140 ff.
• Dormitio , see Mary, feasts of
• Doxology, the great and the little 137
• Easter, regulations for date of 15 , 111 f. , 122 ff.
• See also Pascha , Paschal cycle etc.; octave of 71 , 72
• Edward, St, the Confessor, feast and translation of 99
• Egbert, Abp, Pontifical of 69
• Elias of Nisibis 113
• Ember Days, meaning of term 90 .
• See Fasts
• English Prayer Book, see Prayer Book
• Enurchus, St 151
• Epiphany, feast of 17 , 20 , 23 , 30 f. , 135 , 139 ;
• octave of 71 , 72 , 135
• Ethiopic Kalendar, see Kalendar
• Evangelists, commemoration of 65 ff.
• Fasts, in Advent 78 ;
• before Easter (Lent) 79 ff. ;
• after Pentecost 85 , 92 , 147 ;
• Rogation days 86 ;
• of four seasons (Ember Days) 18 f. , 87 ff. ;
• of vigils 74 f. ;
• of Eastern Church 90 f. ;
• of Nineveh 91 f. , 147
• feria , meaning of term 8
• [156] festa chori, festa fori xix
• Festal Letters, see Paschal Epistles
• Festivals, rank and dignity of 98 f.
• Florus, martyrology of xvi , 93 , 94
• Friday, Christian observance of 10 f. ;
• fast in Advent 78 ;
• a fast in Eastern Church 91 , 140 ;
• commemoration of Saints among East Syrians on 147
• Gabriel, archangel, Synaxis of 139 , 140
• Galesini, Pietro, martyrology of 103
• gang-days 87
• Gelasian Sacramentary, see Sacramentary
• Gellonense , see Martyrologies
• George, St, commemoration of 21 , 23 , 136 , 149
• Good Friday 41 f. , 107
• Gorman, martyrology of 95
• Gothic Missal 65
• Gregorian reform, see Kalendar
• Gregory the Great 77 , 82
• Gregory XIII, Pope, his scheme for a fixed Easter xviii ;
• appoints a commission to revive Martyrology 103 ;
• his reform of Kalendar 127 ff.
• Hieromartyr 138
• Hippolytus, Paschal Tables of 111 , 112 ff. ;
• statue of 112
• Holy Thursday, see Ascension
• Holy Week, observance of 40 ff.
• Horologium 103
• Hosiomartyr 138
• Hypapante, see Purification
• Immaculate Conception, see Mary, feasts of
• Innocent III, Pope, rules of, concerning vigils 74 f.
• Innocents, Holy, commemoration of 17 , 19 , 22 , 33 ff.
• Irenaeus, letter of, to Victor of Rome 79 , 110
• Irish canons, collection of 85 f.
• Isapostolos 138
• James, St, son of Zebedee, commemoration of 17 , 34 , 36 , 64 f.
• James, St, the Lord’s brother, commemoration of 34 , 36 , 67 .
• See also Philip and James
• James and John, SS., commemoration of 16 , 33 f. , 65
• January, Kalends of, observed as a fast 38 f.
• Jerome, see Martyrologies (Hieronymian)
• John Baptist, St, commemoration of 17 , 18 , 21 , 34 ;
• Conception of 53 , 139 ;
• Nativity of 18 , 68 , 135 , 139 , 149 ;
• Decollation of 18 , 69 , 135 , 139 , (a fast) 91 ;
• Synaxis of 139 , 140 ;
• East Syrian commemoration of 148 ;
• vigil of Nativity of 75
• John, St, the Evangelist, commemoration of 17 , 19 , 22 , 33 f. , 65 , 75 , 136 ;
• before the Latin Gate 21 , 66 ;
• Migration (or Assumption) of 34 , 65 , 136
• Jude, St (Thaddaeus), commemorated in Greek Church 67
• Kalendar, causes of growth of xii f. , 95 ff. ;
• antiquarian notices in 100 , 102 ;
• [157] artificial construction of xii ;
• astronomical notes in 101 ;
• influences affecting 97 f. ;
• marks of antiquity in 13 ;
• value of, for study of MSS 95 f. ;
• Gregorian reform of 125 ff. ;
• Bucherian (Liberian, or Philocalian) 14 , 28 , 31 , 38 , 59 , 63 n. ;
• Carthaginian 16 , 31 , 34 , 38 , 63 n. ;
• of Polemius Silvius, 16 , 63 n. ;
• Abyssinian 148 ;
• Armenian 147 ;
• Coptic 148 ;
• East Syrian 147 ;
• of English Prayer Books 149 ff. ;
• Ethiopic 148 ;
• Mozarabic 36 ;
• of Orthodox Eastern Church 133 ff.
