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 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 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 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 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].
=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 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 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.
=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 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); 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.
=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 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 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 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,’ 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 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 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.