However the words, “The fast shall be broken when a Sunday

intervenes,”[192] found on the well-known statue of Hippolytus in Rome,

show that already, by the middle of the third century, the fast extended

over several weeks. The fast here alluded to must have extended over

fourteen days at least. The disputed canons of Hippolytus (the twentieth

and twenty-second) receive some confirmation from this passage.

In the fourth century, many witnesses to the fast of forty days are

forthcoming, both writers, such as Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem,

Ambrose, etc., as well as ecclesiastical enactments, _e.g._, the

sixty-ninth of the Apostolic Canons. The Fifth canon of the First

Council of Nicæa, in particular, mentions Lent as an observance already

established. Nevertheless it clearly was not as yet uniformly observed

in all parts of the Church, as the Festal Letters of St Athanasius bear

witness.

These letters are in any case the most important evidence for the fast

of forty days before Easter. The first of them, for the year 329, is

satisfied with appointing “a holy fast of six days” from the Monday to

the Saturday in Holy Week;[193] the second, however, for 330, and all the

following require a fast of forty days, beginning on the Monday of the

sixth complete week before Easter.[194] The Festal Letters give no direct

explanation of how, and for what reason, the six days’ fast was changed

into a fast of forty days.

However, the covering letter which Athanasius sent along with his

eleventh Festal Letter, written from Rome in 339, throws some light upon

the process. He writes, namely, to Serapion, first Abbot and then Bishop

of Thmuis, that he may announce the fast of forty days to his brethren

and impress upon them the necessity of the fast, “lest, when all the

world fasts, we only who live in Egypt be derided for not fasting.”

This warning is repeated with still greater emphasis: Serapion is to

instruct those under him that they must fast forty days,[195] which seems

to show that the custom of fasting for forty days was not yet in force

in Egypt, though elsewhere it was universally observed, and especially

in Rome. At the conclusion of the nineteenth Festal Letter is found a

sharp reproof of those who disregarded the fast.[196] This is the forty

days’ discipline (ἄσκησις) observed during the six weeks before Easter

according to Eusebius.[197]

The Gallic pilgrim, already so often quoted, gives the following minute

information concerning the manner in which the fasts were observed in

Jerusalem in the fourth century. The preparatory period before Easter

lasted eight weeks, not forty days, as in Gaul, and all the days of

the week, Saturday and Sunday excepted, were fasted. Holy Saturday was

an exception to this rule, being kept as a fast. Thus there were in

all forty-one fast days, which were called in Greek ἑορταί; in Latin,

_feriæ_. On Wednesday in Lent, the Psalmody was performed as on Sunday,

and the bishop read the appointed Gospel, but the Mass (_oblatio_) was

offered only on Saturday and Sunday. On certain days processions were

also made to different churches which lasted until eleven o’clock.

The fare on fast days consisted of water and broth made with flour;

fruit and oil and bread were also eaten. The catechumens also fasted

on Wednesdays and Fridays. Among the faithful, there were some who ate

nothing from their repast on Sunday until the following Saturday, _i.e._

for five days, and who all the year round took only one meal a day.

Others abstained in Lent from all food for two consecutive days, but

others fasted by taking nothing to eat all day until the evening.[198]

This last recalls the practice described by Irenæus. Here one may observe

that the custom of not fasting on the Saturdays in Lent existed also in

Milan in the time of St Ambrose.[199] The fast must have commenced on

the Monday after Sexagesima Sunday, since it had to extend over forty

days.

With this agrees the directions given in the so-called Apostolic

Constitutions (5, 13-20). In these, the fast of Holy Week is called

distinctively the fast of Easter (νηστεία τοῦ πάσχα), and is

distinguished from the fast of Lent.[200] From Monday to Friday in Holy

Week, the fast is to be kept on bread, salt, vegetables and water, flesh

meat and wine being forbidden. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday, the days

when the Bridegroom was taken away, those who are able are to eat nothing

whatever until early on Easter Sunday, while the usual fast lasted until

3 P.M., or sunset.[201] On Saturday, people are not to fast, because it

is the day on which the Creation was complete, with the exception of the

Saturday on which the Lord lay in the earth.[202]

Leo the Great in his sermons teaches us the objects and significance

of the fast before Easter. According to him, Lent was appointed in

order to prepare souls for a fruitful commemoration of the mystery of

Easter. It was to be a time for inner purification and sanctification;

a time, first of all, of penance for past sins, and of breaking off

sinful habits, a time also for the exercise of all virtues, especially

almsgiving, reconciliation, and the laying aside of enmities. It was

in correspondence with the spirit of Lent that the Christian emperors

pardoned criminals.[203] Fasting was to form only a part of this penance

and preparation, though the most essential part, and Leo declares it

to be incumbent upon all, not only the clergy, but all the faithful as

well.[204] Leo regarded this fast of forty days before Easter as an

apostolic institution.[205]

When the duration of the fast became generally fixed at forty days, a

reason for this was not far to seek—the length of the fast of Jesus.

From the beginning, however, a difference became apparent, according as

Holy Week was either included in Lent or regarded as something distinct

in itself. The ante-Nicene practice afforded a precedent for this. The

latter practice is adopted in particular in the Apostolic Constitutions,

and prevailed in a great part of the East. But in the East, Saturday was

exempt from fasting, and so the number of fast days was, as a matter of

fact, not greater than in the West, where the other practice obtained.

Later, it was expressly set forth that Lent should be a _quadragesima_,

not a _quinquagesima_, as by the first and fourth councils of Orleans in

the sixth century.[206] In some quarters, our informant unfortunately

does not say where, Thursday was also exempted from fasting.[207]

Originally, it appears, the fast of forty days, _quadragesima_, was

taken to mean the days before Easter as a whole, Sundays included. This

gave for a period of six weeks only thirty-six fasting days, and, where

Saturday was not kept as a fast day, only thirty. To rectify this, the

number of fast days was increased actually to forty, with the result

that in the West, the beginning of Lent (_caput jejunii_) was put back

four days; but in the East, where only five days in each week were

fasted, it was put back further still. In the West, especially in Rome,

this alteration, by which the fast began on the Wednesday before the

sixth Sunday before Easter, had not yet been accomplished by the time of

Gregory the Great.

In the East, too, the tendency to make up the full number of fast days to

forty was apparent also at an early date. There, owing to Saturday not

being a fast day, the beginning of Lent had to be thrown further back

than in the West, and Lent began eight weeks before Easter, and since the

Saturdays, Holy Saturday excepted, were not fast days, extended actually

over forty-one days instead of forty. Abstinence from flesh meat began on

the Monday after the eighth Sunday before Easter, corresponding to the

Latin _dominica sexagesima_, which is called the Sunday of Abstinence

from Flesh Meat (κυριακὴ ἀπόκρεως). From the following Sunday, called

the Sunday for Eating Cheese (κυριακὴ τοῦ τυροφάγου), _lacticinia_ are

forbidden. The following Sundays are reckoned as merely the first to the

fifth Sundays in Lent, and only the first of them has the additional

designation of Orthodox Sunday, in commemoration of the settlement of

the Iconoclastic controversy. Later on, the Easterns attached great

importance to the question whether Saturday ought or ought not to be

kept as a fast day. As early, indeed, as the Apostolic Canons, it is

expressly forbidden to fast on Saturday under threat of ecclesiastical

penalties.[208] At a later date this difference became one of the points

of dispute between the Greeks and Latins.

The assertion of Socrates[209] that in Rome the fast lasted only three

weeks is now regarded on all hands as erroneous, all the more so as

Socrates adds—also incorrectly—“Saturdays and Sundays excepted.” In

Rome, Saturday was always kept as a fast. His statement cannot be

accepted against the clear evidence of Leo I. concerning Lent, even

although Valesius and Baillet wish to defend it.

That the fast of forty days was not originally observed in all parts of

the Church, and only gradually came into force, can probably be explained

by the fact that there were already fast days enough. There are, for

instance, many indications that the custom of fasting on Wednesdays and

Fridays all the year through—the period between Easter and Pentecost

excepted—was fairly generally observed. Wednesday was kept as a fast,

because on that day our Lord had been betrayed to the Jews; Friday,

because it was the day of His Passion. At Carthage, where we find

reliable evidence for the practice, they were called the fasts of the

stations.[210] Even in the East, the custom was apparently general.[211]

The Apostolic Constitutions are acquainted with it; the so-called

Apostolic Canons prescribe it;[212] the Canons of Hippolytus[213] refer

to the fast of the fourth and sixth _feria_ as well as the fast of Lent.