• See also Martyrologies , Sacramentary
• Kings, the Three, Translation of 97 , 100
• Kollyba, Sabbath of 144
• Koryphaeoi 135
• Lawrence, St, octave of 71 ;
• vigil of 75
• Lazarus, Sabbath of 135 , 144
• Lent, observance of 79 ff. , 141 ff.
• Leo, St, correspondence of, on Paschal limits 120 f. , 124 ;
• Sacramentary of, see Sacramentary
• Leofric Missal 69 , 97
• Lights, Feast of (Epiphany) 30 f. , 142
• Lilio, Luigi, reformation of Kalendar by 127
• Litanies, origin of 86 f. ;
• at Rome 67
• Lord, festivals of the, xii , 27 ff.
• Lord’s Day, Christian observance of xi , 3 f. , 5 , 6 , 7 , 10 , 37 ;
• vigil preceding 73 .
• See also Dominical Kalendar
• Luke, St, commemoration of 17 , 66
• Lupercalia, heathen festival of 48
• Maccabees, commemoration of 16 , 17 , 25 f.
• Mamertus, bishop of Vienne, rogations appointed by 86
• Margaret, Queen of Scotland 83
• Mark, St, commemoration of 66 f.
• Martyrologies, use of term 93 f. ;
• influence on later Kalendars 94 ;
• marks of antiquity in 13 ;
• Bucherian (Liberian or Philocalian) 14 ;
• Carthaginian 16 f. ;
• Syrian 15 , 65 ;
• Gellonense 62 , 70 ;
• Hieronymian 34 , 63 , 65 , 66 , 69 , 70 ;
• modern Roman 103 .
• See also Ado , Bede , Florus , Usuard , and Kalendar
• Martyrs, days of, observed locally xi , 12 ff. , (at cemeteries) 24 ;
• Acts of, read in churches 17 ;
• oblations offered for 14
• Mary, St, the Virgin (Theotokos), feasts of xv , 47 ff. , 148 ;
• Annunciation of 21 , 49 f. , 57 , 135 , 140 , 147 ;
• Assumption ( dormitio , Repose) of 22 , 51 , 57 , 75 , 135 , (fast before) 75 , 90 ;
• Conception of xiv f. , 52 ff. , 57 , 98 ;
• Immaculate Conception of 52 ff. ;
• Nativity of 22 , 50 , 51 n. , 57 , 135 , 140 ;
• Presentation of 51 , 57 , 135 ;
• Synaxis of Theotokos 57 , 139 , 140 .
• See also Purification
• [158] Mary Magdalene, St, commemoration of 69 f. ;
• the ‘myrrh-bearer’ 69 ;
• in English Prayer Book 70 , 150 , 151
• Matthew. St, commemoration of 66
• Matthias, St, commemoration of, in English Prayer Book 150
• Maundy Thursday ( dies mandati ), observance of 40 f. ;
• meaning of term 41 n.
• Maurolico, Francesco, martyrology of 103
• Melito, Bp of Sardis, defence of Asiatic Paschal observance by 108 f.
