A commemoration much beloved by the people, is that of the Seven Dolors

of Our Blessed Lady, which cannot be regarded as a festival in the usual

sense of the term. It takes place on the Friday after Passion Sunday.

Its introduction was prepared by the ascetic literature of the twelfth

century, in which also its roots are to be sought. The pious monk Eadmer

in his treatise “On the Excellencies of the Virgin Mary” chapter v.

(see App. x., page 446) deals with the share taken by Our Lady in the

sufferings of her Son. The writing of an unknown author (_De Passione

Christi et Doloribus et Planctibus Matris Ejus_, MIGNE, _Patr. Lat._,

clii.), attributed to St Bernard, while full of deep piety, is yet rather

effeminate and sentimental. The third treatise belonging to this subject

is composed by Amadeus, a disciple of St Bernard, Abbot and afterwards

Bishop of Lausanne († 1159), whose fifth homily is entitled _De Mentis

Dolore et Martyrio B.M.V._ (MIGNE, _Patr. Lat._, clxxxviii., 1325-1331).

He deals with Our Lady’s share in her Son’s sufferings in a merely

general way and in outline. At a later date, the matter was treated in

more detail and with additions, so that the Seven Dolors of Our Lady

were the result. In this form, the matter was taken up by the Servites,

whose order came into existence in 1240, and to whom Innocent IX. in 1688

granted a second feast of the same name to be celebrated out of Lent on

the third Sunday in September.

7. _The Feast of St Joseph.[582] The Cultus of SS. Joachim and Anne_

During the first centuries of the Church’s existence it was only the

martyrs who, as we have said, enjoyed religious veneration. It was

probably owing to this custom that no cultus was paid even to those

personages who had been closely related to our Lord during His earthly

life. St Joseph, our Lord’s foster-father, is a striking instance of this

law. Although mentioned as a “just” man in Holy Scripture, and the object

of occasional eulogies in patristic literature, he received universal

public veneration only at a late date. While we possess much information

concerning the tombs of the Apostles, and while even the graves of the

Old Testament prophets have frequently had attention drawn to them,

tradition has nothing to report concerning the death, burial, and relics

of St Joseph.

The earliest traces of a direct cultus appears in one of the Coptic

calendars[583] published by Seldenius. In this “Joseph the Carpenter”

is entered on the 20th July, as also in the somewhat later _Synaxarium_

in Mai,[584] which at latest may belong to the ninth century. The

date, 20th July, had no influence upon other churches. The menology

of Constantinople does not contain St Joseph’s name, and even the

_Basilianum_ only mentions him by the way on the 25th December, in the

form of a commemoration. After the Nativity of our Lord, the Magi are

first mentioned, and then St Joseph as spouse and protector of the Holy

Virgin (ὁ μνήστωρ καὶ φύλαξ τῆς παρθένου). He has no special day of his

own.

In the West, an Antiochene martyr called Joseph, otherwise unknown,

appears in the so-called martyrology of St Jerome on the 20th March.[585]

This cannot refer to the foster-father of Christ on account of the

mention of Antioch and the absence of any indication of the saint’s

condition, although this transformation has taken place in some

martyrologies. With the unmistakeable title of foster-father of our Lord

(_nutritor Domini_), St Joseph appears first in the martyrologies of the

tenth century, as in one belonging to Fulda[586] and in others. As these

are of private origin, and of merely local importance, it cannot be said

that the cultus of St Joseph had therefore become universal. Throughout

the whole Middle Ages it remained rather a private devotion, although

numerous traces of the esteem in which St Joseph was held, and even of

external veneration paid to him by individuals are to be found.[587]

It was through the private devotion of many important or holy members

of the Church that the public cultus of St Joseph came into existence.

Among these may be named St Bernard, St Gertrude, St Brigid of Sweden,

and St Vincent Ferrer. Among the most enthusiastic and influential in

this respect was the Chancellor John Gerson, following the lead of his

master Peter d’Ailly, and, at a later date, the Abbot Trithemius. In

1400, Gerson composed an office in honour of the Espousals of Joseph with

Mary, and urged the Council of Constance to take steps for the spread

of the devotion. The way had been already prepared by the Franciscans,

especially St Bernardine of Siena, and Bernardine de Bustis, who showed

great zeal for the worship of St Joseph.[588]

These attempts resulted in the approval given to the cultus by Sixtus

IV.,[589] who inserted St Joseph’s day in the Roman Breviary as a

feast with one lection (_festum simplex_). Under Clement XI. it was

changed into a feast with nine lections. Accordingly, at the end of

the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the 19th March

began to be kept as St Joseph’s day in the Missals and Breviaries of

many religious orders, _i.e._, the Carmelites, Hermits of St Augustine,

Premonstratensians, Dominicans, Knights of St John; these were followed

by the Benedictines and Jesuits, while the service-books of the

Carthusians, Camaldules, Cistercians and Cluniacs of the same period

remained without it.[590]

Owing to the fact that later on, several royal personages such as the

Emperors Ferdinand III. and Leopold I. of the House of Habsburg, and King

Charles II. of Spain, were devoted to the cultus of St Joseph, Gregory

XV. raised his festival to the rank of a festival of obligation in 1621.

Benedict XIII. inserted his name into the Litany of the Saints, and Pius

IX., on the 8th December 1870, conferred upon him the office of Patron of

the Universal Church.

Among the Greeks, the parents of Our Lady enjoyed a religious cultus

from a comparatively early date, although all that was known of them was

derived from the apocryphal _Proto-evangelium_ of James. Joachim and Anne

already had their own commemoration on the 9th September in the menology

of Constantinople, and Justinian I. is said to have built a church in

honour of St Anne in Constantinople.[591] Their names are mentioned by

Epiphanius[592] and appear in the oldest Neapolitan Calendar on the 9th

September, a circumstance which shows Byzantine influence, for among the

Syrians their festival is kept on the 25th July.

In the West, however, their legend was received with considerable

reserve, and although Pope Leo III. had their pictures placed in the

church of _Maria ad Præsepe_, no trace of any liturgical commemoration

appears in calendars before the Middle Ages. It is no proof that any

special cultus was paid to them, that we find them occasionally mentioned

in writings and spoken of as saints. It was only in 1378 that Urban VI.

authorised the worship of St Anne for the English at their own request.

Sixtus IV. especially approved of it,[593] and Gregory XIII., in 1584,

appointed the 26th July for her feast. In the fifteenth century she was

venerated with special devotion in Germany, the town of Annaberg being

named after her.

As regards Joachim, Julius II. is said to have approved of his being

commemorated with a special office on the 22nd March. Gregory XII.

introduced a new and improved office, and fixed the commemoration for the

Sunday within the octave of the Assumption. Leo XIII. raised it to the

rank of a feast of the second class.[594]

Baillet has some remarks concerning Our Lady’s parents which are worthy

of notice. He thinks that Mary at the time of her espousals to Joseph was

an orphan; consequently, since her parents died before the death of the

Redeemer, they were considered as belonging to the Old Testament, and

were not made the object of a cultus. Whether they were actually named

Joachim and Anne is doubtful,[595] for Anna in Hebrew means “Grace,” and

Joachim, “Preparation of God.” It is possible that owing to ignorance

of their real names, these appellations were chosen for them. The names

appear in Epiphanius only at the end of the fourth century.

8. _The Festivals of the Apostles in General_

The cultus of the apostles followed the same lines of development as that

of other saints. At first it was merely local, but although the tendency

to observe the festivals of the apostles throughout the whole Church

was stronger than in the case of other saints, still their festivals

did not attain earlier to universal observance than those of ordinary

saints, that is to say, at the period of the compilation of universal

martyrologies, though there were, of course, some exceptions.

The earliest calendars of particular churches have, on the average, only

a few feasts of apostles, usually only one or two. It was only in course

of time that the longing for completeness appeared, which in the tenth

century was carried to such a pitch by the Greeks that they set down in

their calendars not merely every personage who had received honourable

mention in the New Testament, but even the Seventy Disciples, although

there was but slender authority for their names.

From the first a difference was made between the apostles who had lived

and worked within the existing boundaries of the Roman Empire, and those

who had ended their lives in barbarian countries. In the far East, there

was a second world-power similar to the Roman power in the West, _i.e._,

the empire of the Parthians, or that earlier Persian Empire of the

Achæmenides, which in its turn, again, had risen from the ruins of the

ancient empires of Babylon and Assyria. The Jews had obviously numerous

relations from old time with this Eastern Empire in consequence of their

historical connection with it. After the return from exile, many Jews

had remained there, and probably many others returned thither at a later

time. In fine, the circumstances attending on the first Whitsunday show

that many Jews were scattered throughout those provinces. The Eastern

Empire consisted of a number of vassal states, which recognised a

supreme sovereign, the King of Kings, but, in other respects, remained

independent and sovereign, as for example, Armenia, whose inhabitants

were moreover closely allied by blood with the Persians.

The Jews, as Semites, had naturally more sympathy with these Easterns,

once their ancient grievances had been forgotten, than they had with the

Greeks and Romans who, at the beginning of the Christian era, were their

oppressors. This explains why some of the apostles, some for life and

others only temporarily, betook themselves thither, and spent their lives

there in mission work and even ended their days in those parts. This is

also the reason why we have so little reliable information concerning

their life and work, and why the days of their deaths were not celebrated

for so long a period in the West. The apostles who devoted themselves

to the Eastern Empire were probably Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, Simon

Zelotes, and Jude. Thaddeus also laboured there for a time in Mesopotamia

and Osrhoëne. No traces remain of the labours of Matthias who is said to

have preached to the Ethiopians, and of whose life, a writer of the ninth

century, Autpert, Abbot of Monte Cassino, confesses nothing is known.[596]

Several of the apostles have been commemorated from the first in the

calendars, and always on the same day, while others, on the contrary,

appear on different days in different parts of the Church, a circumstance

which seems confusing to the historical investigator, but which can

easily be explained when one has correctly grasped the principles which

operate in liturgical matters. With regard to those who have everywhere

been commemorated from the first on the same day, one can usually be

certain that they died as martyrs in the Churches in question.

Although the only correct view is to maintain that the commemorations

of the apostles were treated in the same way as the days devoted to the

memory of the martyrs, and that their names appeared in the calendars

on the day of their death (_dies natales_), still this is true of only

a few indeed of their commemorations in the calendars actually in use.

For the majority of the apostles died in barbarian countries with no one

on the spot to collect information, and only much later a few floating

pieces of information concerning them were collected from popular

tradition. Another difficulty may have arisen from the different systems

of chronology in use, and so even when the day of an apostle’s death was

set down it was probably not understood by the Greeks and Romans, and so

was forgotten. For these and other reasons it came to pass that, later

on, when the commemoration of a certain apostle had to be fixed in the

calendar, the date of the invention or translation of his relics was

generally chosen, or finally the date was fixed simply by chance.

As absolutely trustworthy, I can, therefore, regard only the day of the

death of St Peter, St Paul, and St Andrew, perhaps also the day of the

death of St Mark and St Luke, since they ended their days in civilized

countries, at a period when the hierarchy of the Church had already been

established in those parts. With regard to St John, the question is open

to doubt, first, because he did not die a martyr’s death, and secondly,

because he did not preside as bishop over a particular congregation. Had

he done so, the list of bishops for that particular city would have been

careful to inform us of the fact.