As these fasts are never mentioned in the literature of a later date, and

altogether disappeared from practice, one is driven to the conclusion

that, as the Lenten fast became more widely observed, these others fell

out of use. However, the weekly fast-days continued to be observed for

a long time together with the Lenten fast, and, among the Greeks, are

observed even to the present day.[214] Not only Augustine mentions that,

at the end of the fourth century, in Rome, Wednesdays, Fridays, and also

Saturdays were fasted, but Innocent I. regarded it as a duty to fast on

Saturday all the year round, and Prudentius also alludes to it.[215] In

the Syrian Church the three weekly fasts appear to have been obligatory

on Bishops and Priests alone.[216]

After the adoption of the fast of forty days, attempts were made, in the

West, to further regulate fasting, but these were confined to certain

districts and in course of time ceased. For example, Bishop Perpetuus

of Tours introduced a special practice into his diocese, which lasted

until on in the sixth century, _i.e._ from Whitsunday to St John, and

also from 1st September to St Martin, two fast-days were observed in

each week; from then until Christmas, three; from St Hilary’s Day (14th

January) until the middle of February two again. The second canon of

the fourth council of Orleans (A.D. 541) opposed the attempts of some

bishops to extend the fast over fifty, or even sixty days. Amalarius

mentions other divergences from the Roman custom, such as keeping three

Lents in the year, one before Christmas, the second before Easter, and

the third before Whitsunday, and, again, fasting on the days before

the Ascension.[217] In Germany, too, there were peculiarities in the

discipline observed with regard to fasting during the eighth and ninth

centuries.[218]

The essence of fasting consists in abstinence from meat and drink during

a specified time. This in itself is not sufficient, for fasting entails

moreover that the food taken after the lapse of this time be of a

plainer kind, _i.e._ abstinence from the better sorts of food and drink,

which is now called abstinence in the strict sense. The prohibition of

certain meats in the Old Testament must be regarded as of a disciplinary

nature, and not as a merely dietary regulation.

In ecclesiastical antiquity, along with abstinence from the usual daily

meals, we find certain viands also forbidden—flesh and wine. To this

period belong the _xerophagiæ_ spoken of by Tertullian,[219] at which

people abstained not only from flesh and wine but from liquid food and

fruit as well. These, however, seem to have gone beyond the abstinence

then usual throughout the Church. The Montanists held these _xerophagiæ_

twice a year for fourteen days.[220]

Among Catholics also abstinence was pushed to great lengths. The canons

of Hippolytus[221] prescribe for Holy Week only bread and salt. The

Apostolic Constitutions will only permit bread, vegetables, salt and

water, in Lent, flesh and wine being forbidden; and, on the last two days

of Holy Week, nothing whatsoever is to be eaten.[222] The ascetics, whose

acquaintance the Gallic pilgrim made in Jerusalem, never touched bread in

Lent, but lived on flour and water.[223] Only a few could keep so strict

a fast, and generally speaking people were satisfied with abstaining

from flesh and wine. But this lasted throughout the entire Lent, and

Chrysostom[224] tells us that in Antioch no flesh was eaten during the

whole of Lent. Abstinence from milk and eggs (the so-called _lacticinia_)

was also the general rule.

Thus abstinence from flesh meat (_i.e._ abstinence in the strict sense)

was combined with the diminution of the quantity of food taken. It

was also voluntarily practised by itself, without being accompanied by

fasting (_jejunium a carne et sanguine_), by pious persons and ascetics,

and was prescribed as a duty on certain days in monasteries and other

religious communities, as, for instance, among the Canons of Chrodegang.

Throughout the early ages, abstinence was merely a pious custom. It was

not until a later date that it was enjoined by law, as, for instance,

by the fifty-sixth Trullan Canon, the Decree of Nicholas I. for the

Bulgarians, the fourth and eighth councils of Toledo, the seventh canon

of the council of Quedlinburg (1085), and the decretal of Gratian.[225]

The custom of abstinence was then recognised and prescribed by

ecclesiastical law for the whole of Lent, for all Fridays and Saturdays

throughout the year, for the Ember Day, and a number of vigils.[226] No

authentic document of antiquity is forthcoming to show that abstinence

by itself, without an accompanying fast, had been prescribed by the

Church.[227]

7. _The Season of Preparation as an Integral Part of the Church’s Year_

The division of this season of preparation into two parts, with special

names for the Sundays, does not appear in the sermons of Augustine or

Leo the Great. But in the ancient Gallic sacramentary—the _missale

Gothico-Gallicanum_—five Masses, entitled simply _missa jejunii_ or

_in quadragesima_, are found assigned to the five Sundays before Palm

Sunday. The names _sexagesima_ and _quinquagesima_ appear already in

the canons of the fourth council of Orleans (541), but, as generally

recognised titles for the Sundays before Easter, they begin to appear in

service-books dating from the eighth century and onwards. The Gregorian

Sacramentary is familiar with the names for the Sundays from Septuagesima

to Quinquagesima, and then numbers five Sundays in Quadragesima until

Palm Sunday.

In the ancient Spanish Mozarabic Sacramentary, the names Septuagesima,

etc., do not yet appear, but the Sundays after Epiphany are numbered

from one to eight, although the entire number was not always required,

according as Easter fell early or late. After them follows the _Dominica

ante diem Cineris_, then the five Sundays in Lent, and, finally, the

_Dominica in Ramis Palmarum_.

The recently published Lectionary of Silos, belonging to the ancient rite

of Toledo and compiled about 650, represents a much simpler form of the

Church’s year. It enumerates neither the Sundays after Epiphany nor those

after Pentecost, but merely those in Lent, and then is satisfied with

twenty-four Masses for the remaining Sundays of the year.

A trace of the original length of Lent—six weeks, or forty-two

days—exists still in the present missal, inasmuch as the _secreta_ for

the First Sunday in Lent runs: _Sacrificium quadragesimalis initii

solemniter immolamus_.[228] Sundays, as we know, were never kept as

fasts, and so the Western Church in reality kept only thirty-six fast

days, a proof that the word _quadragesima_ originally merely denoted the

number of days over which the period of preparation extended. Since,

however, our Lord had fasted forty days, the Church felt moved to keep

to this number exactly, and so added the four missing days to the

beginning of Lent. This alternation was first accomplished at the end

of the seventh or beginning of the eighth century, and appears for the

first time in the so-called Gelasian sacramentary,[229] while Gregory

I.[230] himself still counted the days actually fasted as thirty-six. The

three preceding Sundays were now included in the season of preparation

and received the names of Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima.

The actual commencement of the fast fell on the Wednesday before

Quadragesima, which appears in the Gregorian Sacramentary with a Mass

of its own, but without its present name of Ash Wednesday (_Feria IV.

Cinerum_).

This name comes from the sprinkling of ashes. Sprinkling ashes upon

the heads of penitents, in token of sorrow, formed part of the ancient

ceremonies connected with ecclesiastical penance. Since public penance

usually began and ended with Lent, this custom was associated with this

particular day. It soon became a general custom no longer restricted

to penitents, although the Council of Benevento (1091) prescribes it

principally for clerics. The ashes were prepared from the palms of the

previous Palm Sunday. At the present time they are blessed in addition.

It is to be observed further that Lent is not devoted to consideration

of Christ’s sufferings. This occupies the mind during Holy Week. The

aim of Lent is not to move the faithful to dwell upon the passion of

Christ, but only to prepare them for keeping Easter worthily through

fasting, penance, and abstinence. The liturgical prayers in Lent contain

no reference to the Redeemer’s sufferings, but speak of fasting and

mortification alone. It is the same with the Epistles and Gospels. On

Palm Sunday for the first time, our thoughts are directed to the Passion

in the collect for the day, while in the prayers for the so-called

Passion Sunday it is not mentioned.

Those weeks of Lent had an exceptional character in which, in the sixth

and following centuries, the scrutinies took place, _i.e._ the services

designed for the examination of candidates in preparation for baptism.

These began on the Wednesday of the third week in Lent, and lasted until

Holy Saturday. Originally seven, they were reduced in course of time to

three, owing to the adoption of the Gelasian sacramentary. Accordingly,

the Masses for the third, fourth, and fifth Sunday and for the Saturday

before Passion Sunday speak of baptism and not of the Passion.[231] In

the present Roman Missal scarcely a trace of this is to be found.[232]

The prayers of the Masses both for Sundays and week-days, for by far

the greater part, are still identical with those of the Gregorian

Sacramentary, while the lections from Scripture are in some instances

much older. The Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent, which narrates the

fast of Jesus and His temptation by the devil, was read on this day

already in the time of Leo the Great. The Gospel for the second Sunday

treats of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the Gospels for the two

following Sundays, the healing of the dumb man, and the casting out of

the devil, and the miracle of the loaves. The Gospel for Passion Sunday

contains the account of our Lord’s encounter with the Jews and their

attempt to stone Him.

In the Middle Ages, the commencement and beginning of Lent was marked in

a way visible to all by hanging a curtain between the nave of the church

and the choir on Ash Wednesday, or, according to Durandus, on the First

Sunday in Lent. This was called the Lenten Veil, or, in common parlance,

the “Hunger-veil.” It remained hanging until Good Friday, but in many

places was drawn aside on Sundays, obviously because Sundays were not

fast days. The veil was usually quite plain, but sometimes it was adorned

with pictorial representations from sacred history. It is first referred

to in writings of the ninth century, but was in use much earlier. In

some places in Westphalia and Hanover it exists to the present day.

These Lenten-veils are still to be frequently seen in museums and church

lumber-rooms, where not infrequently they are erroneously mistaken for

carpets. They were practical in their object—the ordinary man who had no

calendar was put in remembrance by them that it was the season of Lent.