• Menology, character of early Eastern 133 ;
• of Constantinople 133 ;
• Basilian 30 , 133
• Michael, St, Synaxis of 137 , 139 ;
• monthly commemoration of, by Ethiopic Church 148
• missa ad prohibendum ab idolis 39
• Montanists, celebration of Pascha by 28 f.
• Mozarabic rite 77 , 83
• Myrrh-bearers, Sunday of 141 , 142 .
• See also Mary Magdalene
• natale, dies natalis, natalitia 13 , 15 , 67
• natale Calicis 15 , 40
• natale Petri de Cathedra , see Peter, St
• natalis Solis Invicti 30
• Nativity, of the Lord (Christmas), feast of 15 , 17 , 19 , 22 , 27 f. , 49 , 76 , 135 , 140 , 147 , 148 ;
• origin of feast of 29 f. ;
• octave of 71 , 72 ;
• fast before 90 ;
• vigil of 75
• Nicaea, Council of, decisions of, on Paschal question 116 f. ;
• commemoration of the 318 fathers of 141 , 143
• Octaves, meaning of term 70 f. ;
• history of 71
• Oengus, the Culdee, martyrology of 95
• Old Testament worthies, commemoration of xii , 134 , 136 , 148
• Orthodoxy Sunday xiii , 141 , 142
• O sapientia 78 f.
• Palm Sunday (Feast of Palms) 40 , 84 , 135 , 141
• Parasceve 10 , 11 , 37 , 144 f.
• Pascha, original use of term 104 ff. ;
• Christian commemoration of xi , 37 , 104 ff. ;
• dies Paschae 40
• Paschal Cycles, of Hippolytus 111 , 112 ff. ;
• of Dionysius Al. 115 ;
• of Anatolius 115 ;
• Roman 123 ;
• Alexandrine 123 ;
• of Victorius 124 ;
• of Dionysius Exiguus 123 , 124 f.
• Paschal Epistles xviii , 121
• Paschal limits 120 f.
• Paschal question xvii , 105 ff.
• Paschal Tables, see Paschal Cycles
• Passiontide, observance of 40 ff.
• Paul, St, commemoration of 21 , 33 ;
• Conversion of 69 ;
• Translation of 69 .
• See also Peter and Paul
• Pentecost, meaning of term 43 ff. ;
• observance of 18 , 37 , 43 ff. , 135 , 141 ;
• octave of 71 , 72 ;
• vigil of 75
• Peter, St, commemoration of 33 ;
• Chains of ( ad Vincula ) 21 , 25 , 63 ;
• [159] Chair of ( Cathedra Petri ) 15 , 59 , 60 ff. ;
• Dedication of Basilica of 18 , 63
• Peter and Paul, SS., commemoration of 16 , 18 , 21 , 34 , 35 , 135 ;
• depositio of 16 ;
• origin of festival of xiii , 59 f. ;
• fast before 90 ;
• octave of 71
• Philip, the deacon 67
• Philip, St, feast of 67 , 78 ;
• fast of 78
• Philip and James, SS., commemoration of 21 , 67 , 75
• Pliny, letter of, to Trajan 72
• Polycarp, St, conference of, with Anicetus on Paschal question 108
• Polycrates, letter of, on Paschal controversy 109
• Polyeleos 136
• Pontius Pilate, commemorated by Ethiopians 148
• Prayer Book, American 43 , 153 ;
• English (1549, 1552) 70 , 101 , 150 , (1559) 101 , 150 , (1604) 151 , (1662) 79 , 151 ;
• Irish 153 ;
• Latin (1560) 150 ;
• Scottish (1637) 79 , 153
• Preces Privatae (1564) 151
• Pre-sanctified, Mass of 42
• Presentation, of the Lord in Temple 48 , 147 .
• See also Purification ; of St Mary, see Mary, feasts of
• Primer, of Edward VI 101
• Prodromos 138
• proheortia 43 , 135
• Protevangelium Jacobi 50 n. , 52 n. , 53 n.