Although the cultus of each apostle was originally local, yet there

are early traces that the cultus became universal. Thus already in the

fifth century a day within the octave of St Peter and St Paul seems

to have been dedicated to the cultus of all the apostles in common.

We find in the so-called Sacramentary of Leo I. the following prayer:

_Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui nos omnium apostolorum merita sub una

tribuisti celebritate venerari_, etc. The same prayer appears also in the

Gelasianum, where it is found in _lib._ 2, No. 33.[597]

A mediæval liturgist, Beleth, gave expression to the view that the

separate apostles had no special festivals in the primitive Church, but

that all together were commemorated on the 1st May,[598] and that finally

only St Philip and St James continued to be commemorated on this day. The

facts, however, as far as we have been able to learn, do not bear out the

opinion of this writer which he inferred from the greater calendars, but

the festivals of each of the apostles came into existence one by one,

from the ninth century onwards, until they reached their full number.

The council of Erfurt in 932 raised all feasts of apostles to the rank

of holy days of obligation for Germany. Pope Boniface VIII. in 1293 made

them all _duplicia_.

Even before the meeting of the Nicene Council, Constantine had built

a church in honour of all the apostles[599] in Constantinople, in

which he was afterwards buried.[600] It was rebuilt under Justinian

and re-dedicated on the 29th June 550, the feast of St Peter and St

Paul.[601] This church had considerable influence upon the cultus of the

apostles inasmuch as under Constantius attempts were made to provide

it with their relics, obviously with the intention of resembling Rome

as closely as possible. The relics of St Timothy were first translated

thither from Ephesus on 1st July 356, which caused a great increase

of devotion to this saint. He had lost his life in a popular uprising

in Ephesus under Nerva on 22nd January 97, of which his successor,

Polycrates, has given us an account.[602] The church became possessed

of a still greater treasure in the following year when the relics of St

Andrew and St Luke were placed in it.

As we should expect from what has been said above, there exists

historical material for the feasts of only a certain number of the

apostles, while others, as, for example, the feasts of St Matthew, St

Matthias, St Bartholomew, and St Thomas, are of no further interest than

to mark the translation of their relics.

In conclusion it may be useful to draw attention to the actual increase

of the festivals of the apostles in the calendars. The _Leoninum_ has

only two, the 29th June and the 30th November. The lectionary of Luxeuil

in the seventh century has the same number, _i.e._, the 22nd February and

the 29th June, that of Silos, about 650, has four (22nd February, 29th

June, 30th November, 27th December), and, in addition, the feast of St

Peter’s Chains. The calendar of St Geneviève (between 714-731) has the

same number, omitting St Peter’s Chains. From this point the number of

feasts of the Apostles increases rapidly; the calendar of Charlemagne

of 781 has eight already, and subsequent calendars contain ten or more.

A singular peculiarity appears in the calendar of Polemius Silvius (see

below) where we find only one feast of apostles, the 22nd February,

“Depositio SS. Petri et Pauli.” The ancient Neapolitan calendar brings

the number up to sixteen days, giving two commemorations to some apostles

and including the disciples Thaddeus and Barnabas.

9. _The Festivals of the Apostles and Evangelists in Particular_

(1) ST PETER AND ST PAUL

The 29th June, the commemoration of the martyrdom of the two chief

apostles, is the only feast of apostles that is still observed as a

public holiday. It can be regarded under two aspects as a universal and

as a local festival. It is important as a local festival, because, since

a constant tradition maintained that St Peter and St Paul were put to

death in Rome under Nero on the same day, it is only natural that this

day should be kept in Rome as the _dies natalis ss. apostolorum_, in

the customary manner from the first, and so was never forgotten. But

even in other localities, apart from Roman influence and tradition, we

find efforts made in antiquity to devote a day to the commemoration of

these same two apostles. This is proved by the fact that in the Arian

martyrology in use in the East, it had already a place, on the 28th

December, after St Stephen and the apostles St James and St John. This

is by no means an isolated phenomenon, for in the Armenian calendar it

has a corresponding place, _i.e._, on the 27th December, while in the

Nestorian calendar it appears on the second Friday after Epiphany.[603]

In Cappadocia, or at least in Nyssa, we find the Christmas season

again considered to be the suitable time for a collective feast of the

apostles, for the commemoration of the apostles Peter, James, John and

Paul follows the Feast of St Stephen.[604] Even in the upper valley of

the Rhone, it was felt necessary to observe the day of the death of the

two chief apostles, for the calendar of Polemius Silvius, which belongs

to this region, contains the entry: _depositio ss. Petri et Pauli_, but

on the 22nd February, the day on which in other parts of Gaul the Feast

of St Peter’s Chair was celebrated. That this calendar gives no feast of

any sort on the 29th June, shows that in his choice of the day, Polemius

was quite independent of the Roman tradition. The considerations which

weighed with him in so doing will be explained further on.

In other parts of Italy, the true day of the apostle’s death was

well known, and observed, as for example, at Milan in the time of St

Ambrose.[605] Among the sermons of Maximus of Turin, belonging to the

fifth century, we find no fewer than ten[606] for this feast. The sermons

of St Augustine, among which are five for this festival, show that in

North Africa the day was kept as a holy day; he speaks of it as a _dies

festus_ and a _sollemnitas_.[607] Moreover St Augustine belongs to the

number of those Fathers who expressly state that although both apostles

died on the same day of the month, they died in different years,[608] a

fact which the historical and biblical science of the day persistently

overlooks, which naturally must cause serious misgivings as to the

reliability of the principles on which its chronology is constructed.

Among the numerous sermons of St Peter Chrysologus there are none for

this day. As regards St Chrysostom, while we have seven sermons of his in

honour of the apostle Paul, we have only one “on Peter and the Prophet

Elias” conjointly, in which St Peter is only briefly mentioned in the

introduction and treated as of secondary importance. There is nothing to

show that it was preached on the 29th June.[609] The fact that neither

of these saints preached on this day, is an indication of the practice

followed at Ravenna and Antioch.

With regard to Rome, the local tradition, which regarded the 29th June

as the day on which both apostles were put to death, was committed to

writing by the chronographer of 354, and all later chronographers. A

western tradition, supported by many of the great Fathers of the Church,

adds further that, though both apostles died on the same day of the

month, they died in different years. This idea appears in St Augustine,

in the _Leoninum_, Arator, Gregory of Tours, and in three Greek writers,

but scholars have so far ignored it. It is further evident from the

_Depositio Martyrum_ that the day of their death was specially chosen

for a translation of their relics which took place in 258. The special

festivities observed in Rome are described for us by Prudentius from what

he had seen himself when he visited the city about 405. According to him

the whole city was in commotion: the faithful visited the tombs of the

apostles and in the two churches erected in their honour, pontifical mass

was celebrated.[610] This is in complete agreement with the tradition

according to which devotion to the martyrs was closely connected with

the spot where they suffered and with the date on which they suffered,

and the chief commemoration consisted in the offering up of the Holy

Sacrifice over their tombs. Owing to the distance which separated the

two churches of the apostles from one another, it was most fatiguing to

celebrate mass at both places, and so in course of time the festival was

divided into two parts, and the Mass in honour of St Paul took place

on the 30th June. An examination of the earliest Roman missals shows

that in the _Leoninum_ there is a number of masses for this day, all

commemorating the two apostles together, but, in the _Gelasianum_, on the

contrary, there is only one mass for the two apostles conjointly (_III.

Kal. Jul. in Natali SS. Apostolorum Petri et Pauli_), and, in addition,

one for each of them separately. It may be that the division of the feast

was then customary, but the 29th June continued to be called _Natalis SS.

Apostolorum Petri et Pauli_. As early as the fifth century the feast was

kept at Rome with a vigil and octave.[611]

At an early date, the 29th June, which had hitherto been celebrated

chiefly in the West, _i.e._, in Rome and the surrounding districts, began

to be observed as a universal festival of the whole Church, inasmuch as

it began to be celebrated in Constantinople. The Roman Senator Festus,

who had been sent on matters of state to the new Emperor Anastasius,

in 491, moved the emperor, according to Theodorus Lector, to celebrate

this feast solemnly in Constantinople.[612] Although the feast may have

been kept already in Constantinople before this time, it now began to

be celebrated with greater pomp. The day must certainly have been known

in Constantinople before this date, but can hardly have been kept as a

festival.

After this the 29th June appears in all Calendars and martyrologies as

the commemoration of the two chief apostles. In the West we find it

first in the Calendar of Perpetuus of Tours. The Carthaginian Calendar

is unfortunately defective, but that the day was kept there cannot be

doubted on account of the evidence given by St Augustine’s sermons. It is

also found in the later oriental Calendars, with the exception of a few

belonging to Egypt.[613]

While this feast, like the festivals of all martyrs, was originally

local, and was celebrated only in Rome and in the churches dependent upon

Rome, the esteem in which the Roman Church and the apostles were held

early gained for it the character of a universal feast.

(2) THE FEAST OF ST PETER’S CHAINS

The Roman breviary bases the foundation for this feast upon the following

legend. Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II.[614] since 421, was presented

with a chain at Jerusalem which was believed to have been that with which

St Peter was bound while imprisoned, as recorded in Acts, chap. xii. She

brought this chain to Rome, where another chain was already preserved in

the Church of St Peter on the Esquiline.[615] This is said to have been

the chain with which St Peter was confined during his Roman imprisonment.

Both chains appeared to be of the same workmanship, and united themselves

together of their own accord. Whereupon the church was rebuilt at the

Empress’s expense, and received the name of _Eudoxiæ ad Vincula_. There

is no trustworthy proof for the presentation of the second chain by

Eudocia, although there is evidence that in Rome the faithful prided

themselves on possessing a chain of St Peter before this supposed gift

of the Empress.[616] Under Benedict XIV. it was proposed to suppress the

lections in the breviary containing these legends.

The feast of St Peter’s chain is not in the _Gelasianum_, and appears

only in Calendars of the eighth century, as, for example, in that of

Bede, but not yet as a feast of obligation. The decree of the Emperor

Manuel Comnenus raised it to this rank in 1166. The spread of the feast

was undoubtedly facilitated by the circumstance that in 969 a courtier of

the Emperor Otho I. was healed in Rome by touching the chain.[617] That

the commemoration was fixed for the 1st August does not imply that this

was the day on which the apostle was set free from imprisonment; but in

this, as in other cases, the date of the Church’s dedication caused this

day to be chosen.

(3) THE CONVERSION OF ST PAUL

The Conversion of St Paul was kept as a holiday of obligation in

several dioceses of France and Germany, and especially in England.