Allegorical interpretations were naturally not lacking, and are to be

found in Rupert of Deutz.[233] A similar custom also exists in Russia,

where, on the first Sunday in Lent, the altar curtains are drawn together

and so remain until Palm Sunday.

During the first six centuries, it was taken for granted that saints’

days must not be observed during Lent. The Trullan synod introduced the

first exception to this rule in favour of the Annunciation. In the West,

this rule was soon entirely set aside, but, on the other hand, in token

of sorrow, the Allelujah ceases during the entire Lent, a custom of which

the Greek Church knows nothing. The Lenten prayers have a particularly

earnest tone, and Lent from quite an early date appears richly provided

from a liturgical point of view, each week-day having its own special

Mass. In old days in Rome, there was a procession every day, for the Pope

and clergy proceeded from the papal palace in solemn array to some church

in the city where a halt (_statio_) was made, and Mass was sung.

8. _The Transfiguration_

In the existing calendar, the Transfiguration of our Lord is commemorated

by a special festival, the _festum Transfigurationis_, which, as it

is kept on a fixed date, is excluded from the proper sequence of the

ecclesiastical year and treated in the same manner as the saints’ days.

From quite an early date, this festival had been celebrated in divers

churches, both East and West, on different days. The date now observed,

the 6th August, was appointed for the festival by Calixtus III. in 1457,

in memory of the victory over the Turks, gained by John Capistran and

George Hunyadi, at Belgrade. In the choice of a day, he seems to have

been influenced by the Greek calendar, where the festival had already

been kept on this day. It appears in the Synaxaria of the Copts in Selden

and Mai, in the menology of Constantinople belonging to the eighth

century, and, later, in the _Neapolitanum_, and among the orthodox

Syrians. In the East it was commonly observed. Sermons on the event are

found among those of St Augustine and Leo the Great.[234] The tendency to

transfer to another period of the year the commemoration of those events

which fell within Lent, is also perceptible in the case of the feast of

the Seven Dolours. More will be said on this point in the second part.

9. _The Ascension_

A special festival in commemoration of the return of the Redeemer to

heaven does not indeed appear in the earliest lists of Church festivals

given by Tertullian and Origen in the third century. Still, the terms

in which the earliest witnesses refer to it, prove that this day was

kept as a festival in quite early times. The first witness for it is

Eusebius, who calls it a high festival in the treatise he composed

on the discussions concerning Easter at the first General Council in

325. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates speaks of it as a general

festival.[235] With regard to documents of an official character, the

church-order contained in the so-called Apostolic Constitutions,[236]

gives it the name of The Taking Up [into Heaven] (ἀνάλεψις, St Luke ix.

51, where the form ἁνάλημψις occurs). Numerous sermons among the works

of the Fathers afford further evidence for the existence of the feast.

Augustine[237] is inclined to attribute the appointment of the festival

to an ordinance of the Apostles or to the injunction of a general

council. The latter cannot be proved as certain. As soon as persecution

ceased, the feast of the Ascension made its way naturally in all parts

of the Church, unassisted by any authoritative enactment, for it was

impossible that the concluding act of our Saviour’s earthly life should

remain unnoticed among festivals and in the Liturgy. This was all the

more unlikely, as the spot from which our Lord returned to the Father

at once became the object of reverence. The Empress Helena had already

ordered a splendid basilica to be built on the Mount of Olives, which,

unfortunately, was destroyed by the Saracens, and has never been rebuilt.

At the present day, a small unimposing church marks the spot which was a

place of pilgrimage as early as the fourth century,[238] and where it is

believed one of our Lord’s footprints in still visible.

With regard to the liturgical observance of the day, its chief

characteristic until well on in the Middle Ages was a procession. At the

time of the Gallic pilgrim’s visit to Jerusalem, this was observed in

a striking manner. The people proceeded in solemn procession after the

sixth hour (towards 12 o’clock) on Wednesday from Jerusalem to Bethlehem,

there to celebrate the Vigil in the church built over the grotto where

Christ was born. The next day, divine service, with a sermon, was

performed in the accustomed manner, and, in the evening, the procession

returned to Jerusalem.[239] The question which naturally presents itself,

why the service was not rather held on the Mount of Olives, as it was

in the eighth century,[240] remains unanswered. It is to be further

observed that the name Ascension (_ascensa_) is not used to designate the

festival. The pilgrim simply speaks of the fortieth day (_quadragesima_)

after Easter.

Elsewhere in the East, it was customary to observe the Festival of the

Ascension outside the city, as, for example, in Constantinople and

Antioch. In the latter place, the people went to the small town of

Romanesia, where Chrysostom delivered his sermon on the feast.[241] In

the Middle Ages, processions were wont to take place on this day in Gaul

and Germany, and this custom shows how deeply people were moved by the

desire to imitate as far as possible, in the introduction of liturgical

practices, the actions of our Lord. In this case, the determinating

factor was that our Lord had led the Apostles out of the city to the

Mount of Olives.[242]

Another custom peculiar to this festival is that, after the reading of

the Gospel at the High Mass, the Paschal candle, which up till then has

been burnt at all High Masses, is extinguished and put aside. In earlier

times, the event of the day was represented by hanging up a figure of our

Lord, which was made to disappear through an opening in the roof. The

festival has an octave since the fifteenth century, and, in consequence,

the following Sunday, formerly called simply _Dominica post Ascensionem_,

is now called _Dominica infra Octavam_. The Mass of the feast forms one

of the rare exceptions where the event commemorated is described in the

Epistle, Acts i. 1-11. The Gospel for the day is taken from St Mark xvi.

14-20, where, in verse 19, the Ascension is briefly alluded to. As a

matter of fact, verses 10-20 are wanting in the oldest Alexandrian MSS.

Still they are in other respects well supported, and must be regarded as

genuine.[243]

The introduction of the festival of the Ascension was rendered all the

easier since Scripture distinctly specifies the day on which the event

took place.[244]

10. _Whitsunday_

Whitsunday is of equal rank with the two other chief festivals, but has

no special season either preceding or following it, and is unattended

by any lesser festivals depending upon it. Whitsunday is the close of

the whole period which began with Easter, called in the early centuries

_Quinquagesima_, because it extended over fifty days. This entire period

is festal in character, and therefore so long as it lasted people in

ancient days prayed standing upright, and no fasting was practised.[245]

The ascetics did not observe a single fast during this time,[246] and it

seems that even the day before Whitsunday was not a fast in the earliest

ages, any more than it is now among the Greeks. A number of ascetics

were of opinion that this period of joy should last only forty days,

because our Lord appeared to His disciples for only forty days, and that

the following ten days, as far as fasting, prayer, and kneeling were

concerned, should be like the rest of the year—an opinion which Cassian,

among others (Coll. 20, 21), strongly opposed.[247] This divergence

of opinion, which was rather widespread, seems to have resulted in

Whitsunday being passed over and ignored. So, for example, it is entirely

omitted from the oldest Gallican Sacramentaries, the series of festivals

ending with the Ascension.[248] In the later service-books, it appears

simply under the name _Quinquagesima_.

Pentecost meant originally the entire period from Easter to Whitsunday,

and this terminology had been already in use among the Jews, and is

employed by St Luke in Acts ii. 1 (_cum complerentur dies pentecostes_).

The Greek word Pentecost was gladly adopted by the Latins in early times,

and more especially, later on, since the Latin term _quinquagesima_ might

easily be confused with the Sunday of the same name.

Whitsunday, of course, commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost

upon the Apostles and disciples. This happened fifty days after the

Resurrection, on an ancient Jewish festival called in the Pentateuch the

Feast of Weeks,[249] because it was celebrated exactly seven weeks after

the Passover. As it fell on the fiftieth day after the Passover, it was

also called Pentecost, even in pre-Christian times.[250]

The Jewish Pentecost was originally only a festival of thanksgiving

for harvest, and, although the Law was given on Mount Sinai and the

Mosaic Church came into existence on the same day, yet the feast was not

devoted to the commemoration of this event. This purpose was served by

the festival of the Simchah Thorah in October, which owed its institution

to the Rabbis. On the other hand, the fact that the descent of the Holy

Ghost implied the foundation of the Christian Church, afforded the

Fathers a parallel which they were not slow to make the most of.[251] The

Feast of Weeks was to the Jews only the conclusion of the harvest, in

thanksgiving for which, bread, made from the newly gathered wheat, was

presented to Jehovah as a sacrifice.

The festival of Whitsunday reaches back to the commencement of the

Church, although there is no evidence for it, as there is in the case of

Easter, it being uncertain whether the passage, 1 Cor. xvi. 8, refers to

the Jewish or to the Christian Pentecost. This is not astonishing, for,

on the one hand the feast, originally of only one day’s duration, fell on

a Sunday, and, on the other, it is so closely bound up with Easter that

the one entails the other. That the festival of Whitsunday belongs to

Apostolic times is stated in the seventh of the fragments attributed to

Irenæus, but these are admitted to be interpolated. In Tertullian, the

festival, along with Easter, appears as already well established, so that

it must have been in existence for some time. As at Easter, prayer was

made standing, and it was the second and last date for the solemn baptism

of catechumens.[252] Tertullian, moreover, in accordance with the usage

already in use, gives the name of Pentecost, not merely to the day of the

festival, but to the whole period from Easter to Whitsunday—a use of the

term which appears here and there at a later date,[253] and points out

the period as a time of joy.[254] The last day, however, was clearly held

in Tertullian’s time to be a festival in an especial sense.[255] Origen

and the Canons of Hippolytus make references in passing to the festival

of Whitsunday.[256] The Apostolic Constitutions say Whitsunday is to be

regarded as a high festival, because on it the Lord Jesus sent down the

Holy Ghost.

