The authority for the dedication festival is our Lord's observing the feast of the dedication of the Temple. This festival has an octave: as also had the Jewish feast, though the Passover and feast of Tabernacles had not.
'But this festival specially denoteth that eternal dedication, in which that other church, the holy soul, shall be so dedicated and united to God that it shall never be transferred to other uses: which will take place in the octave of the Resurrection.' The Psalms for the office of the festival are the Domini est terra, Judica me Domine, Deus noster refugium, Magnus Dominus, Quam dilecta, Fundamenta ejus, and Domine Deus (Durandus, Book VII, 48).
APPENDIX H
ON THE DEDICATION OF A CHURCH
The following particulars are extracted and condensed from Martene's invaluable work: and as his account is not easily accessible, and somewhat long, it has been thought well to subjoin them here.
Churches were often, in the primitive ages, dedicated by more than one bishop. Constantine having completed a magnificent church at Jerusalem, invited the prelates, then assembled in council at Tyre, to assist in its consecration (Euseb. Vit. Const. iv, 43; Sozomen. i, 46).
Constantius his son, having finished a church erected by his father at Antioch, Eusebius of Nicomedia, the intruding patriarch of Constantinople, summoned a council under pretence of consecrating the church, however much in reality to decide against the Catholic doctrine of Consubstantiality. Ninety-seven bishops were present (Sozomen. iii, 5).
So it was also in the Western Church. This is proved by the Preface to the Fourth Council of Aries, holden in 524: which begins, 'When the priests of the Lord had assembled in the will of God to the dedication of the church of S. Mary at Aries.'
In the time of S. Louis, Pope Pascal I consecrated the church of S. Vincent, with the Sacred College of Bishops and Cardinals. About the year 1015, the crypt of the monastery of S. Michael was consecrated by S. Bernard of Hildersheilm and two other bishops; and three years afterwards, the church being finished, it was consecrated by the same S. Bernard with three other bishops (Vita S. Bernardi. cap. xxxix, xl).
All these bishops took an actual part in the service. In the consecration of the church of Mans, in 1120, the high altar was consecrated by Gilbert, Archbishop of Mans: S. Julians by Galfred of Rouen: Hildebert of Mans consecrated S. Mary's; Reginald of Anglers that of the Holy Cross. There is a fine passage to the same point in Sugerius's book on the dedication of the church of S. Denis: 'Right early in the morning,' saith he, 'archbishops and bishops, archdeacons and abbots, and other venerable persons, who had lived of their proper [{198}] expense, bore themselves right bishopfully; and took their places on the platform raised for the consecration of the water, and placed between the sepulchres of the holy martyrs and S. Saviour's altar. Then might ye have seen, and they who stood by saw, and that with great devotion, such a band of so venerable bishops, arrayed in their white robes, sparkling in their pontifical robes and precious orfreys, grasp their pastoral staves, call on God in holy exorcism, pace around the consecrated enclosure, and perform the nuptials of the Great King with such care, that it seemed as though the ceremony were performed by a chorus of angels, not a band of men. The crowd, in overwhelming magnitude, rolled around to the door; and while the aforesaid episcopal band were sprinkling the walls with hyssop, the king and his nobles drive them back, repress them, guard the portals.'