It is uncertain where and when it first became so. It is not in the

_Gelasianum_ nor in the older editions of the _Gregorianum_, but appears

in the later texts of more recent editions, as a later addition, for

it is still frequently lacking in later MSS. and Calendars.[618]

Nevertheless it appears in Ado and Usuardus. The 25th January seems

originally to have had another signification; for in the recent critical

edition of the _Hieronymianum_ of De Rossi and Duchesne, the two oldest

recensions give on this day a translation of the relics of St Paul,

which is said to have taken place in Rome (_Romæ_, _Translatio B. Pauli

Apostoli_). The most recent of the ancient codices, that of Metz, now in

Bern, belonging to the tenth century, has a translation and conversion of

St Paul on the 25th January. The idea of the conversion soon replaced

that of the translation, and fixed the character of the feast. As such

it spread, and soon attained to universal acceptance. The translation

which the feast originally commemorated is believed by De Waal to have

taken place in the time of Constantine, when the basilica of St Paul was

erected[619] (_Translatio et Conversio S. Pauli in Damaso_, the words

_conversio_ and _in Damaso_ being added by a later hand).

(4) ST ANDREW AND ST LUKE THE EVANGELIST

We can deal with the festivals of these two saints together, for in the

year 357, on the 3rd March, their relics were solemnly translated at the

same time to the Church of the Apostles in Constantinople.[620] Until

this date the tomb of St Andrew was in Patras, where he had suffered

death. The previous burial place of St Luke is not specified, but it

may have been either in Patras or somewhere in the neighbourhood.

The possession of St Andrew’s relics was of great importance to

Constantinople, because he was regarded as the apostolic founder of

the Christian community there, and the catalogue of bishops, which,

historically speaking, only begins with Metrophanes (315-325), has

been carried back to him, inasmuch as it was maintained he had

ordained Stachys as first bishop of the See. More certain, from an

historical point of view, is his martyrdom at Patras, of which we have a

trustworthy account.[621] Besides this, there is a well-known encyclical

letter to the priests and deacons of Achaia, which in all essential

points agrees with the account of the martyrdom, although in some other

respects it is open to criticism.[622] The so-called martyrology of

Jerome on 5th February commemorates St Andrew’s ordination as Bishop of

Patras.

The date for St Luke’s death never varied and seems to be correct. Both

dates, the 18th October and the 30th November, appear in the oldest

Neapolitan Calendar, which contains no other festival of an apostle

except St James the Less (27th December). From the fact that the relics

of St Andrew and St Luke happened to be translated at the same time,

many ancient and modern writers drew the hasty conclusion that St Luke

had also died in Patras and been buried there. A document which, though

certainly late, can yet be traced back to Philostorgius,[623] gives the

true place of his death and burial as Thebes, which Paulinus of Nola

confirms. His relics may well have been translated thence at the same

time as those of St Andrew were brought from Patras. They were carried to

Constantinople at the command of the Emperor Constantius by the official

Artemius, who had also brought the relics of St Timothy to the capital.

(5) ST JAMES THE GREAT

James, the son of Zebedee and brother of St John the Evangelist, was a

native of Galilee. His labours, after the Crucifixion, were not of long

duration, for in the year 42 or 43 he was beheaded at the instigation

of King Herod Agrippa I., who had enjoyed indeed the dignity of king of

Judea since 37, but only during the last years of his reign did his power

extend over Jerusalem. According to the usual custom he came to Jerusalem

for the Passover, and then, in order to gain favour with the Jews, he had

St James seized and made away with shortly before the feast; and when

he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take up Peter also, in

order to make away with him too, after the feast. This happened not long

before the death of Herod himself, which is narrated in the same chapter

of the Acts (Acts xii. 1-4 and 23).

The day of St James’s death was shortly before Easter, or, as we should

say, in Holy Week, and, in accordance with this circumstance, the Copts

keep his commemoration on the 12th April,[624] and the Syrian lectionary

of Antioch on the 30th of the same month. Although these do not exactly

represent the actual day of his death, they are not far off from it.

The observance of the actual day was, moreover, interfered with by the

circumstance that it came at a season when the thought of our Lord’s

passion prevented the celebration of a martyr’s feast. In the menologies

he is mentioned only in the _Basilianum_ on the 9th October.

The bodily remains of St James, as well as those of St James the Less,

were still in Jerusalem in the sixth century.[625] In the ninth century

we find them in Spain, at Compostela, where they were an object of

great veneration, as we learn from Notker Balbulus.[626] They must have

been taken there some time between the seventh and ninth centuries. An

account of the translation, such as we possess in other instances, is

not extant; there is no information in any author to show when or by

whom the translation was carried out. The translation itself can well be

historically true, although the opinion that St James preached the gospel

in Spain is only a legend.[627] One is led to think that the relics were

secretly carried off by Christians from Jerusalem from fear of the Arabs,

and finally found a second resting-place in Spain.

The Roman breviary and martyrology place his feast on the 25th July,

which is marked as the day of a translation of his relics, without

giving any further particulars. The _Gelasianum_ does not mention St

James, and he appears in liturgical books only at the end of the eighth

century. His name is entirely absent from the older liturgical books of

the ancient Spanish Church, an inexplicable circumstance had he been

the apostle of Spain. The veneration for him begins to show itself in

Spain only from the ninth century. In Western Calendars he appears in

that ascribed to Charlemagne of 781, published by Piper, and also in

the later MSS. of the _Gregorianum_, but not in the sacramentary of

Mainz dating from 840. The entries in the different recensions of the

_Hieronymianum_ are noteworthy. The Weissenburg codex on the 25th July

has simply a martyr James, with no other specification except _Portus

Romanus_ as an indication of place; the Echternach codex describes

this martyr as _apostolus_ and _frater Joannis Evang._,[628] and adds

_Hierosolym_; the codex of Bern has briefly _Passio S. Jacobi_. It is not

evident on what grounds the two later recensions have made James, the

martyr of _Portus Romanus_, into the apostle. The _Neapolitanum_ does not

mention an apostle James on the 25th July, although it does on the 15th

November,[629] and, along with Philip, on 1st May. Although he is found

in Bede, he is absent from the Calendar of St Geneviève, dating from

731-741.

(6) ST PHILIP AND ST JAMES THE LESS

It is well known that in early days lists were drawn up containing the

names of those bishops at least who had presided over the chief sees,

along with the duration of their episcopates. Since some apostles had

acted as bishop in certain cities for a length of time, while others—as,

for example, St Paul—never settled down for long in one place, the

former, in addition to their martyrdom, had a yet further claim to be

commemorated. This is the case with St Peter, St James the Less, and St

Mark.

St James the Less, son of Alpheus or Clopas, immediately after Christ’s

death was entrusted with the office of Bishop of Jerusalem by the other

apostles, which he held for thirty years.[630] His death was caused by

the High Priest Ananias II., who availed himself of the interregnum

that intervened between the death of Porcius Festus and the arrival of

the new procurator Albinus. Gessius Florus succeeded Albinus in A.D.

64. St James’s death, according to St Jerome’s precise statement, fell

in the seventh year of Nero. According to St Jerome’s way of reckoning,

which agrees with the official method, Nero reigned fourteen years and a

half, and his seventh year corresponds with the sixtieth of the Christian

era.[631]

St James was commemorated in the East on the 27th December. This is his

date in the Arian martyrology, which is followed by the very ancient

Carthaginian Calendar. Although the latter incorrectly adds that he

was killed by Herod, it is evident that St James the Less is intended,

for all the Eastern documentary sources place the commemoration of St

James the Less in the Christmas season. They differ as to the day, some

commemorating him on the 26th, some on the 28th, the Neapolitan and

Mozarabic Calendars on the 29th, and the Syrian lectionary has his name

both on the 28th December and on the 23rd October.

In accordance with these ancient witnesses we would willingly place

his death on the 27th December, but there are strong reasons against

this. First, in these documents he is coupled for the most part with

St John the Evangelist, and it is unlikely that both of them died

on the same day. Secondly, in the most ancient document of all, the

Arian martyrology, immediately after St James and St John, on the 28th

December, come St Peter and St Paul, who suffered death on a different

date altogether; the compiler simply placed the chief personages

connected with our Lord on the days after Christmas. Thirdly, the church

built by Helena on the Mount of Olives, in which St James and St John

received special veneration, was dedicated on the 27th December.[632]

Here again, as in so many other cases, the date of the church’s

consecration became the date of the festival of the saint specially

connected with it. Of course it may be thought that the church was

consecrated on the day of the saint’s death, but for this there is, at

any rate, no proof concerning this particular church. And so we must give

up the 27th December as the real day of St James’s death. It may have

been the day of his appointment to the episcopate.[633]

That this is so is further confirmed by the accounts written by pilgrims,

in which it is stated that St James was buried in the church on the

Mount of Olives, and that he had owned a house in Jerusalem and a burial

place, in which he had buried Zachary and Simeon.[634] It is true that

later Latin authorities expressly give his _dies natalis_, _i.e._ the

actual day of his death, on the 27th December,[635] but their evidence

is not conclusive. In marked distinction from the Eastern tradition, the

_Hieronymianum_ gives his death on the 25th March: “Hierosolyma passio

Jacobi Justi,” or, as in the Bern codex, “fratris Domini.” This date

coincides strikingly with the statement of Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._, 2,

23, 11), that the death of St James happened during the season of Easter.

The Constantinopolitan authorities, like the Roman, take an independent

line. The most ancient among the former do not mention St James the Less,

but the _Basilianum_ names him on the 23rd October and the 30th April,

both times with the title then only given to martyrs (ἄθλησις). We shall

have occasion to refer elsewhere to the arbitrary and singular character

of this work.

With regard to the Roman service-books and those derived from them, they

agree, beginning with the _Gelasianum_, in placing St James along with

St Philip on the 1st May. This is owing to the fact that in the sixth

century a church was erected in honour of these two apostles in Rome,

which is known at the present day as the Basilica of the Apostles. Pope

Pelagius I. (556-561) commenced the erection of the church, which was

completed by his successor John III.[636] It was dedicated on the 1st

May, and so it came to pass that the commemoration of these two apostles

is celebrated in the Roman rite on this day. Later on, the 1st May came

incorrectly to be considered their _dies natalis_.

The commemoration of St Philip in the menology of Basil, and in the

_Neapolitanum_, is on the 14th November. A monastery of St Philip existed

in Constantinople as early as 511.

(7) ST JOHN

As regards St John the Apostle and Evangelist, we have seen his

commemoration was joined with that of St James the Less, on the 27th

December, although this was not the date of their deaths. In course

of time St John gradually eclipsed St James and gained possession of

this day for himself alone; yet in the _Hieronymianum_ and in the

Gothico-Gallic missal, ascribed by Mabillon to the eighth century, St

John and St James are still commemorated together (_Natalis Jacobi et

Joannis_). In the _Gelasianum_, and also in later Roman and Frankish

martyrologies, and in Bede, St John alone is commemorated, as at the

present day.