The Gallic pilgrim gives a detailed and circumstantial account of

the manner in which the feast was observed in Jerusalem.[257] On the

night before Whitsunday, the vigil was celebrated in the Church of

the Anastasis, at which the bishop, according to the usual custom in

Jerusalem on Sundays, read the Gospel of the Resurrection, and the

customary psalmody was performed. At dawn, all the people proceeded to

the principal church (_Martyrium_), where a sermon was preached and Mass

celebrated. About the third hour, when the psalmody was finished, the

people accompanied the bishop with singing to Sion. There, the passage

from the Acts of the Apostles, describing the descent of the Holy Ghost,

was read, and a second Mass was celebrated, after which the psalmody was

resumed. Afterwards the archdeacon invited the people to assemble in the

“Eleona,” from whence a procession was made to the summit of the Mount

of Olives. Here psalms and antiphons were sung, the Gospel was read,

and the blessing given. After this, the people descended again into the

“Eleona,” where Vespers were sung, and then, with the bishop at their

head, proceeded in a solemn procession with singing back to the principal

church, which was reached towards 8 P.M. At the city gate, the procession

was met by torch-bearers who accompanied it to the _Martyrium_. Here, as

well as in the Anastasis, to which the people proceeded in turn, and in

the Chapel of the Holy Cross, the usual prayers, hymns, and blessings

took place, so that the festival did not conclude until midnight.

The Pilgrim makes no mention of rites or preparations connected with the

administration of baptism. It seems, then, that in Jerusalem, Whitsunday

was not observed as a second or supplementary time for baptism, or may

not have been required as such. Nevertheless, this feature appears in the

Western liturgies, and had much to do, for instance, in the determining

the manner in which the vigil of the feast was observed.

According to the more ancient service-books, the catechumens were to

assemble at midday on Saturday. Lections from Scripture, less numerous

than on Holy Saturday, were read, and then, after suitable prayers, took

place the blessing of the baptismal water, the baptism, and, during the

night, the Mass of the vigil.[258] St Augustine shows that, in Africa

as well, the people assembled in the afternoon, and that the Mass was

celebrated during the night. He thus addresses the newly baptised on

Whitsunday: “What you here see before you on the altar, you have already

seen during the past night.”[259]

In order to complete the resemblance to Easter, a large candle was, in

some churches, blessed and set up during the singing of the _Exsultet_

in a slightly altered form.[260] In monastic churches, in which baptism

was not administered, the baptismal ceremonies were omitted, though the

special celebration of the vigil still commenced in the afternoon.[261]

As far as the most ancient period is concerned, the so-called Leonine

Missal contains a Mass for Whitsunday, and the ceremonies for baptism.

The Gelasian Sacramentary also has numerous directions for the

administration of baptism on this day, but no form for the blessing

of a candle. It seems to imply that the candidates for baptism shall

be especially invalids, or such as for some reason or other had been

prevented from receiving baptism at Easter, or Energumens, etc. These

directions, however, are absent from the Gregorian Sacramentary, and only

two lections from the prophets are given. In the present Roman rite,

the function takes place in the forenoon; still the prophecies and the

blessing of the font remain as survivals of the ancient practice. The

litany of the saints is also sung, upon the last Kyrie of which the Mass

of the vigil follows immediately without an introit. The office of the

day until nones belongs to the Octave of the Ascension.

The Apostolic Constitutions[262] speak of the feast of Pentecost lasting

for eight days, but in the West it was not kept with an octave until

quite a late date, and the last day was never called _dies octava_, but

merely the first Sunday after Pentecost, and the days within the octave

were merely called the first or second day after Pentecost, and so on.

As appears from Berno of Reichenau,[263] it was a debatable point in

his day whether Whitsunday ought to be kept with, or without, a _dies

octava_. Berno relied upon the analogy of Easter, the special time for

baptisms, which was observed with an octave. Whitsunday was the day on

which the Apostles received their baptism of fire, and so it too ought

to have an octave. He had other reasons besides which would have no

weight at the present time. It is obvious that Whitsunday had at first no

octave, which can be inferred also from the whole scheme of the Church’s

feasts. Whitsunday was merely the fiftieth day after Easter, the end of

the period called Pentecost, and so in itself brought the season to a

conclusion.

The Mass for Whitsunday had a sequence which was repeated daily during

the week. Formerly the law-courts did not sit during the entire week, and

even servile work was forbidden as well.[264] A Council of Constance, in

1094, limited this to the first three days of the week. With us, at the

present time, only the second day is observed _in foro_, but not even

this is observed any longer in Rome.

In earlier times it was customary in many places to scatter roses

from the roof of the church to recall the miracle of Pentecost. Hence

in Sicily, Whitsunday is called _pascha rosatum_. The Italian name,

_pasqua rossa_, however, comes from the colour of the vestments. In

many districts of France it was usual to blow trombones or trumpets

during divine service in memory of the sound of the “mighty wind” which

accompanied the Holy Spirit’s descent.

11. _Trinity Sunday_

It was not until a late date that the first Sunday after Pentecost was

raised to a higher rank, for in the Gregorian Sacramentary it has no

special name, while in the Gelasian Sacramentary, and in the appendixes

to the Gregorian,[265] it is called merely the Sunday after the octave of

Pentecost, or the Sunday after Pentecost. In the Latin Church, it is now

a festival devoted to the honour of the Most Holy Trinity.

Concerning the introduction of this new feast into the Church’s year,

we learn from the Micrologus that, the Sunday after Pentecost being a

_dominica vacans_ without any special office of its own, many used on

this day the office of the Trinity drawn up by Bishop Stephen of Liège

(903-20). When Pope Alexander II. († 1073) was questioned on the point,

he replied that it was not the Roman custom to set apart any particular

day in honour of the Holy Trinity, since the Trinity was honoured every

day by the _Gloria Patri_ in the psalmody. It is to be noted, continues

the Micrologus,[266] that Alcuin, at the request of the Saint Boniface,

composed a Mass in honour of the Holy Trinity.

Binterim speaks sarcastically of this reference, because Boniface had

died long before the time when Alcuin flourished. The reference is not

to be passed over on this account, for the mistake arose merely from a

misunderstanding. Alcuin had put together from the missal employed in

his Abbey Church a number of Masses—votive Masses, as they would now be

called—for each day of the week, to be used under certain conditions,

and to these was added, amongst others, a Mass in honour of St Boniface

for the monks of Fulda.[267] This explains the misunderstanding in the

Micrologus. Alcuin had also arranged a collection of prayers drawn from

the Gregorian Sacramentary to form a prayer-book. This, by itself,

enables us now to appreciate Alcuin’s share in the matter.[268] It merely

means that he recommended the Mass of the Trinity should be said on

Sundays, in case a priest had not a complete missal, or through ignorance

was unable to use it properly.

The fact is plain. The later Frankish recension of the Gregorian

Sacramentary contained for the Sunday after Pentecost a Mass in honour

of the Holy Trinity, with the same preface which is still in use.[269]

In addition to this, Bishop Stephen of Liège drew up a suitable office,

and so all was in readiness for the institution of an especial feast

in honour of the Trinity, which, in the natural course of things, was

fixed for the first Sunday after Pentecost. The custom of regarding it

as a festival became more and more popular in the Netherlands, England,

Germany, and France. Several diocesan synods expressed themselves in

favour of it, _e.g._, that of Arles in 1260. As we have found in other

instances, so here, it was the monasteries which prepared the way for the

adoption of the festival. Thus, for example,[270] the Cistercians adopted

the festival in 1270, the Cluniacs still earlier. The introduction of the

festival into each diocese followed gradually in course of time, and it

belongs to local historians to investigate the circumstances in each case.

Although Alexander II. had officially declared the festival to be

superfluous,[271] it nevertheless continued to increase in popularity in

ever-widening circles. Its adoption did not follow any uniform law, for

in several places it was observed on the last Sunday after Pentecost,

as in several dioceses of France, until on in the seventeenth century,

and here and there we find it kept with an octave. Uniformity was at

length attained when the Roman Church under John XXII., in 1334, accepted

the festival and ordered it to be generally observed. The Franciscan,

John Peckham, Canon of Lyons, and, from 1278 to 1292, Archbishop of

Canterbury, composed a new office. The one actually in use dates from

the times of Pius V.,[272] and is one of the most beautiful in the

breviary, remarkable alike for sublimity of thought, depth, and elegance

of form. Although the first Sunday has thus been placed in a rank by

itself, the Roman rite still continues the older enumeration of the

Sundays from Pentecost. In Germany and elsewhere it was the custom to

reckon the Sundays from Trinity, and so each Sunday is one less than the

corresponding Sunday according to the Roman enumeration.