• Purification (Hypapante, Candlemas), feast of 20 , 23 , 47 ff. , 51 n. , 57 , 101 , 135 , 140 , 149
• Quadragesima, ante Pascha (Lent) 80 f. , 85 ;
• of St Martin 77 , 85 ;
• after Pentecost 85 ;
• before St John Baptist 85 f.
• See also Fasts
• Quartodecimans 107
• Quinquagesima 84
• Rabanus Maurus, martyrology of 69 , 95
• Relics, translation of, as affecting Kalendars 97
• Requiem masses, prohibited within certain octaves, 72
• Rogation Days, origin of 86 f.
• Roman Breviary and Missal 63 , 71
• Roman Kalendar 52
• Sabbath, see Saturday
• Sacramentary, Gallican 77 ;
• Gothic-Gallican 77 ;
• Gelasian 20 , 39 , 58 , 64 , 66 , 68 ;
• Gregorian 20 f. , 33 , 39 , 49 , 66 , 68 , 69 , 83 ;
• Leonine 18 f. , 42 , 58 , 64 , 66 , 68 , 88 f.
• Samaria, woman of (Photina), commemorated xii , 141
• Sarum, Breviary 32 , 51 , 52 ;
• Enchiridion 51 f. ;
• Missal 32 , 51
• Saturday (or Sabbath), Christian observance of 2 , 4 ff. ;
• special observances of, in Greek Church 144 ;
• Great Sabbath 6 , 40 , 144
• Schlüssel, Christopher, reformation of Kalendar by 127
• Seventy Apostles (disciples) 70 , 138 , 139
• Sexagesima 84
• Silvia, Pilgrimage of xvi , 27 , 40 , 42 , 48 , 72 , 73 , 82
• Simon and Jude, SS., commemoration of, 67
• Simon Zelotes, St, commemorated in Greek Church 67
• [160] Station ( statio ) 11
• Stephen, St, commemoration of 16 , 17 , 18 n. , 22 , 33 , 34
• Style, New, history of adoption of 130 ff.
• Sunday, see Lord’s Day
• supputatio Romana 123
• Synaxis, use of term in Eastern Kalendars 139
• Syrians, East, Kalendar of 147 f.
• Tessarakoste, use of term 80 , 90 f.
• Thaddaeus, see Jude
• thaumaturgos 138
• Theodore, of Canterbury, Paenitentiale of 85
• Theodore Tyro, St, 144
• Theometor, Theopator, 139
• Theophany, see Epiphany
• theophorus 137
• Theotokos, see Mary, feasts of
• Thomas, St, commemoration of 67 f.
• Three hundred and eighteen, see Nicaea
• Transfiguration, commemoration of 43 , 135
• Trinity Sunday, observance of 45 f.
• Tyrinis or Tyrophagus (Sunday) 84 , 141 , 143
• Unmercenary saints 139
• Usuard, martyrology of xvi , 49 , 62 , 67 , 93 , 94 , 95
• Victor, Bp of Rome, attitude of, on Paschal question 109 f.
• Victorius of Aquitaine, Paschal cycle of 124
• Vigils, origin of 72 ff. ;
• rules for 74 f. ;
• at Ember seasons 88
• Votive masses, prohibited within certain octaves 72
• Wednesday, observance of 10 f. ;
• fast in Advent 78 ;
• a fast in Eastern Church 91 , 140
• Week, Jewish and Christian 2 ;
• first day of, see Lord’s Day ;
• Great, see Holy Week
• Weigel, Erhard, Kalendar of 131
• Ximenes, Cardinal 83
• ἀνάληψις 42
• μεταμόρφωσις 43
• παρασκευή 10
• πάσχα ἀναστάσιμον 119
• πάσχα σταυρώσιμον 119
• πεντηκοστάριον 143
• τεσσαρακοστή 80
• τεσσαρεσκαιδεκατῖται 107
• τριῴδιον 143

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.