St John died and was buried in Ephesus. When his grave was opened,

probably under Constantine, who built a church in his honour in the part

of Constantinople called Hebdomon, no remains of his body were found in

it, but only powder, which was called manna. The intention evidently

was to provide this church in Constantinople with relics of its titular

saint. It is not surprising that the idea became prevalent among the

Greeks that St John, like our Blessed Lady, had been taken up bodily into

heaven. This opening of his grave must have taken place on the 8th May,

for the menology of Constantinople makes mention on this day of the manna

mentioned above.[637] The 26th September seems to have been regarded as

the day of his death, for the same authority mentions the “Departure”

of the apostle (μετάστασις τοῦ ἁγίου Ιοάννου τοῦ θεολόγου)[638] on

this date. So, too, does the Calendar of Naples under the name of his

Assumption (_Adsumptio Joannis Evangelistæ_). Among the Jacobites of

Antioch also the 26th September was kept as the day of his departure

(_decessus Joannis Evang. ex mundo_).[639] Where there is so much

divergence, nothing certain can be determined. Most probably Morcelli is

correct in supposing that the 26th September was the day on which St John

died in Ephesus, and that on the 27th December some church or chapel, or,

at least, an altar, was dedicated to his honour.[640]

The 6th May appears already as a festival of St John the Evangelist in

the Gothico-Gallic missal, without any further specification, but simply

with the rubric: _Missa S. Joannis Apostoli et Evangelistæ_. The Roman

festival on this day, “Joannis ante Portam Latinam,” was introduced on

the ground of Tertullian’s statement.[641] The oldest recensions of

the _Hieronymianum_ do not mention it, nor yet the recension of Metz

belonging to the ninth century.

(8) ST SIMON AND ST JUDE (THADDEUS)

The apostles Simon and Jude, like St Philip and St James, are constantly

commemorated together in Western Calendars, but in their case there is

an inner reason for this arrangement. According to a tradition, which

appears in the pseudo-Abdias, the two apostles spent thirteen years

together in Persia labouring for the spread of Christianity, and there

suffered death at the same time in the city of Suanir.[642] The day of

their death is here given as the 1st July, which is also given in some

Western martyrologies—such as those of Naples and Toledo, which plainly

derive their information from this source.

In the Roman Calendar, and in those dependent upon them, the two apostles

are indeed constantly commemorated together, but on the 28th October. No

reason has been discovered for the choice of this date. It does not seem

to have been due either to the _Hieronymianum_ or to Bede. The former

has “In Suana, a city of Persia, the birthday of the apostles Simon

and Jude”[643] (_Cod. Epternac._). As far as Roman sacramentaries are

concerned, St Simon and St Jude appear only in the later recensions of

the _Gregorianum_.

The menology of Constantinople does not contain St Simon, but it has

Thaddeus on the 20th August. The _Basilianum_ has an apostle Simon on

the 29th April who is called Jude, and on the 10th May the apostle Simon

Zelotes, and, further, an apostle Jude on the 22nd May and 19th June.

All this is obscure and arbitrary. The fact that these apostles are

not joined together, but have each their separate day, agrees with the

Eastern service-books. The lectionary of the Syrians of the eleventh

century has St Simon on the 10th May, Jude on the 16th May. The Coptic

Calendar in Seldenius has Jude Thaddeus on the 20th May.

A remarkable proof of the obscurity hanging over the apostles is found in

the circumstance that in some calendars which commemorate them together

on the same day other saints of the same name are found in addition.

Thus in the _Neapolitanum_ there is a Jude on the 26th May and a “passio

S. Simonis Ap.” on the 10th September, as well as the commemoration of

them both together on the 1st July. In the Parisian lectionary of St

Geneviève, in the Calendar of Charlemagne, and in the _Gelasianum_, there

is no mention of St Simon and St Jude.

(9) ST MARK THE EVANGELIST

According to a constant and universal tradition, he was the first Bishop

of Alexandria, and his name appears first in all lists of the bishops

of that See. However, as far as calendars and martyrologies go, his

name does not appear in those of the West until the ninth century, nor

in the _Constantinopolitanum_ until the same period. Unfortunately the

most ancient Coptic Calendar in Mai is imperfect for the month of April.

It is only in the _Synaxarium_ of the ninth century, published by Mai,

that he appears. His name appears in all later Coptic Calendars, in the

_Neapolitanum_, which mentions him a second time on the 17th May, and in

the _Basilianum_. There is not much to be said in support of the 25th

April as the day of St Mark’s death. Moreover, the _Hieronymianum_ gives

the 23rd September as the date of his death, but the Paschal Chronicle

puts it down on the 1st Phormathi, _i.e._ the 26th March.[644] St Jerome

in his chronicle gives the year of his death as the eighth of Nero.

That the processional litanies take place on St Mark’s day is a mere

accident, as is proved by the circumstance that in the oldest Latin

Calendars—as, for example, in that of Fronteau, and in the Mainz edition

of the _Gregorianum_—the _Litania major_ alone is put down on the 25th

April without any mention of St Mark.

(10) THE FEASTS OF ST PETER’S CHAIR

(_18th January and 22nd February_)

The historical investigation of these two feasts necessitates the

consideration of two questions which must be discussed separately—first,

their name and significance, and, secondly, the dates on which they are

celebrated.

_Cathedra_, when used in its literal sense by the oldest ecclesiastical

writers, means the bishop’s seat in the apse of the church behind

the altar, upon which he sat, when not otherwise engaged, during the

performance of divine service. Figuratively, the _cathedra_ is the symbol

of episcopal authority in general and of the bishop’s teaching authority

in particular, just as the throne is the symbol of royal authority.

_Cathedra Petri_, then, signifies especially the teaching authority of

St Peter and his successors in the See of Rome, or, in other words, the

Primacy. This can easily be proved from the writings of the Fathers, and

the evidence for it has often been set forth in writings and treatises

dealing specially with this question, and so it need not be repeated

here.[645] That the feast was intended to celebrate the bestowal of the

Primacy on St Peter is clear from the oldest liturgies, and will become

sufficiently evident in the course of our remarks.[646]

But how came it to pass that the Feast of St Peter’s Chair—we

are considering at present only the more ancient of the two

commemorations—was fixed for the 22nd February? This question can only

be answered by a critical investigation into the history of the feast.

The two feasts present entirely different peculiarities. The second half

of February among the heathen Romans was marked by popular festivities

partly religious and partly secular in character; on the 13th February

commenced the great festival of the dead, _Parentalia_, and lasted

eight days, the concluding day being called _Feralia_. During this time

no marriages were celebrated, the temples remained closed, and the

magistrates laid aside the external insignia of their office. Upon the

commemoration of the departed followed immediately, on the 22nd February,

the festival of surviving relatives—the _Chari_—named in consequence

_Charistia_ or _Cara Cognatio_. This celebration had no recognised place

among the functions of the official worship of the State, and no public

festivities presided over by the colleges of priests were provided for

it.[647] Nevertheless, it was a very popular feast, and stuck its roots

deeper into the life of the people than any of the official festivals.

All ranks joined in celebrating it; the portraits of the ancestors of

each family were adorned with garlands, a sacrificial meal was presented

to the household gods, incense was burnt, and a pig was offered in

sacrifice; where quarrels had broken out in a family, harmony was again

restored, and the religious ceremonies were performed amid the rejoicings

of all; the deeds of famous members of the family were recited, and the

day concluded with a banquet, which lasted until a late hour.[648] In

addition to this, the _Charistia_ was also a festival in the schools;

the walls were hung with garlands, and presents were given to the

teachers.[649]

Such a festival must have been highly popular. It seems to have been

observed everywhere wherever Latin was spoken, in Africa as well as in

Gaul. In Gaul the feasting customary on this occasion continued to take

place long after it had been given up elsewhere.

These banquets are censured in two sermons, attributed to St Augustine,

but not by him, though they are ancient, and date from about the sixth

century. From these we see that the _Feralia_ and the _Charistia_ are

no longer separate; the preacher speaks only of the meals and gifts

which were offered on behalf of the departed.[650] These continued on

into Christian times, and in Gaul took place on the 22nd February,

although this was not the correct day for the _Feralia_.[651] It seems,

then, that in many places the memory of both living and dead relatives

was celebrated on one and the same day, and this was always the 22nd

February. About 1198 an Englishman, who lived in the North of France,

informed Beleth[652] of the feastings which took place on this day.

Accordingly it cannot be mere accident, when we find a Christian feast

very early fixed for this day. Gregory the Great recognised that people

must not be all at once deprived of the old customs; he ordered that in

England, at the dedication of churches and on the feasts of the martyrs,

the newly converted Christians might retain some of the heathen customs

which had been usual on similar occasions.[653] Instances in which this

principle was put into practice are, for example, the processional

litanies and the customs observed at the New Year. It is clear that the

appointment of a Christian feast on the _Charistia_ is another instance

of the tendency to deprive the heathen festivals of their harmful

character.

That this held good of the feast in question, and that a determined

attempt was made to give it a Christian character, is shown by the fact

that in other countries a different feast was appointed for this day.

Polemius Silvius, Bishop of Sion, in the upper valley of the Rhone,

composed a calendar for the year 448, the most ancient Christian calendar

in existence, which he dedicated to Bishop Eucherius of Lyons.[654] In

this document the heathen festivals are omitted, everything especially

heathen has been removed, and only historical and meteorological notices

remain; it contains some saints’ days, although very few in number. On

the 22nd February we find the entry, _Depositio SS. Petri et Pauli_,

along with a note on the _Charistia_, which shows that the intention of

the writer was to supplant the heathen feast of the _Cara Cognatio_.

Again, it is noteworthy that an event was chosen for this purpose

which was commemorated in Rome, _i.e._ the burial of the two chief

apostles. The 29th June was not then kept as a festival of the apostles

in the upper valley of the Rhone, which belonged at that time to Gaul,

and probably was not kept either in the whole province to which Sion

(_Sedunum_) belonged.[655]

The idea of Polemius Silvius in making the 22nd February into a

commemoration of St Peter and St Paul found no imitators, but the custom

of celebrating instead the _Cathedra Petri_ on this day became general

in the Gallican liturgies. The significance of this feast is expressed

in the words of the collect for the day: “God who on this day hast given

Blessed Peter to be head after Thee to the Church” (_Deus qui hodierna

die B. Petrum post te dedisti caput ecclesiæ_); _i.e._ the occasion

of the feast was not the foundation or organisation of one particular

church, either Rome or Antioch, but the appointment of St Peter to be

head of the whole Church in general, or, in other words, the bestowal of

the Primacy upon him, or his ordination as bishop (_natale episcopatus_),

as others prefer to have it.[656] In this connection it must be borne

in mind that, in antiquity, it was already the custom to celebrate the

anniversary of the bishop’s consecration, and that special masses exist

in the old sacramentaries, and among the sermons of St Leo the Great

there are some for such occasions.

From the fourth to the ninth century, we find this feast of the 22nd

February (Cathedra Petri), without further specification, in the

greater number of calendars and martyrologies, especially in those of

Gaul. As the latest which give only one feast of this name, we may

mention the martyrology of Wandlebert, the Calendar of Corbie of 826 in

d’Achery,[657] and also the Gothic Calendar. Nevertheless, there are

some Frankish calendars which contain no feast of this name, as, for

example, that of St Geneviève, published by Fronteau, and the Calendar of

Charlemagne. It is not in the _Neapolitanum_, nor in certain lectionaries

of the same period, such as the _Comes Albini_, the lectionary of

Spires, and, finally, the Roman sacramentaries.[658] It is remarkable

that neither the _Gelasianum_ nor the _Gregorianum_ have a feast of St

Peter’s Chair, yet it is certain that the feast was known in Rome in the

fourth century, for the chronographer, referred to on page 295_n._, in

his _Depositio Martyrum_ sets down: “VIII. Kal. Martias, Natale Petri de

Cathedra.”