The Greeks on this Sunday commemorate All Saints, and on this account

call it All Saints’ Sunday (κυριακὴ τῶν ἁγίων πάντων).

12. _Corpus Christi. The Forty Hours’ Prayer. The Festival of the Sacred

Heart_

On Maundy Thursday, the consecration of the Holy Oils and other

ceremonies overshadow almost entirely the commemoration of the important

event which took place on that day—the institution of the Holy Eucharist.

It was this fact which suggested the introduction of a festival specially

intended to commemorate that event, as is expressly stated in the papal

constitution _Transiturus_. The introduction of this feast dates from

a comparatively late time, and its adoption is limited to the West,

although the Uniat Greeks have also partially accepted it. The earliest

trace of a special reference to the Holy Sacrament of the altar in the

public worship of the Church is probably the appearance of the name

_Natalis Calicis_, in the Calendar of Polemius Silvius, on the 24th

March. In order to understand this entry, it must be remembered that

anciently the 25th March was often regarded as the day on which Christ

died (_vide ante_, p. 57).

Divine Providence made use of a humble nun to further the introduction of

this festival. Juliana,[273] born at Retinne, near Liège, in 1193, was

received as an orphan into the cloister, and became a nun of the order

of St Augustine. She was appointed prioress of the lazar-house of _Mons

Cornelii_ (Mont-Cornillon), near Liège, where she passed the greater

part of her life. When this institution received another prior who fell

out with the authorities of Liège over some matters of administration,

Juliana was obliged to leave the lazar-house in 1240. She took up her

abode in Liège, with a kindred spirit, the recluse Eve. She returned to

Mont-Cornillon after three years, but when fresh disagreements broke

out again, on the death of Bishop Robert († 1246), she was compelled to

leave Liège altogether. She found a refuge with the Cistercian nuns at

Salsinnes in the diocese of Namur. But this convent was destroyed in

the wars which then disturbed the country, and Juliana was once more

destitute. She ended her life on the 5th April 1258, as a recluse at

Fosses, where she had found a refuge, and was buried in the monastery of

Villiers, in the diocese of Namur.

Juliana of Retinne had been a zealous worshipper of the Blessed Sacrament

from her youth, and, from her sixteenth year, had repeatedly seen a

vision of the disc of the full moon from which as it were a part had

been broken off. A vision of our Lord enlightened her mind as to the

signification thereof. The moon’s disc represented the Church, which

still lacked a festival in honour of the Blessed Sacrament, and she was

to announce this want to the world and direct all her efforts towards the

introduction of such a festival. In 1230, she communicated her secret,

on account of which she had much to suffer, for the first time, to

John of Lausanne, Canon of St Martin at Liège, and to some other pious

and learned men, namely, Guyard, afterwards Bishop of Cambrai, Hugo,

afterwards Cardinal Legate, the Archdeacon of Liège, James Pantaleon of

Troyes, who became Bishop of Verdun, then Patriarch of Jerusalem, and,

finally, Pope.

Since in those days bishops exercised the right of appointing feasts

in their own dioceses, it was of the utmost importance that Robert de

Thorete, Bishop of Liège since 1240, was in favour of the introduction

of this festival. He gave a sympathetic hearing to the proposals of

those in favour of the feast, called a diocesan synod in 1246, which

decided in favour of its introduction,[274] and proscribed for his

clergy the recitation of an office composed by Canon John, but died on

the 16th October 1246, without having formally instituted the festival.

It was kept, however, as agreed upon, by the canons of St Martin’s in

the following year, and later on it was approved by the Papal Legates,

Cardinals Hugo and Peter Capocci.

When James Pantaleon ascended the papal throne in 1261 as Urban IV.,

he received from the Bishop of Liège a letter concerning the festival,

written at the request of the recluse Eve, who took an active part in the

introduction of the new feast. To this he wrote a favourable reply.

The general adoption of the feast of Corpus Christi seemed now assured.

Urban’s personal predilections in its favour were further increased by

the incident of the Bohemian priest at Bolsena in 1262, and, shortly

before his death, on the 8th September 1264, he addressed a bull[275]

to all bishops and prelates in which he directed a festival in honour

of the Blessed Sacrament should be held throughout Christendom, on

the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and granted indulgences to all who

observed it. He commissioned moreover St Thomas Aquinas to compose a

special office, which speedily replaced the former one.[276] Owing to the

death of Urban, which followed closely on the promulgation of this bull,

the affair proceeded no further, and the spread of the festival came to

a standstill. The transference of the papal residence to Avignon caused

a further delay. Still in Liège the matter was not dropped, and the

diocesan synod of 1287 is the first which definitely ordered that this

festival should be observed.[277]

At length, after a long silence, Pope Clement V., Bertrand de Got, took

up the matter once more, and by his influence the Œcumenical Council,

which he had assembled at Vienne in 1311, authorised the festival and

enjoined its observance throughout Christendom. For this end, he renewed

the constitution of Urban IV. in his own bull _Si Dominum_. Neither in

this document, nor in the constitution of Urban, is there any mention of

a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, but only of a Mass and the office.

The procession was a later addition which, like the festival itself,

gradually spread throughout different dioceses and countries. It was

not, however, altogether a novelty, for already in the eleventh century,

the Benedictines in England carried the Blessed Sacrament on Palm Sunday

in procession outside the church.[278]

The Corpus Christi procession, more recent than the introduction of the

feast itself, was at first a much simpler affair than it is at present.

As early as the twelfth century, it was by no means unusual to carry the

Blessed Sacrament hidden from sight in a chalice or pyx round the church,

and a procession of this kind is specially provided for in the ritual

for Holy Week.[279] The _Ordinarium_ of the Church of Rouen contains

directions for the performance of such a procession, but unfortunately

the date of this document is uncertain.[280] According to this, the

Blessed Sacrament was carried round the church by two priests in white

chasubles, accompanied by four choristers carrying censers. Two other

clerics carried torches, and the remainder, vested in copes, sung various

versicles and responses. The shrine in which the Blessed Sacrament was

carried was placed in the middle of the choir, and the Sacrament was

censed by a priest accompanied by a deacon, while the singers remained

kneeling. They sang, _Ave, verum corpus natum, etc._, which the choir

repeated still kneeling, and then added other hymns. When this was

concluded, the archbishop was to give the blessing and commence the Mass.

The date at which the Corpus Christi procession was introduced varies

very much in different dioceses and countries. In Cologne, it was held,

for the first time, even earlier than 1279, in the monastery of St

Gereon, when red vestments were worn.[281] In 1308, it was ordered for

the parish churches of the archdiocese. The direction of John XXII.

was certainly in most cases the reason of the feast becoming general

throughout the universal Church. The procession took place for the first

time in Worms in 1315, in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1319. In Strassburg, Bishop

John I., on 22nd July 1318, ordered the adoption of the festival, and the

recitation of the office. The first official appearance of the festival

and procession in Treves was at the synod held under Archbishop Baldwin

in 1338; in Utrecht in 1347, in Prague in 1355. On the other hand, it

was introduced at Würtzburg as early as 1298, before the Council of

Vienne, as appears from the statutes of the synod for that year. At

Augsburg, already in 1305, a lady of rank, Katharina Ibsung, left all

her property to the cathedral for the due performance of the Corpus

Christi procession, and it would appear that the procession had taken

place at Augsburg as a usual thing before this.[282] In the fifteenth

century the Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV.[283] encouraged the spread

of the procession by granting indulgences to those who took part—the

latter especially in his bull _Excellentissimus_, of the 26th May 1433.

In the fourteenth century, the four stations were added at which the

opening passages of the four Gospels were sung, and in the sixteenth

century these were finally authorised.[284] The _Liber Ordinarius_ of

the Monastery of Essen, belonging to the second half of the fourteenth

century, affords us some information concerning this change in

particular. It speaks of two processions—one composed of the canons and

without stations, which passed out of the church and then returned; the

second of the congregation, which had four stations, at each of which the

beginning of St John’s Gospel was read and benediction given.[285]

The Forty Hours’ Prayer, with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, owes

its introduction to the Capuchin Joseph Plantanida of Fermo. In 1556-57

he urged the senate of Milan to take steps for observing this devotion in

all churches of Milan in turn, on account of the war with France which

was then threatening, and also with reference to the plague which twelve

years earlier had devastated the city. The custom of spending forty

hours in prayer for some special intention had arisen earlier than this,

for a priest of Grenoble, called Antony, for example, had established a

confraternity in Milan in 1527, the members of which met four times a

year for forty hours’ adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which, however,

was not exposed.[286]

At the conclusion of the octave of Corpus Christi comes the comparatively

modern festival of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As it is thus in point

of time closely connected with Corpus Christi, so also it resembles it

in many points. In the first place, it is essentially appointed for

the glorification of the Incarnation and the Person of the Incarnate,

and, secondly, its origin has many points in common with that of Corpus

Christi. Its introduction is connected with the visions of the Blessed

Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-90), which she saw in the Convent of the