A remarkable alteration now took place, doubtless caused by another view

being taken of the meaning of the feast. When the words _Cathedra Petri_

were no longer taken as referring to the bestowal of the Primacy or

the episcopal and teaching office in general, but as referring to some

definite episcopal See, then the question was asked, Is Antioch meant or

Rome? For although the official lists reckon Evodius, and not St Peter,

as first bishop of Antioch, still there were writers of antiquity, such

as Origen, who represent St Peter’s residence in Antioch (Gal. ii. 11) as

his Antiochene episcopate. This view led to the division of the feast

into a Roman and an Antiochene Feast of St Peter’s Chair; for reasons

which are unknown, the 18th January was chosen for the former, while the

latter continued to be celebrated on the 22nd February.

The martyrology of the Venerable Bede marks the date at which this

division of the feast came into existence. In the original recension,

given by the Bollandists, the feast of the 18th January does not

appear, but the feast of the 22nd February has the note attached, “At

Antioch.” It is possible that Bede considered the feast commemorated

the commencement of a particular episcopate, and since, according to

his idea, the Antiochene episcopate of St Peter preceded his Roman, and

Antioch must have been the first See occupied by the apostle, he added

the words, “At Antioch, where the disciples were first named Christians.”

The separation is complete in Ado and Usuardus, and appears in the oldest

editions of the _Hieronymianum_, and, in defect of further information,

the compiler of this document may be regarded as the originator of the

separation.[659] There thus arose a threefold practice—either both feasts

were kept, or neither, or that of the 22nd February; the last was the

case in only a few dioceses. The Cologne Calendar of the fourteenth

century had only one feast, but the more ancient calendar belonging to

the ninth century had both.[660]

This diversity of usage, resulting from the independence of each diocese

in the adoption of festivals, was put an end to by Pope Paul IV. at the

advice of Cardinal Sirleto, when, on the 6th January 1558, he ordered

that both feasts should be observed throughout the entire Catholic

world.[661] At the consultations concerning the reform of the Breviary in

1742, it was considered that the two feasts should once more be joined

into one, but this, however, was not done, which,[662] from a historical

point of view, is to be regretted, for neither Eusebius nor the official

lists of bishops know anything of an Antiochene episcopate of St Peter.

The pseudo-Clementines make use of St Peter’s activity in the See of

Antioch for their own ends,[663] and to them must be traced back the

statements of Origen, Jerome, and others, for in antiquity, as well as in

the Middle Ages, they enjoyed more consideration, and were more widely

read, than at the present day. In the ninth century it was regarded as

an inviolable principle of canon law—as we know from the case of Pope

Formosus—that a bishop must not be translated from one See to another.

How could this principle have been maintained in the face of so striking

an instance of translation?

The Feast of St Peter’s Chair was unknown to the Greeks and Easterns in

antiquity, but the modern Uniats have naturally adopted it.

10. _The Festivals of St Mary Magdalen, St Cecilia, and St Catherine_

(_22nd July, 22nd and 25th November_)

The saints which have occupied us until now were all prominent figures

throughout Christendom, and stood in close relation to the Redeemer

and His work; in consequence, their festivals were kept as feasts

of obligation in the Middle Ages, at a period when it seemed almost

impossible to do too much towards the development of the cycle of

feasts; a large number kept this rank until recent times. Other saints

of less importance enjoyed the same distinction through their being the

patrons of particular countries, dioceses, or localities; it would take

too long to deal with such here; besides, their festivals are not of

historical importance. Still, among festivals of this sort there are

some which formerly were kept as feasts of obligation; of these several

are deserving of notice, since they attained a rank above that of a mere

local festival, either because of some special circumstance, or because

the life of the particular saint in some way or other caught the popular

fancy.

(1) ST MARY MAGDALEN

This is especially the case with regard to St Mary Magdalen, whose

feast, not indeed in Rome, but throughout the South of France, and even

elsewhere, as in Cologne, was kept as a feast of obligation in the Middle

Ages.

According to the general opinion, Mary, the sinner of Magdala, who took

her name from that place, either because she was born there, or because

it was the scene of her excesses, was the sister of Lazarus and Martha

of Bethania; she was the same person who humbly bathed the feet of our

Blessed Lord with her tears and anointed them with ointment. According to

another opinion, prevalent in the Greek Church, there were three Marys

connected with our Lord—Mary, the sister of Lazarus; Mary of Magdala,

on the Lake of Gennesaret; and the sometime sinner mentioned in St Luke

vii. 37. This latter opinion distinguishes Mary Magdalen from Mary,

the sister of Lazarus. The Latin tradition, on the other hand, from

Tertullian downwards, regards them as identical; the sister of Lazarus

having lived a life of sin at Magdala, came, after her repentance, to

live with her brother and sister at Bethania, but was still popularly

known as Mary Magdalen. She was also the same person, mentioned by the

other two synoptists (St Mark xvi. 9; St Luke viii. 2), who was possessed

by seven devils.[664] Both opinions received support from the words of

the gospels; but the Roman liturgy has adopted the latter, and even the

lections drawn up for St Martha’s Feast are influenced by it. This office

of St Martha is only of late introduction in the Liturgy.

In addition, we must take into account the adventures of the Magdalen

and her family after our Lord’s death, or rather the adventures ascribed

to her. Our information is scanty; the pseudo-Clementines state that

Lazarus followed St Peter in his missionary journeys in Syria;[665]

other documents mention Cyprus as the scene of his labours and death.

Absolutely no information concerning the further doings of his sisters

has come down to us from antiquity; however, Western mediæval documents

dating from the thirteenth century are remarkably rich in details; in

these it is admitted, indeed, that he was Bishop of Cyprus, although this

would have been incompatible with the actions here ascribed to him. This

information is contained in a voluminous work which has been audaciously

ascribed to Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda, although it is difficult to

see how he, in his retired monastery, surrounded by forests, could have

gained possession of such information.[666] The greater part of this

work, chapters i.-xxxv., is devoted to a description of the life of St

Mary Magdalen and her family, which follows and elaborates the biblical

narrative; but it contains several additions to the facts mentioned in

the New Testament; especially there is a great deal said about Marcella,

as the housekeeper of the family at Bethania is said to have been called,

who later on played an important part in the legend. The second part

begins with the thirteenth year after Christ’s Ascension, when St James

the Great had been beheaded and St Peter was in prison. Then, according

to the story, Herod Agrippa drove the faithful from Palestine, and

twenty-four of the disciples of Jesus, with Maximinus at their head,

were sent by the apostles as missionaries to Spain and Gaul. St Mary

Magdalen joined them, and Martha and Lazarus followed her example, the

latter being at the time Bishop of Cyprus; they embarked unmolested,

and were carried by the south-east wind to the shores of Southern Gaul,

where Maximinus became Bishop of Aix in Provence. The other disciples

distributed themselves over the other provinces, of which there were

seventeen in Gaul and seven in Spain—twenty-four in all, just the number

of the disciples. As a matter of fact, Spain and Gaul did comprise this

number of provinces, not however in the time of Christ, but in the fifth

century, as the _Notitia Dignitatum_ shows. This betrays the late origin

of the legend. St Mary Magdalen is said to have lived at Aix with Bishop

Maximinus, and to have often preached there to the faithful. According

to other accounts, she is said to have passed thirty years in a life of

solitude and penance in the cave of the Ste Baume, near Marseilles, while

Lazarus is said to have been Bishop of Marseilles, where he died a martyr.

More trustworthy, though not so interesting, is the information which

we find in Greek sources concerning Lazarus and his sisters. From these

we learn no more than that the Emperor Leo VI. in 887 built a church in

his honour in Constantinople, and in 899 a monastery;[667] thither the

relics of Lazarus, but not those of his sisters, were translated from

Citium in Cyprus, where they had hitherto reposed. The menology of Basil

and the calendars of the Copts and Syrians show that St Mary Magdalen

was honoured in the Greek Church on the 22nd July. The resurrection of

Lazarus was specially commemorated in the Constitution of Manuel Comnenus

on the second Saturday before Easter.[668]

In the West the earliest traces of the cultus of St Mary Magdalen are

found in Bede, and then in the martyrologies of Rabanus, Ado, and

Usuardus, always on the 22nd July, and with the designation, “Natale.”

The _Hieronymianum_ does not mention Lazarus and St Mary Magdalen,

but the name of Martha occurs five times; however, the sister of

Lazarus cannot be intended, for the days (29th July and 17th October)

are not those on which she is commemorated. Although the first-named

martyrologies contains the mention of St Mary Magdalen, it knows nothing

of her voyage to the South of France. Usuardus, indeed, puts Lazarus

and Martha together on the 17th December, but merely says that a church

was erected in their honour at Bethania. As far as the service-books

are concerned, the name of St Mary Magdalen appears for the first time

in a missal of Verona of the tenth century, and then in some missals

of the eleventh century, but the missals of the Roman rite (secundum

consuetudinem Rom. curiæ) mentions her only in the thirteenth century;

it is the same with regard to St Martha.[669] Even to the present

time Lazarus has not obtained a place in the Roman Breviary, but his

commemoration is sanctioned for certain localities on the 17th December.

The lections for his office contain no account of his life.

The attitude of the Roman Breviary is significant as indicating the

change of views. The lections for St Mary Magdalen are simply taken

from a homily of St Gregory, and contain no references to her life,

while those of the much later office of St Martha (29th July) contain

the more recent form of the legend with the later additions. They know

nothing, however, of the pseudo-Rabanus, according to whom St Mary and

her companions were forcibly placed by the Jews on board a boat without

rudder or sail, and yet, notwithstanding, reached Marseilles in safety.

With regard to St Mary Magdalen in particular, the tradition must not

be overlooked which states that she was originally buried in Ephesus;

this is maintained by Gregory of Tours at the end of the sixth century,

and then, at the beginning of the seventh century, Bishop Modestus of

Jerusalem states that St Mary joined St John at Ephesus after the death

of our Lady, and there suffered martyrdom; the third witness is Bishop

Willibald of Eichstätt, who visited her grave in Ephesus.[670] In 887, as

we have said, Leo VI., the Philosopher, placed her relics in the Church

of St Lazarus, which he had built in Constantinople, but the writers

who mention this fact do not imply that her relics were translated from

Cyprus, as some modern writers arbitrarily assert, on account of the

mention of St Lazarus’ relics being brought from that island on the same

occasion.[671] However this may be, the tradition says nothing about St

Mary Magdalen being the sister of Lazarus; in fact, she is described by

Glycas as a daughter of Simon the Leper. This tradition furnishes fresh

grounds for the belief that the account of the translation of St Mary’s

relics refers to a truly historical event.[672]

The investigation of scholars have brought to light the following facts

as throwing light upon the Provencial legend: (1) An early sarcophagus

at Marseilles, belonging to a certain Lazarus, Bishop of Aix (407-417),

who was thought to be the Lazarus mentioned in the New Testament; (2)

the existence of reputed relics of St Mary Magdalene in the Monastery of

Vezelay in the diocese of Autun. The earliest official mention of Lazarus

is in a decree of Pope Benedict IX. of the year 1040[673]; this pope

consecrated the Church of St Victor at Marseilles, and from this date the

legend developed rapidly. Its complicated history has been clearly set

forth in the investigations of L. Duchesne and J. Rietsch; the latter

shows that it is probable the Emperor Leo VI. presented the relics of St

Lazarus to the widowed Empress Richardis on her visit to Constantinople

during her travels in the East; she probably gave them to the Convent of

Andlau in Alsace, over which she presided.

Among the numerous works on this subject we may mention: M. Faillon,

_Monuments Inédites sur l’Apostolat de Sainte Marie Madeleine en

Provence_ (a collection of all documents genuine and otherwise bearing

on the question), Paris, 1848. Lacordaire, _Vie de Sainte Marie

Madeleine_, Paris, 1860, popularised the legend, and made it a point of

national honour to defend it. L. Clarus (Volk), _Geschichte des Lebens,

der Reliquien und des Kultus der heiligen Geschwister Magdalena_,

_etc._ Regensburg, 1852, is uncritical, but pleasantly written. L.

Duchesne, _Sainte Marie Madeleine_, Toulouse, 1892. J. Rietsch (_Die

Nachevangelische Geschichte der Bethanischen Geschwister_, _etc._,

Strassburg, 1902) has probably settled the question of the relics by his

careful investigations.

(2) ST CECILIA

A parish church was dedicated to St Cecilia in Rome as early as 499,

to which two priests were attached, and a cemetery was named after

her fellow-sufferers, Tiburtius and Valerian, in the sixth century.

No further information respecting her cultus has come down to us from

antiquity, and in the literature of the patristic period, with the

exception of Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth century, her name is not

mentioned. Her cultus was apparently limited to Rome, although she had a

chapel or church in Ravenna,[674] as the poet just mentioned states.

A change took place when Pope Paschal I. in 821 discovered the saint’s

body, in consequence, as he said, of a vision; until then it was believed

that the Lombards had carried it away with them. Paschal had the body

taken from the cemetery of SS. Sixtus and Prætextatus, where he found it,

and brought to her church in Rome, where it still remains. Immediately

after her death, according to the statement in her _Passio_, her body

must have been placed in the papal crypt.[675] Her name was then inserted

in the martyrologies of Ado, Usuardus, and Rabanus Maurus, and placed

under the 22nd November, which is certainly the day of the translation

of her relics, for the _Hieronymianum_ in its oldest recension gives the

16th September as the day of her death (_Natalis_). St Cecilia appears in

Bede and in the Frankish calendars of the eighth century composed under

Roman influence, but in the most ancient calendar of Carthage, one looks

for her name in vain.[676] After the miraculous discovery of her relics

and their translation, on account of the interest taken in such matters

in the ninth century, her fame spread throughout the whole Christian

world; and churches were dedicated to her, even in the recently converted

North Germany.

From the point of view we are considering, sufficient has been said about

St Cecilia, still we cannot omit the opportunity of making some remarks

on the date and circumstances of her martyrdom. We have a full account

of it in the _Passio S. Cæciliæ_, which, according to Fachmäuner, was

drawn up at the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century.

This document states that Cecilia was condemned to death and executed

by a prefect of Rome called Turcius Almachius; a Roman bishop (papa

urbanus) placed her body in the papal crypt, and dedicated her house as

a church; this pope had already been a confessor for the Faith on two

occasions before the death of St Cecilia. These statements cause great

difficulty, since Pope Urban I. (223-230), who can alone be meant here,

lived during the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, who was very

well disposed towards the Christians, and during whose reign they were

free from persecution. It is exceedingly improbable that a high official

could have persecuted them in Rome, under the eyes of the emperor, in the

way described in the _Passio_. It is impossible that Pope Urban I. could

have twice been a confessor at this time, and no evidence of such a thing

exists; moreover, we have no evidence for the existence of a prefect of

Rome called Turcius in that period, but we do find persons of this name

in official positions in the time of Constantine and later. All this,

taken along with the circumstance that it was a time of much unsettlement

in Rome, agrees well with the fourth century, when the emperor was seldom

in the capital, but does not suit the reign of Alexander Severus.

The fact that St Cecilia appears neither in the ancient Roman Calendar,

the _Depositio Episcoporum_, nor in the chronographer of 354, points

to the conclusion that she must belong to the reign of Julian. All

the indications of time agree with this date; the only thing against

it is the name of the contemporary pope—Urban; this may be an error,

but how the name found its way into the _Passio_ can be explained on

various grounds; either the original text did not contain the pope’s

name, which was introduced by mistake at a later date by some redactor

of the original document, or, if the words “papa urbanus” were in the

original document, they are to be taken in the sense of “Bishop of the

city of Rome.”[677] This falls in with the pontificate of Liberius all

the better, since, in the years 355-365, he was opposed by an anti-pope,

Felix, who had a small following, and spent his time mostly outside Rome,

where also he died.

The circumstance that the pope, whatever his name may have been, had

been twice a confessor for the Faith also suits Liberius, who had been

banished under the Arian Constantius to Berœa (355-357). After the

Councils of Seleucia and Rimini in 359, Constantius even desired his

death, because he refused to subscribe to the Arian Creed, and he was

obliged to remain in hiding for two years in the catacombs until the

death of the tyrant (November 361).[678]

The opinion that the martyrdom of St Cecilia took place under Alexander

Severus has hitherto received the most support, and the difficulties have

been explained on the supposition that it happened while the emperor

was absent from the capital; this, however, is arbitrary, and does not

really remove the other difficulties. There is no need to dwell upon the

dates which have been assigned in more recent times. With regard to the

more ancient dates, Ado, Usuardus, and De Rossi place the martyrdom under

Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, plainly on account of the use of the plural

by the prefect when he said (c. 24) “the emperors” had commanded that

the Christians should be punished by death, but this general command was

repeated during all the persecutions from Nero to Diocletian. Less wide

of the mark is the most ancient attempt of all to fix the date, _i.e._,

made by the first compiler of the _Liber Pontificalis_, for although not

remarkable for historical knowledge, he places the death of Cecilia under

Diocletian.

The family of the Turcii did not belong to Rome, but came from Samnium,

where one of the name in the third century is mentioned as a proprietor

of brick works in Aufidena.[679] Various members of the family quickly

made their way to high offices in the State,[680] and in the summer of

363 a Turcius Apronianus was prefect of Rome, where he distinguished

himself as a persecutor of the Christians. His wife, however, was

a sister of the elder Melania, St Jerome’s pupil, through whose

influence the whole family was baptised in 397. As a Christian Turcius

Apronianus enjoyed the friendship of St Paulinus of Nola and the priest

Rufinus.[681] His descendants flourished all through the fifth century,

at the end of which a Turcius Asterius Secundus was consul. All this,

taken in conjunction with the influential position of the family, easily

accounts for the absence, in ecclesiastical literature of a subsequent

period, of references to St Cecilia, at whose death a Turcius had played

such an evil part. Otherwise it would be incredible that the preacher and

poets of that date should have passed over a story which presented so

many points of interest.[682] Nothing more is known of Turcius Almachius

than what is related in the passion of St Cecilia. He must have been

prefect from the end of 361 to the autumn of 362.

When all has been said, we must admit that the account of St Cecilia’s

martyrdom, as it has come down to us, gives rise to serious difficulties

from whatever point of view we regard it. Tillemont and Baillet were

inclined to regard it as lacking all authority. The only way to give full

force to all the facts of the case is to place it in the period to which

it really belongs, _i.e._ to the reign of Julian the Apostate.

(3) ST CATHERINE

The Festival of St Catherine, though only of late introduction,

quickly spread throughout the whole of Western Christendom; not only

did Faculties of Theology select her as their patroness, but her day

(25th November) was widely adopted for annual fairs, and her name

was frequently given to children of both noble and lowly families.

The original form of her name was Æcaterina (Αἰκατερίνα), the modern

Russian Jekaterina; its derivation from the Greek _katharos_ cannot,

therefore, be maintained. Catherine is said to have been a noble virgin

of Alexandria, who, according to the legend, expostulated with the tyrant

Maxentius on account of his cruelty during the Diocletian persecution,

and was, in consequence, seized by him and forced to hold a disputation

with fifty philosophers. Not only did St Catherine hold her own against

the philosophers, but even won them over to Christianity; whereupon the

empress, who had heard of her wisdom, visited her in prison, escorted by

two hundred soldiers. The soldiers, however, along with their captain,

were converted also, and condemned to death in a body by the emperor.

The martyr herself was next tortured, milk, instead of blood, flowing

from her wounds, and then put to death by the sword. So far the legend as

given by Metaphrastes; the carrying of her body by angels to Mount Sinai

is a later addition.

It does not require much exercise of the critical faculty to realise

the improbabilities of this story, and at the present day critics are

all but unanimous[683] in rejecting it; and so we need only concern

ourselves with it here in so far as it has given rise to the Feast of

St Catherine. In this connection we observe that not only the ancient

Church as a whole knew nothing of St Catherine, but, what is still more

to the point, neither the Syrian nor Egyptian Calendars published by

Selden and Mai make any mention of this remarkable martyr. Among the

Greeks, the _Menologium Basilianum_ is the first to mention her, while

in the Latin Church she does not appear until the fourteenth century.

Durandus, although he treats of all the important saints’ days, does

not name St Catherine, neither does the _Liber Ordinarius_ of Siena

concluded in 1263. In the numerous Italian missals consulted by Ebner,

St Catherine is usually found only in the supplements which date from

the fourteenth century. In the body of the missal, she appears only in

the missal of Trani, belonging to the end of the thirteenth century.

It is not difficult to fix the period at which the legend met with

general acceptance, for St Catherine is absent from the menology of

Constantinople, but is commemorated as a martyr of the second class in

that of Basil. To this period belongs three Latin poems found among the

works of Alfanus,[684] Abbot of Monte Cassino, and later Archbishop of

Salerno (1058-1085). Alfanus, whom St Peter Damian calls a lover of

truth, but who is proved to have been very credulous by a story which he

tells of some unnamed Byzantine monarch,[685] appears to have been the

first to make the legend known in the West. The origin of the story is

lost in obscurity, and, as in the case of the legend of St Lazarus, we

have hitherto been unable to discover reliable data on which to base any

conclusion. The story of St Catherine may well be one of those popular

tales, drawn up in a historical form, which were circulated in the Middle

Ages, and occupied the place of poetic fiction. Its excision at any early

date from the service-books is much to be desired in the interests of the

respect due to them.

11. _The Festival of All Saints_

The Festival of All Saints has no intimate connection with the

ecclesiastical year, but is of the nature of an addition from without,

and, like the saints’ days, is fixed for a special date. In the earliest

ages the Church paid an external cultus to the martyrs alone, among whom

she included, at an early date, St John the Baptist, but it was only in

the course of centuries that other saints, not martyrs, attained to this

distinction. The cultus of simple confessors, however, formed at first

quite the exception, and only became general along with the introduction

of canonisations. Thus in the early ages there was no Festival of All

Saints, but only a commemoration of all the martyrs, the intention being

that no martyr might be left unhonoured. Their number had been increased

to such an extent by the Diocletian persecution, that it was no longer

possible to celebrate a special commemoration of each one separately, and

so many martyrs had to be passed over; thus a commemoration of all the

martyrs was instituted as a matter of course.