Visitation at Paray-le-Monial, during the years 1673-75. The cultus of

the Sacred Heart seems to have existed earlier as a form of private

devotion. In support of it certain passages are appealed to in the

writings of saints of earlier times, which contain its fundamental

principles. Among others, St Gertrude, and the Carthusian James of

Landsberg, are quoted. The Blessed Margaret Mary had much to suffer in

her attempts to establish the cultus, but finally it was introduced for

the first time in 1686 at Paray-le-Monial, or, according to others, in

the Convent of the Visitation at Moulins in 1674. The public cultus was

introduced by Charles François de Loménie, Bishop of Coutances, who,

in consequence of Margaret Mary’s revelations, consecrated a chapel

in honour of the Sacred Heart in his seminary in 1688, and erected a

confraternity under the same title. He was followed by Peter de Grammont,

Bishop of Besançon, who, in 1692, ordered a special Mass with the title

_Cordis Jesu_, to be printed in the missal for his diocese, for the

Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi. The Bishop of Langres adopted

this Mass in his diocese, and finally the Archbishop of Lyons, Primate

of Gaul, at the end of 1718 ordered the feast to be kept by the churches

under his jurisdiction. The authoritative recognition of the feast was

given by Clement XIII. in 1765.[287]

B. CHRISTMAS AND THE CHRISTMAS SEASON

1. _Christmas_

Christmas, or the feast of our Lord’s birth (_Nativitas Domini_, τὰ

γένεθλια, γέννησις Χριστοῦ), has this in common with Easter that it also

is the centre of other festivals which group themselves around it, but it

differs from Easter inasmuch as it is an immovable feast, and so falls

on a fixed day of the month. The whole Church, and all the sects, agree

in observing the 25th December as this date. As it has cost us already

some trouble to show how the determination of Easter was arrived at, so

the questions which arise in regard to the date of Christmas are by no

means few. The answer to these questions entails a special and critical

investigation into several points of history, which, though it may not

prove interesting to everyone, will nevertheless be full of information

to those who undertake to study it.

Formerly it was taken for granted that Christ had actually been born

on this day, and, accordingly, the learned were of opinion that the

Church had observed it from the beginning as the day of His birth.

Even at the present day, it will be difficult for many to give up this

idea. But there is no Christmas among the Christian feasts enumerated

by Tertullian, Origen, and the recently published _Testament of Jesus

Christ_. On the contrary, there is clear proof that even in the fourth

and fifth centuries it was unknown in some parts of the Church, where its

introduction, at a much later period, can be proved historically. To this

evidence we shall now turn our attention, beginning with Egypt.

At the beginning of the fifth century the learned monk, John Cassian,

betook himself to Egypt to study the observances of the monasteries

there, and later on, between 418 and 427, he wrote down the result of his

observations in his Collations. He informs us that the bishops of those

parts at that time regarded the Epiphany as our Lord’s birth-day, and

that there was no separate festival in honour of the latter. He calls

this the “ancient custom.”[288]

This old custom, although generally observed at that time in Egypt,

had soon to give place to a new one. For under Cyril, Patriarch of

Alexandria, Bishop Paul of Emesa, while on a visit to him, preached on

the festival of our Lord’s nativity, and the date on which this happened

was the 29th Chijak, or 25th December, in the year 432. Christmas, then,

had been introduced into Egypt before this time, that is to say, between

418 and 432,[289] and from then onwards it was firmly established, as the

existing Calendars of subsequent date show.

The learned Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis lived in Cyprus at the end of

the fourth century. In his answer to the Alogoi he gives the chronology

of our Lord’s life, according to which the 6th January is the day of our

Lord’s birth, and the 8th November the day of His baptism in Jordan. For

him the Epiphany was plainly the festival of Christ’s nativity.[290]

The old custom was still in force in Jerusalem about 385. Our Lord’s

birth was celebrated there with great rejoicings, not on the 25th

December, but on the 6th January. For according to the evidence of the

Pilgrim from Bordeaux, the festival on which the gospel was read, giving

the account of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and His meeting

with Simeon and Anna—Candlemas Day—was celebrated forty days after the

Epiphany and not forty days after Christmas.[291] Epiphany must then have

been the festival of the Nativity. In another passage, where the same

pilgrim has reason to name the chief festivals of the year, she mentions

as such only Epiphany and Easter.[292] And so at that time there was no

special festival of Christmas observed in Jerusalem.

Among the witnesses for the old custom, we find Ephrem Syrus, who

informs us that, in his time, the church of Mesopotamia commemorated the

Incarnation of the Son of God on the thirteenth day after the winter

solstice, in the month when the light begins to increase, _i.e._ on the

6th January.[293]

It is a well-known fact that the festival of the 25th December, as

Christ’s birth-day, was entirely unknown to the ancient churches of

Armenia and Mesopotamia, and remained so partially until on in the

fourteenth century.[294] In the most of the great churches of the East,

on the contrary, this feast was introduced during the last decades of the

fourth century, in others somewhat later. Most interesting particulars

concerning the introduction of Christmas in various localities are

extant, and, since they refer to its _introduction_, we are safe in

concluding, from the historical evidence before us, that these churches

had not celebrated Christmas until then. This is the case with regard to

Constantinople.

The second capital of the empire had long been a stronghold of Arianism,

so that the orthodox had dwindled down to a mere handful, and no longer

possessed a church of their own in the city. During this period Christmas

was certainly not celebrated in Constantinople. Not till after the death

of Valens, and the elevation of Theodosius the Great to the empire

(19th January 379), did the Catholics breathe freely once more. They

received as bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, formerly Bishop of Sasima, but

then living in retirement at Seleucia in Isauria. He began his labours

as a stranger and sojourner in a small private chapel which he called

the Anastasia. Here, on the 25th December 379 or 380, Christmas was

celebrated for the first time in Constantinople, as he himself informs

us, and on this occasion he delivered his thirty-eighth homily.[295]

Thus one of the first acts of the restorer of Catholicism in the capital

was the introduction of the new festival. In the above homily indeed

he says nothing about its being celebrated for the first time, but in

the following homily (c. 14), when speaking of the previous Christmas,

he calls himself its originator (ἔξαρχος). Gregory’s activity in the

capital was unfortunately of short duration. Soon after the meeting

of the second General Council, in 381, he was compelled through the

intrigues of his opponents to retire from his post.

It would not be impossible, and certainly would not be surprising, if

Gregory’s expulsion also imperilled his new institution, and that the

festival of Christ’s Nativity would have to be re-introduced. At any

rate, a late and not very reliable writer, though one not to be passed

over in this connection, speaks of the emperor Honorius as having been

the means of introducing the feast of Christmas at Constantinople. On the

occasion of a visit to Constantinople he persuaded his mother and his

brother Arcadius to celebrate the feast of Christmas, and in the Roman

manner.[296] This must have taken place after the year 395.

In Cappadocia the separation of the two feasts, Epiphany and Christmas,

had been effected in 380, at least as far as Nyssa was concerned. For

Gregory of Nyssa, in his funeral oration on Basil, speaks of the festival

of Christ’s birth as well established.[297] He says the same in his two

sermons for the feast of St Stephen.

With regard to the circumstances connected with the introduction of the

festival at Antioch, we are fully informed by St Chrysostom in a sermon

he preached there on the 20th December 386.[298]

The festival had been known in Antioch for about ten years already, and a

certain party there among the faithful were in the habit of celebrating

it publicly, but its official introduction was first effected by Bishop

Flavian, who was seconded in this by St John Chrysostom, recently

ordained priest in the February of the same year. Chrysostom began his

priestly activity with a course of sermons against the thorough-going

Arians—the Anomæans. These discourses treat of the nature of God, His

incomprehensibility, and triune personality, but the preacher had to

interrupt the course from time to time in order to deal with other

matters affecting the faithful themselves, such as their superstitious

respect for, and imitation of, the Jews and their customs. Some went so

far as to regard oaths taken in the synagogue as more sacred and binding

than those taken in the church. Many Christians observed the Jewish

festivals as well as their own. On this account Chrysostom departed from

his first subject and directed his first four sermons against the Jews.

Then his eloquence was directed to the task of winning over the faithful

of Antioch to the observance of Christmas.

It was on the festival of the Antiochene martyr Philogonius that he

announced to his hearers that on the following 25th December Christmas

would be celebrated for the first time in the Church of Antioch. The

day had been observed in the West from the beginning (ἄνωθεν), but only

during the last ten years had the knowledge of it penetrated to Antioch.

For his own part, he had for a long time made his prayer in secret

that the festival should be kept also in Antioch. He had found many,

especially of the lower orders, in favour of it, but many, on the other

hand, were opposed, and so the introduction of the festival had been

delayed.

The efforts of the great preacher were crowned with success. A very large

number of the faithful were present in the church when the new festival

was celebrated. The sermon which Chrysostom delivered on the occasion has

happily come down to us.[299] In the introduction he says he wished to

speak to them himself concerning the festival over which there had been

so much controversy in Antioch. Some considered it a mere innovation,

but others knew that it was observed in the West from Thrace to Cadiz.

This last assertion was an exaggeration, as the next words of Chrysostom

themselves show. He says he proposes to commend the feast to the

devotion of his hearers on three grounds: first, because the feast has

spread with remarkable rapidity, and has met with so much favour in all

directions;[300] secondly, because the time of the census taken in the

year of Christ’s birth can be determined by ancient documents preserved

in Rome; thirdly, the year of our Lord’s birth can be computed from the

time of the angel’s appearance to Zachary in the Temple. Zachary, as High

Priest, had entered into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.