As far as we know at present, we first meet with this commemoration in

the Church of Antioch, which, on the first Sunday after Pentecost, kept

a commemoration of all the holy martyrs. We have some sermons of St John

Chrysostom preached on this day.[686] In course of time the feast became

general throughout the East, and an All Saints’ Sunday finds a place in

the Eastern calendars, while the Uniats have accepted the Roman date for

the feast.

In the West the festival passed through the following phases. The Emperor

Phocas († 4th October 610), as master of Rome and lord of Central Italy,

gave the Pantheon to Boniface IV. at the pope’s request. The building had

been erected by Agrippa in honour of Augustus in 27 B.C. The learned are

not agreed as to whether it was originally a temple or a bath (Laconicum

sudatio), but it had certainly statues of the gods in the niches which

adorn its interior; however, in the seventh century it no longer served

its original purpose, and its maintenance was a source of expense to the

imperial treasury. The pope had the building cleansed and made into a

church, which he dedicated to our Lady and all the martyrs;[687] the day

of the dedication was the 13th May (609 or 610), which thus came to be

observed in Rome as a commemoration of all the holy martyrs.

A second stage in the early development of the feast was reached in the

next century, when Gregory III. (731-741) dedicated an oratory in St

Peter’s to “the Redeemer, His holy Mother, all the Apostles, Martyrs,

Confessors, and all the just and perfect who are at rest throughout

the whole world.” In this oratory the monks were to celebrate vigils

and say mass in honour of the saints.[688] Here we have the same idea

manifested which underlies the Festival of All Saints. A Roman basilica

had been already dedicated in honour of all the apostles, and the day of

its dedication, the 1st May, probably served as a commemoration of all

the apostles. The Church of “S. Maria ad Martyres,” the Pantheon, was,

moreover, thoroughly restored by Gregory III.[689]

The third and decisive stage in the progress was reached under Gregory

IV. (827-844). A mediæval, but, in this case, well-informed writer states

that a great number of pilgrims went annually to Rome for the Feast of

all the Martyrs (13th May), and that, since the supply of provisions in

Rome in spring was insufficient for the support of both pilgrims and

inhabitants, Gregory IV. changed the feast from the 13th May to the 1st

November.[690] Frankish writers of the same period inform us that this

pope exhorted Louis the Pious to introduce the festival into France, and

that Louis, with the consent of all the bishops of Gaul and Germany,

accordingly ordered it to be observed throughout his empire in 835.[691]

Many writers on this account give this as the year in which the festival

was instituted, and attribute its origin to Louis the Pious, but in this

they are mistaken. Sixtus IV. (1471-1484) provided All Saints’ with an

octave.[692]

12. _The Commemoration of All Souls_

The pious duty of prayer for the departed (2 Machabees xii. 46) finds

expression in private and public devotions. The public prayers usually

take place on stated days, _i.e._ the day of the death, the seventh

and thirtieth days after death, and the anniversary; the observance of

these devotions is left in the hands of the relatives and friends of the

deceased. The religious Orders began at an early date to observe these

pious customs with regard to their own departed members.[693] Besides

this, for the last thousand years a particular day in the year has been

set apart for the commemoration of all the departed in general; this was

the 2nd November, or, if the 2nd fell on a Sunday, the 3rd. The impulse

which led to its introduction into the ritual of the Church came from

Cluny, for in 998 the Abbot Odilo issued an ordinance to this effect

(the so-called _Statutum S. Odilonis pro Defunctis_)[694] to all the

monasteries of his congregation. In this it was directed that in all

monasteries of the Order on the 1st November, after vespers, the bell

should be tolled and the office of the dead recited, and on the next day

all the priests of the congregation were to say mass for the repose of

the faithful departed.

This example found imitators without there being any legislation on the

point. Other Orders speedily took it up, such as the Benedictines and

Carthusians, etc.;[695] but it was longer before the secular clergy

adopted this practice in each diocese. The date of its introduction

varies greatly in different countries; it will be sufficient for us to

give a few dates for which we have certain information, which have a

special interest for us.

The first diocese to adopt All Souls’ Day seems to have been Liège,

where it was introduced by Bishop Notker († 1008).[696] It appears in

the martyrology of Besançon, called after Bishop Protadius, and compiled

between 1053 and 1066; it is mentioned in the fourteenth of the Roman

Ordos, which belongs to the thirteenth century; it is not found in

the Cologne Calendar of the same century, nor in the more ancient one

published by Binterim; it is also absent from a calendar put out in

1382.[697]

We have more detailed information respecting the Church of Milan. Bishop

Otricus (1120-1125) had already introduced the observance of All Souls’

Day, but placed it on the day following the dedication of the cathedral,

_i.e._ the 15th October. This arrangement continued to the time of St

Charles Borromeo, who in 1582 adopted the Roman, or rather the original

date.[698] In the Greek and Russian Churches the commemoration of the

departed is kept on the Saturday before the Sunday “Apoecros,” which

corresponds to our Septuagesima Sunday. The Armenians keep it on Easter

Monday.

13. _The Festivals of the Angels_

The existence of higher and purely spiritual beings formed part of the

religious belief of the Jews; they are mentioned in countless passages

of the Old Testament, but no worship was paid directly to them by the

Synagogue. In the Christian Church the cultus of the angels, especially

of St Michael, can be traced back to remote antiquity. In more recent

times special days have been set apart in honour of the other two angels

named in the Holy Scriptures, and also of the Guardian Angels; St Gabriel

is honoured on the 18th March, St Raphael on the 24th October.

The first Christian emperor built a church in honour of St Michael on

the headland called Hestiæ on the Bosphorus. It was built on the spot

called Anaplus, distant from Constantinople seventy stadia by land and

thirty-five by water. The place afterwards took the name of Michaelion,

after the church. On the opposite headland on the Asiatic shore Justinian

also erected a church of St Michael. Nicephorus makes Constantine the

founder of both churches, but Theophanes speaks only of one built by

him.[699] According to Du Cange, there is said to have been no fewer

than fifteen churches and chapels of St Michael in Constantinople and

the neighbourhood in the Middle Ages. Other towns also erected, at an

early date, churches dedicated to St Michael, as, for example, Ravenna in

545. St Michael enjoyed special veneration at the same period at Chonæ

in Phrygia,[700] an ancient and celebrated place of pilgrimage, and the

chief centre in the Byzantine Empire of the cultus of the angels.

Chonæ, the present Khonas on the Lycus, situated on a tributary of

the Mæander in the ecclesiastical province of Laodicea, is the name

given since the ninth century to the ancient Colossæ, to the Christian

community of which city St Paul addressed one of his epistles, wherein

he already speaks of the worship of angels. Even in the time of the

apostles there existed a half-Jewish, half-Gnostic sect which disturbed

the peace of the local church by teaching that Christ was inferior to the

angels, who must be worshipped and invoked in preference to Him; St Paul

(Colossians ii. 18) rejects this teaching as heretical, nevertheless, it

did not die out, for in the fourth century the Council of Laodicea was

compelled to censure this false worship of the angels in its thirty-fifth

canon.[701] This was not a prohibition of the cultus of the angels in

general, for at the same period St Ambrose and St Hilary in other parts

of the Church exhorted the faithful to invoke them.[702] The true worship

of the angels existed also in Colossæ, for Metaphrastes tells us that an

apparition of the Archangel Michael himself took place there, in honour

of which Manual Comnenus later on prescribed that the Festival of the

Apparition of St Michael should be kept as a festival of the second class

on the 6th September (Apparitio S. Michælis in Chonis).

The first church dedicated to the Archangel in Rome, or rather in its

neighbourhood, seems to have enjoyed great veneration. The oldest Roman

sacramentary, which goes by the name of Leo the Great, gives no less than

five masses for the anniversary of its dedication; in three of them St

Michael is mentioned by name in the prayers or prefaces. From the fact

that in the other masses the angels in general are spoken of without

special mention of St Michael, we must not conclude, as many liturgical

writers have done, that they deal with the cultus of the angels in

general. The church was situated, according to subsequent information,

on the Via Salaria at the sixth milestone from Rome; but beyond this

nothing further is known about it. These masses for the day of the

Consecration of the Basilica of the Holy Angel in the Via Salaria[703]

are placed on the 30th September in the _Leonianum_. As regards later

Roman sacramentaries, the prayers for a mass in honour of St Michael are

given in the _Gelasianum_ on the 29th September. The _Gregorianum_ gives

on the same day the dedication of the basilica of St Michael without the

addition “in via Salaria.”[704] It is probable that another church of St

Michael is meant here whose dedication took place on the 29th and not the

30th September. The day of this church’s dedication has continued to our

own time to be kept as the Festival of St Michael the Archangel.

In the city itself there was also a church erected in honour of St

Michael, the date and founder of which are both unknown. Among the

ecclesiastical buildings of Pope Symmachus (498-514) in the city of

Rome, the _Liber Pontificalis_ says that he enlarged and beautified the

basilica of St Michael.[705] A church of St Michael was also built by a

pope of the name of Boniface near the Circus Flaminius,[706] and, in the

ninth century, the Church of St Michael _in Sassia_ was also erected.

The Churches of the West accepted the Roman date, the 29th September,

for the Feast of St Michael,[707] and in the Middle Ages it ranked as

a holy day of obligation, especially in England, where King Ethelred

in 1014 provided it should be observed with a vigil and a preparatory

fast of three days.[708] In Germany the Council of Mainz (813) in its

thirty-sixth canon established it as a festival; and the imperial banner,

to be carried in battle, bore the figure of St Michael. In France the

feast was established by the sixty-first canon of the diocesan Synod

of Tours in 858. In Constantinople the feast was observed on the 8th

November; it is marked in the menology as the Synaxis of the Archangel

Michael, while in the _Basilianum_ the same day is called only a Synaxis

of the Archangel. In the later Coptic Calendar of Calcasendi, St Michael

occurs no less than six times (7th April, 6th June, 5th August, 9th

September, 8th November, and 8th December). In the Syrian lectionary he

is set down in the 6th September.

In the course of the sixth century a second Festival of St Michael began

to be celebrated in the West, in consequence of an apparition near

Sipontum on Monte Gargano which took place on the 8th May; the year,

unfortunately, is not known, but the Bollandists place it in the interval

between 520 and 530. Since Monte Gargano, like Chonæ in the East, became

a famous Western place of pilgrimage, this local festival gradually

came to be observed in other places in the West. The calendars and

martyrologies frequently confuse it with the feast of the 29th September,

as, for example, the two oldest recensions of the _Hieronymianum_,

those of Metz and Weissenburg; and similar mistakes occur in other

calendars.[709]

Gabriel and Raphael have no special commemoration either in the

_Hieronymianum_ or in other ancient martyrologies and calendars of the

Latin Church, neither do they appear in the Greek menologies; it is only

in the tenth and eleventh centuries that in a few instances we find

them commemorated on special days.[710] Although Gabriel appears in the

most ancient Coptic Calendar, it is doubtful whether the day chosen for

his commemoration, the 18th December, is not in the first instance a

commemoration of the Annunciation, and only secondarily and accidently a

feast of the Archangel. In the same way, his name appears in the Syrian

lectionary on the 26th March, the day after our Lady’s Annunciation.