The Jewish Day of Atonement fell in September. Six months afterwards

the angel came to Mary, and nine months later Christ was born, _i.e._

in December. Chrysostom concludes with an attack upon those who do not

believe in the incarnation of the Son of God.

All this, however, as far as the determination of the date is concerned,

rests upon an insecure foundation. Since Zachary was only an ordinary

priest, and not the High Priest, his entry into the Holy of Holies cannot

therefore be identified with that of the High Priest on the Day of

Atonement. But this is of little importance, if on independent grounds

these calculations could still point to the month of December, though the

25th need not on this account have been the precise day on which our Lord

was born.

When we consider the facts, we see that it was no mere accident that

Christmas began to be celebrated in the East just at this particular

period, and that its introduction was due to the influence of the great

men whom we have named.

It was the moment when Catholics began successfully to repel Arianism;

it was just those who attacked Arianism with most vigour and success

who promoted the spread of the new festival in the East. We must add

to this the evidence afforded by secular enactments. Neither the laws

of Valentinian II., nor the revisers of the _Codex Theodosianus_ in

438, nor the _Breviarium Alaricianum_ of 506, regard the 25th December

as a festival established by law. It was made to appear for the first

time as such by Tribonianus in the _Codex Justinianus_.[301] From these

additional facts, we gather that Christmas was of later introduction

in the Church than Easter or Whitsunday. In such matters secular law

generally follows the lead of ecclesiastical law. If Christmas had been

celebrated in the Church from the beginning, one can see no reason why

it should not have enjoyed equal privileges with Easter and Whitsunday.

Still there was a law of the Emperor Arcadius as early as 400 which

included Christmas among the days on which at least the games of the

circus were forbidden.[302]

Chrysostom, in the sermon referred to above, states plainly that, at the

time when the attempt was being made to introduce the festival in the

East, it was already celebrated in Rome. Our attention is thus naturally

directed to Rome, and it will be interesting to learn how long it had

been so observed there. This question we must now consider more fully.

John, Bishop of Nicæa, informs us that the Roman Church had begun under

Pope Julius I. (337-352) to celebrate the birth of our Lord on the

25th December.[303] This pope, with the assistance of the writings of

Josephus, had ascertained that Christ was born on the 25th December.

John of Nicæa then recurs substantially to the reckoning which we have

already produced from Chrysostom, according to which the appearance of

the angel to Zachary in the Temple happened on the 23rd September and the

Annunciation on the 25th March. From these data it followed as a matter

of course that the 25th December was the day of Christ’s birth. John had

gained this information from an alleged correspondence between Cyril of

Jerusalem and Julius, from which he quotes. But this correspondence is

certainly not authentic, as will appear from one of the facts quoted

from it further on.[304] But the fact that it cannot stand the test of

criticism does not prove the spuriousness of the treatise of John of

Nicæa in itself, nor the incorrectness of everything else contained in it.

When we turn to the authentic evidence for the practice of the Roman

Church on this point, our attention is at once arrested by one document

which is quoted under very different names—_Anonymus Cuspiniani_,

_Catalogus Bucherianus_, the Calendar of Furius Philocalus, or the

Chronographer of 354. These different ways of quoting the same document

are apt to lead to confusion. They are due to the fact that from time to

time different scholars have published larger or smaller portions of the

document, without ever placing it before the public in its entirety. The

different portions of which it is composed are of a rather heterogeneous

character, and, accordingly, as each student was interested in this or

that portion, he published as much of it as concerned his own studies,

leaving the remainder unnoticed. In order to form a correct judgment

of the evidential value of this document, and the importance of the

facts recorded in it, it will be well at this point to describe it more

particularly, although to do so may lead us away from our main subject.

Briefly, we have to do with a collection of chronological data belonging

to the time of Constantine, in which the unknown compiler collected

together from official sources all kinds of chronological and historical

notices, such as might be useful for people in official positions. His

object was to supply them with a compendium of all that might be of

practical assistance to them. John Cuspinianus (1473-1529) was the first

to make use of this work, because he recognised that the list of Roman

consuls contained in it is the most correct that has come down to us. In

his _Commentarius de Consulibus Romanis_, published at Basel after his

death, in 1552, a part of the work is printed.[305]

Other students then edited such portions as related to the special

studies they had in hand, such as Onuphrius Panvinius, Ægidius Boucher,

S.J.,[306] Lambeck, Henschen, Cardinal Noris, Eccard, Preller, and

especially Roncalli. Finally, in the transactions of the “Akademie der

Wissenschaften” of Saxony for 1850, Mommsen printed almost the whole

of it with the exception of the later portions. A collection of the

allegorical illustrations of the document, as far as they exist, has also

been published,[307] and thus at length this remarkable document has been

placed within the reach of all to whom it may be of interest.

The different sections therein contained are partly of ecclesiastical

and Christian origin, and partly secular and heathen. Of purely

ecclesiastical origin, in addition to the table for calculating Easter,

are the _Depositio Episcoporum_, the _Depositio Martyrum_, and the

list of popes. The remaining sections fall into two classes: they are

either entirely heathen, or they have interpolations of a Christian

and ecclesiastical character. This is especially the case with the

lists of consuls. Up to 753 U.C. they contain merely the names of the

consuls, with notices of the dictators; from 753 U.C. to 55 A.D. four

ecclesiastical notices have been interpolated, but none from thence

onwards. These four notices relate to the date of Christ’s birth and

death, the arrival of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome, and their

death there. These notices, naturally, did not originally form part of

the lists of consuls. Who added them? Philocalus himself or someone else?

Since the list of consuls contains ecclesiastical interpolations, it is

all the more remarkable that none have been added to the Calendar. Where

else would we more naturally look for them, and where could they have

been more easily introduced? Why did not Philocalus set down the birth

of Christ here under the 25th December, the _Natalis Invicti_, since he

considered it of sufficient importance to be interpolated into the lists

of consuls, with which it is out of keeping?

But if, it is objected, the date of Christ’s birth is also given in the

_Depositio Martyrum_, let us examine this document more closely. As

the title indicates, it contains only the days of the death and burial

of Roman martyrs and other martyrs venerated in Rome in the earliest

ages, _e.g._ Cyprian, Perpetua, Felicitas. To these there are added two

exceptions: VIII. Kal. Jan. (the birth of Christ at Bethlehem) and VIII.

Kal. Mart. (the feast of St Peter’s Chair). Neither of these belong in

any sense to a _Depositio Martyrum_, and on this account, De Rossi wished

to change the title of the document to _Feriale Ecclesiæ Romanæ_. But in

this he was mistaken. The MSS. have the title _Depositio Martyrum_ alone,

and to change it would be arbitrary. The two days mentioned above, the

25th December and the 22nd February, must rather be struck out as later

additions which do not belong to the document.

That such entries do not appear in the Calendar is explained, in my

opinion, by the fact that soon afterwards succeeding emperors forbade the

games of the circus and energetically suppressed heathen customs. When

this had been done, the Calendar would no longer be of any practical use,

and so it would not be worth while to make alterations in it. The other

chronological pieces, however, had a permanent value, and it naturally

occurred to those who used them later on to adapt them to the altered

circumstances of the time.

We must now examine more minutely the notice of Christ’s birth given us

in this document. It runs as follows: _I p. Chr. Cæsare et Paulo sat.

XIII. Hoc cons. Dns. ihs. XPC natus est VIII. Kal. Jan. de ven. luna

XV._[308] Which means, Christ was born during the consulship of C. Cæsar

Augustus and L. Æmilius Paulus (754 U.C.), on the 25th December, which

was a Friday, on the fifteenth day of the new moon.

This notice gives rise to several questions. First of all the Epact is

not correct, as according to our tables it ought to be 11.[309] But this

need not detain us, as two or three peculiarities of this kind are to be

met with in this list of the consuls. The error concerning the day of

the week is more important. To expose this error we need only give the

dominical letters for the years in question:—

751 U.C., Dom. let. F = 25th Dec., Wednesday.

752 U.C., ” E = ” Thursday.

753 U.C., ” DG = ” Saturday.

754 U.C., ” B = ” Sunday.

The compiler of this chronology might have set down the birth of Christ

in either 754 or 753 U.C. 754 is a possible year, although the 25th

December 753 is more probable, yet in either case the day of the week

would be wrong. In 752, the 25th December fell on Thursday, but since 753

was a leap year, the dominical letter advances two places, and Friday is

passed over. At the same time, there has been a fairly constant tradition

that the 25th of December fell on a Wednesday in the year of Christ’s

birth. In any case, the notice that the 25th December fell, in this year,

on a Friday is based on a mistaken reckoning. This notice, then, does

not represent a tradition, but is merely the result of a calculation

which unfortunately is incorrect. Consequently the whole interpolation is

undeserving of credit. We now pass on to a second point.