A special festival in honour of the Guardian Angels was first celebrated

in the sixteenth century in Spain on the 1st March,[711] and afterwards

in France on the first free day after Michaelmas. Pope Paul V. permitted

the whole Church to celebrate the Feast of the Guardian Angels (27th

September 1608), and, at the request of the Emperor Ferdinand II.,

prescribed its observance throughout the imperial dominions. Clement IX.

in 1667 placed the feast on the first Sunday in September, and provided

it with an octave. Clement X. in 1670 made it a _festum duplex_ of

general obligation, and gave it a fixed place in the calendar on the 2nd

October; the older date, however, still remains in Germany and in a part

of Switzerland.[712] Leo XIII. raised it to a duplex majus.

14. _The Two Festivals in Honour of the Holy Cross_

(_3rd May and 14th September_)

The discovery of the true cross is ascribed to St Helena, the mother of

Constantine the Great. Helena was born about 246 at Drepanum in Bithynia,

of humble origin, having served as maid in an inn (stabularia) where

Constantine Chlorus made her acquaintance about 273. From their union

sprang the future Emperor Constantine, born on 27th February 274 at

Naïssus, now Nisch in Servia. When Constantine Chlorus was raised to the

rank of Cæsar on 1st March 292, he, like his colleague, had to separate

from his wife (whether Helena or another is disputed), in order to form

a more influential alliance, with Theodora, daughter of Maximianus

Hercules, by whom he had three sons.

But in 306, when Constantine after his father’s death became the

emperor’s colleague and Cæsar, he raised his mother to a position

of honour and brought her to the court. When, in 311, he professed

Christianity, Helena also followed his example, and at the age of

sixty-four or sixty-five became a Christian. The misfortunes of her

son’s family life disturbed her last years, and she was especially

grieved at the death of her grandson Crispus, whom Constantine caused to

be murdered in 326, at the instigation of his stepmother Fausta.[713]

As a pious Christian she found consolation in the performance of good

works, to which she devoted herself. She died in 326, and her body was

buried at Rome in the Via Lavicana, but two years later it was taken to

Constantinople.[714] In her honour Constantine changed the name of her

birthplace to Helenopolis, and bestowed upon her the title of Augusta; on

medals she is called Flavia Julia Helena.

She obtained great honour after her death, and in Jerusalem especially

her memory was held in veneration by the religious virgins of the

locality;[715] St Ambrose calls her a woman of good and holy memory;

St Paulinus of Nola had a high idea of her worth, and speaks of her as

deserving all veneration, and Theodoret, although imperfectly informed

as to the facts of her life, praises her exuberantly.[716] As to her

admission among the ranks of the saints, this was effected only at a late

date, and in a few instances. We find her name, indeed, in the eighth

century in the menology of Constantinople set down along with that of

her son on the day of his death (21st May). This shows that the author

of the menology was ignorant of the day of her death, and also that no

cultus was paid to her immediately after her decease; still, to both the

term saint is applied in this document. No trace of her cultus appears

in the West before the ninth century. The most ancient MSS. of the

_Hieronymianum_ do not contain her name; she is not to be found either

in Bede or Ado; Usuardus has placed her in his martyrology under the

18th August,[717] and from him her commemoration passed into the Roman

martyrology on the same day, but in the other liturgical books she has

no place.[718] When we find “S Helena” in a graffito or in an itinerary,

this cannot be regarded as a fact of much importance.[719]

Soon after he became sole emperor, Constantine decided to erect a church

over the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. According to Eusebius,[720] the

heathen had filled up the place with rubbish, raised the level of the

ground, and built a temple to Venus on the site. This was now destroyed,

the rubbish removed, and deep under the surface the cave of the Holy

Sepulchre was discovered.[721] The emperor’s letter to Bishop Macarius

of Jerusalem concerning the building of the church is given in full

by Eusebius. The erection of the building was undertaken at once, and

Eusebius has given us a full description of it.[722] At this point

Eusebius begins to speak of Helena, and relates how she came to the East

and visited the holy places, and on this occasion she gave rich presents

to the churches which her son had built both in Bethlehem and on the

Mount of Olives.[723] Whereupon Eusebius relates the death of Helena,

but of her discovery of the Holy Cross he says not one word; it is only

in his Commentary on the Psalms (lxxxvii. 11; cviii. 29) that certain

mysterious expressions are found which may refer to it.[724] This silence

is all the more remarkable since Jerusalem belonged to the ecclesiastical

province of Cæsarea, and Eusebius must in any case have known of the

event.

Later historians and writers, beginning with Socrates and Sozomen,[725]

have a great deal to say upon the subject. According to them, the cross

of our Lord, and those also of the two thieves, along with the title

written by Pilate, were all found deep under the surface of the ground;

but the cross on which our Lord suffered could not be distinguished from

the other two. Bishop Macarius solved the difficulty by obtaining a

miracle from God, in answer to his prayers; the three crosses were laid,

one after another, upon a sick woman, in the belief that she must be

cured when touched by our Lord’s cross. And so it happened, as the third

cross touched her body, she recovered. This healing of a sick person

has become in later writers, as, for example, in Paulinus of Nola,[726]

a resurrection from the dead, showing in this, as in other cases, the

development of the legend. In addition, the nails of the cross were also

found, and these, along with half of the cross, were sent by Helena to

her son in Constantinople; the other half was preserved in Jerusalem in a

silver shrine in a chapel specially built for its reception.

Socrates, from whom these details are taken, places these events after

his account of the Nicene Council; many writers place them in the year

after the Council, but this is incorrect, since in that year Helena died;

the Alexandrine Chronicle alone, which in such matters is very reliable,

gives the day and the year for these events, _i.e._ 14th September

320.[727] Other authorities give a yet earlier date; indeed, a Syrian

legend relates that a certain Protonika had discovered the Holy Cross

during the reign of Tiberius.[728]

The day of the discovery of the Holy Cross was kept annually at Jerusalem

with great ceremony, all the more as the consecration of the church was

kept on the same day. The two principal churches in Jerusalem, the one on

Golgotha, which bore the title of _Martyrium_ and _Ad Crucem_, and the

other, also built by Constantine, and called the _Anastasis_, were both

consecrated on the same date, _i.e._ the 14th September.[729] Already in

the fourth century numbers of pilgrims came to Jerusalem to celebrate

this festival; they came from distant countries, from Mesopotamia and

Egypt, and among them several bishops were to be found. The Gallic

pilgrim, of whom we have so often spoken, was present at this festival,

and has left an interesting description of it, and a later pilgrim, the

penitent Mary of Egypt, was converted on the occasion of the festival. We

have already related how the Holy Cross was exposed for the veneration of

the faithful every year in Jerusalem on Good Friday.

The 14th September was at first only a local festival at Jerusalem and

in those other towns which possessed portions of the Holy Cross, such as

Constantinople and Apamea; it spread afterwards to other places, and soon

became universal in the East. It is called in the East the Exaltation of

the Cross (ὕψωσις τοῦ τιμίου καὶ ζωοποιοῦ σταυραῦ, or τῶν ἁγίων ξύλων),

from which is taken its Western name, _Exaltatio Crucis_, but the pilgrim

Theodosius, who visited the Holy Land about 530, employs the correct

term, the Finding of the Cross (inventio crucis).[730] According to the

menology of Constantinople, the festival was preceded by a preparation of

four days (10th to 13th September). On the three last days of Holy Week

the court and all the high officials took part in the public worship of

the Holy Cross, as we learn from a writer[731] of the seventh century.

The Coptic calendars usually prolong the celebration during three days.

In the seventh century the relic of the Holy Cross was connected with an

event of great importance. Chosroes II., King of Persia, began to make

war against the Eastern Empire at the time when Heraclius ascended the

throne; he captured the cities of Apamea and Edessa, and defeated the

Greeks in several engagements; in June 614 his general Salbarus took

Jerusalem with great slaughter. He laid waste the churches, and carried

off to Persia, with the rest of the booty, the portion of the Holy

Cross which was preserved there. The course of the war still remained

unfavourable to the Greeks until Heraclius, having made peace with

the Bulgarians, himself led the full strength of his army against the

Persians in 621. The fortune of war changed, and the Greeks reconquered

their lost territory, being aided in this by internal discord among

the Persians. Chosroes was deposed and murdered in 628; his successor,

Siroes, hastened to make peace with the Greeks, and restored to them

the wood of the Holy Cross. At the end of the year Heraclius returned

as victor to his capital, and at the beginning of the following year he

set out for Syria, taking the Holy Cross with him. He brought it himself

from Tiberias to Jerusalem,[732] where he handed it over to the Patriarch

Zacharias on the 3rd May, if the traditional date be correct. Tradition

further adds that, arrayed in his royal robes, he essayed to carry it

upon his shoulders, but at the foot of the hill of Calvary he found

himself unable to proceed further until, upon the advice of Zacharias, he

laid aside his royal apparel. No festival in commemoration of the event

was introduced in the East, although it was in the West.[733]

With regard to the spread of these two festivals throughout the Church,

we must call attention to a remarkable fact; the day of the discovery

of the Holy Cross by Helena (14th September) naturally existed as

a festival from the first in Jerusalem, from whence it soon spread

throughout the entire eastern half of the Church, but in the West,

although the discovery of the cross was already well known in the fourth

century, the festival in honour of the event was not adopted, at least

not at once.

It was just the opposite with regard to the recovery of the cross by

Heraclius; the grief at the news of its loss was equalled by the joy

which the whole Christian world felt at its recovery. While in the East

people remained content with the already existing feast, in the West the

day of the recovery of the cross was kept as a solemn commemoration, and

was placed in the calendars and martyrologies at an early date; we find

it mentioned by the name “Day of the Holy Cross” (_dies sanctæ crucis_)

in the lectionary of Silos, which belongs to about 650—probably the

earliest mention of the festival. The ancient Gallic liturgies published

by Mabillon, both the lectionary and sacramentary, contain the Festival

of the Holy Cross in spring, but call it “The Finding of the Cross”

(_Inventio Sanctæ Crucis_).[734] None of these service-books mention the

feast of the 14th September. The _Gregorianum_ has both feasts, so has

the _Gelasianum_, at all events in Thomasi’s edition, but the second is a

later addition.[735]

The way in which the _Martyrologium Hieronymianum_ treats these feasts

is worthy of notice. The Weissenburg Codex, written about 750, has both

days; the Echternach Codex, which represents the oldest form of the text,

has neither, and the Bern Codex, the latest of the three recensions,

has only one, _i.e._ the 3rd May, which, in common with all Latin

authorities, it calls the Finding of the Cross.[736] The authentic text

of Bede has only the 3rd May, so too has the sacramentary of Padua,

belonging to the first half of the ninth century.[737]

These notices might easily be increased, but they are sufficient to show

how that in the West, when it was known that the Holy Cross had been

recovered from the Saracens, the feast of the 3rd May was, in the seventh

century, immediately introduced, but the feast of the 14th September

only became known in the eighth century, and won its way to acceptance

slowly and partially. In many churches it was received quite late, as for

example in Milan in 1035.[738]