While all writers before 354 fix the year of Christ’s birth by the year

of the Emperor’s reign, here, for the first time, it is fixed by the year

of the consuls. This is a marked departure from the original usage. The

forty-first or forty-second year of Augustus correctly converted into

a consular year would have run: _Augusto XIII. et Silvano conss._ or

_Lentulo et Messalino_, which would also be the year 751 or 752 U.C.,

according as the year of the emperor is taken as “_effektiv_” or not,

_i.e._ according as one places Christ’s birth in the first or second half

of the year.[310]

Moreover, when the chronographer dates the year of Christ’s birth in the

consulship of “Cæsar and Paulus” (754 U.C.), he anticipates the Dionysian

era some two hundred years before Dionysius, and, further, when, in

accordance with a very ancient tradition, he places the year of Christ’s

death in the consulship of the “_duo gemini_” (29 A.D.), he thus only

allows twenty-eight and a quarter years for Christ’s earthly life, while

St Luke (iii. 23) speaks of Him as having wellnigh thirty full years.

Whoever he may have been who inserted this notice under the consulship

of Cæsar and Paulus in the chronology, he certainly made a mistake. He

also stands alone in placing Christ’s birth in the year 754 U.C., for

the writers and annalists who wrote at a later date, such as Sulpicius

Severus, Orosius, Prosper, Hydatius, and even Cassiodorus, give other

dates.

The anonymous compiler of this chronology differs also, both as to

contents and form, from those who preceded him. While Irenæus, Clement

of Alexandria, Tertullian, the pseudo-Cyprian, etc., fix the year of

Christ’s birth by a year of the emperor, _i.e._ the forty-first or

forty-second of Augustus, it is given in this document in the form of a

consular year, and while the former give 751-752 U.C. as the year, the

latter gives 754. All this creates great difficulty in accepting the

evidence of the compiler.[311]

We must now deal with the day of the month given in the chronology,

the 25th December, which, strictly speaking, alone is of importance in

connection with the end we have in view, although it cannot well be

separated from the previous question as to the year. It has recently

been thought that Hippolytus afforded some very early evidence on this

point, owing to a passage in his commentary on Daniel bearing upon the

subject. However, this hope has proved deceptive,[312] since the passage

in Hippolytus proves to be the addition of a much later hand; we are thus

left with the chronology of 354 as the earliest evidence for placing the

birth of Christ on the 25th December.

The result of our investigation of this compilation, made up of

historical, chronological, and other materials, proves that the compiler,

in collecting his materials in 354, added to the lists of consuls, which

naturally he did not draw up himself, the notice that Christ was born

under these particular consuls on the 25th December, because it was at

that time the generally accepted date. It could only be widely accepted,

when the festival of Christ’s birth had already been celebrated on this

day, not recently but during a considerable period. It is very improbable

that it had just been introduced by any one person in particular, such

as the Bishop of Rome, for the first years of the reign of Liberius

were very troubled and ill suited for the introduction of so important

an innovation. Moreover, history shows that a thing like this cannot be

done all at once by a stroke of the pen, or at the will of an individual,

even though he be the Bishop of Rome, but is rather the outcome of a long

period of preparation.

The compiler clearly bears witness that Christmas existed already in

Rome in 354, but not that it had then been only recently introduced

there, still less that Christ was actually born on the 25th December.

This statement is unsupported by evidence prior to 354, for the passage

in Hippolytus is an interpolation, the _Depositio Martyrum_ and the

_Depositio Episcoporum_ have been worked over by the hand of the same

compiler, who may have made additions to them to the same effect without

prejudice to their original contents.

Nevertheless attempts were made to maintain the 25th December on other

grounds. As we have seen, Chrysostom made an attempt of this kind, and

even in recent times there have been people who repeated the attempt,

without falling into the mistake of making Zachary a High Priest. They

reckoned as follows:—when the angel announced to Zachary his son’s

birth, the course of Abia, to which Zachary belonged, was performing

the service of the Temple.[313] At the dedication of the Temple under

Solomon it was arranged that the twenty-four priestly families mentioned

in 1 Paral. xxiv. 7-13 should relieve one another in orderly succession

throughout the year, each being responsible for the Temple services for

a week. The first course was that of Joiarib, the course of Abia being

the eighth. After the return from exile, these courses of priests were

re-established, and continued to discharge their functions as before,

so soon as the new Temple had been dedicated.[314] According to the

assertion of Josephus,[315] this arrangement survived to his own time,

and was consequently in existence at the commencement of the Christian

era.

Since the dedication of both Temples took place in autumn, it has been

calculated that the course of Abia must have been on duty in the year

of the Lord’s birth on the day of Atonement, which fell at that season.

This was arrived at by calculating both forwards and backwards from the

destruction of Jerusalem. But in the former case, beginning with the

restoration of the Temple, the calculation is thrown into confusion by

the fact that twice during the existence of the second Temple the regular

performance of divine service was interrupted.[316] In the time of the

Machabees, under Antiochus Epiphanes, the interruption lasted for three

years. In this case what was to be done? The succession of the courses

might be resumed after the interruption as if nothing had happened, or,

at the re-establishment of worship, that course might undertake duty

whose turn it was to serve at that particular time of the year, or,

finally, one might start afresh with the course of Joiarib. In all these

cases it would be said that the ancient order had been maintained, but

which of the three possibilities just mentioned was actually chosen is

not told us.

Even if it were told us, the reckoning would still be without solid

foundation. For each course of priests served in turn twice a year,

leaving however eighteen days, or in a leap-year twenty-nine, still to

be accounted for. The difficulty is not lessened by the fact that during

the week of the Passover, several courses were on duty in the Temple at

once. Granted that the course of Abia was on service in spring and again

in autumn, St Luke unfortunately does not inform us at what season of the

year the angel appeared to Zachary, or even if this event happened during

the Passover, when the course of Abia might quite possibly have been on

duty as well.

We are no better off if we begin our reckoning from the destruction of

Jerusalem, when the course of Joiarib is said to have been on duty,[317]

for again we do not know in what season of the year the angel appeared.

If we take the autumn as certain, then we assume what must be proved.

Even if the difficulties are fewer in this method of proceeding, on

account of the shortness of the period, it still remains a question

whether, when the services of the Temple came to an end in A.D. 70, they

ceased on the 8th Gorpiæos, when the citadel of Jerusalem was taken, or

on the 10th Lous, the day of the destruction of the Temple itself.[318]

It is impossible by these means to prove that the 25th December is really

the day of Our Lord’s birth.[319]

It follows from this that there is no sort of existing proof that the

Redeemer was actually born on this day. We may add, moreover, that

even when this opinion had met with acceptance from many, and in times

when Christmas had become one of the popular festivals, there were not

wanting some here and there who expressed doubt on the question. This is

the case in an ancient sermon on Christmas included among the spurious

writings of St Jerome: “Whether our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized

to-day, or whether He was born, has given rise to different opinions in

the world, and according to the different traditions different views are

maintained.”[320] Although this sermon is incorrectly attributed to St

Jerome, it nevertheless certainly belongs to his time, for it refers to

the gilded temples of Rome (_aurata capitolia_).

What then was the amount of knowledge possessed by antiquity concerning

the true day of Christ’s birth? It may not be out of place to attempt to

answer this question. There are only a few passages in which the oldest

writers in the Church refer to the matter, but from these it is easy to

see that, even in the earliest times, nothing was known for certain,

and that those who were interested in the question did not agree among

themselves. This was the case, for example, in Alexandria in the second

century. A party existed there who regarded the 25th of the Egyptian

month Pachon (_i.e._ 20th May) as the day of our Lord’s birth. The

Basilidians of Alexandria, however, observed it on the 15th Tybi (_i.e._

10th January), and passed the preceding night in devotional readings.

The majority celebrated Christ’s birth on the 11th Tybi (_i.e._ 6th

January).[321]

In a treatise of the third century formerly attributed to St Cyprian,

which deals with kindred subjects, a very different view appears. The

anonymous writer of this treatise (_De Pascha Computus_), which was

composed in A.D. 243, inclines to the view that the 28th March was the

true day of Christ’s birth,[322] and, contemporary with this, Hippolytus

sets it down on the 25th of the same month, provided this is the correct

interpretation of the inscription on his statue. In the fourth and fifth

centuries, the view became prevalent that Christ was born on the 25th

December, and St Augustine uses expressions which seem to imply he was of

this opinion.[323]

The four gospels contain nothing in support of any of these dates.

Their authors attached no importance to this point, although their aim

in writing was to give information concerning our Lord’s life, and,

even if the date was known to them, we must allow for the difficulty of

fixing dates of past events in accordance with Jewish modes of reckoning

time. However, it is possible that our Lord was born at the beginning of

winter. The census which took place at the time of His birth, rendered

it necessary that the inhabitants of Judæa should be enrolled each in

his own city. On this account, the Roman authorities would see that the

census was made at a season when agricultural work had ceased, such as

the late autumn or early winter. There can have been no ecclesiastical

tradition concerning the date of the Nativity, since in the earliest

times it was commemorated by no special festival. The Epiphany, which

commemorated several events, took the place of such a festival.

These are the difficulties which stand in the way of accepting the 25th

December as the actual date of the Nativity, and they must be taken into

account by any one who desires to form a judgment for himself on this

matter. The other questions relating to the same point are more easily

disposed of.