The Conversion of St Paul (Jan. 25), was of late introduction. It does not appear in the correct text of Bede’s Martyrology, and in only late texts of the Gregorian Sacramentary. There is reason for believing that the day was first observed to mark the translation of relics of St Paul at Rome, for so it appears in the Hieronymian Martyrology, and the period of transition seems to be marked in the Martyrology of Rabanus Maurus (ninth century), where we find at Jan. 25, ‘Translation and Conversion of St Paul.’ It is not found in England in the Pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York (A.D. 732-766), but it appears in the Leofric Missal, in the second half of the eleventh century. It is unknown in the Greek Church.
St Mary Magdalene (July 22), who is identified in the West with the woman who was a sinner, and with Mary the sister of Lazarus, is distinguished from each of these in the Greek service-books which also mark her festival on July 22. Among the Easterns she is thought of as ‘the holy myrrh-bearer,’ one of the women who brought the spices to the tomb of the Lord. In various places in the West, though not at Rome, the day was a day of obligation in the middle ages. It appears in some service-books in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but not in missals, secundum consuetudinem Romanae curiae, till the thirteenth[101].
There was a festival of St Mary Magdalene (July 22) in the English Prayer Book of 1549. The collect and gospel (Luke vii. 36 to the end of the chapter) show that no English Reformers identified the Magdalene with the woman who was a sinner. The festival disappears in the Prayer Book of 1552.
St Barnabas, the Apostle (June 11). The Greeks commemorate on this day ‘Bartholomew and Barnabas, Apostles.’ The festival probably marks the supposed finding of the body of Barnabas (having a copy of St Matthew’s Gospel in his hand) in the island of Cyprus in the fifth century. Barnabas is not found at June 11 in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology; nor in the Martyrology known as Gellonense, but it is noted in Bede (though there is some doubt whether the entry is not due to Florus), and in the later Martyrologies.
The Greek Church commemorates (many of them with proper names attached) the seventy disciples of Luke x. 1, called in the service-books ‘apostles.’
Octaves. The word Octave is used sometimes for the eighth day after a festival, sometimes (in later documents) for the space of eight days which follow the festival. It may be regarded as an echo or prolongation of the festival. In the Eastern Church what is known as the Apodosis (see p. 135) in a measure corresponds to the Western Octave. It has not unreasonably been conjectured that they owe their origin to an imitation of the festal practices of the Hebrews (Levit. xxiii. 6; Num. xxviii. 17; Deut. xvi. 3). Octaves were originally few: they appear first in connexion with Easter and Pentecost, and, occasionally, with the Epiphany. In the eighth and ninth centuries Octaves became more numerous. Yet in the Corbie Kalendar (A.D. 826), assuming that the movable feasts of Easter and Pentecost had their Octaves, we find in addition only the Octaves of Christmas, Epiphany, Peter and Paul, Lawrence and Andrew. This falls in well with what is said by Amalarius (about the same date) who, after noticing the Octaves of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost, adds, ‘We are accustomed to celebrate the Octaves of the natalitia of some saints, that is, of those whose festivals are esteemed as more illustrious amongst us’ (De ecclesiasticis officiis, iv. 36). At Rome we find St Agnes having an Octave (Jan. 28) at a date earlier than that with which we have been dealing[102]; and even to-day in the Roman Missal and Breviary there is an interesting survival in the persistence of the old name, Agnetis secundo, and of ‘propers’ for the day. Liturgically, the ancient practice in the West was to insert a simple commemoration on the eighth day of festivals.
The prolongation of a festival for eight days may be found illustrated by the practice of the Church at Jerusalem in the fourth century, as recounted by ‘Silvia’ in her descriptions of the Epiphany, the Pascha, and the feast of the dedication of the churches known as the Martyrium and the Church of the Resurrection.
The great multiplication of Octaves in mediaeval times has been attributed to the influence of the Franciscans, who in the language of Kellner ‘provided an inordinate number of Octaves in their Breviary, and observed each day of the Octave with the rite of a festum duplex[103].’
The somewhat elaborate rules with respect to Octaves and their relation to the observance of other festivals, as enjoined in the modern Roman rite, can be found in such technical works as those of Gavantus and Ferraris. It must suffice here to observe that within the Octaves of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, the Epiphany, and Corpus Christi, Votive and Requiem masses are prohibited.
Vigils. The origin of vigils is obscure. The proper service of each Lord’s Day was preceded in early times by what may be regarded as something like a vigil, a service before the dawn of day; and some think that this view may be deduced from Pliny’s well-known letter to Trajan. But in this there would seem, perhaps, to be a reading into the document of more than its contents warrant. However this may be, we find as early as Tertullian that there were among Christians ‘nocturnae convocationes,’ the solemnities of the Pascha being more particularly referred to[104]. The exact nature and object of these assemblies are not described. Evidence is more full at a later date for vigils of some kind, not only before the Lord’s Day but also before the Sabbath[105]. At the period when ‘Silvia’ visited Jerusalem the faithful seem to have engaged in services before the dawn on every Lord’s Day. And in Gaul in the fifth century, as we gather from Sidonius Apollinaris[106], the vigils were not all night-watches but services before day-break. About a century later than Tertullian, we find the Council of Elvira, near Granada, some time in the first quarter of the fourth century, enacting a canon (35), declaring that women should not spend the night-watches (pervigilent) in cemeteries, ‘because often under the pretext of prayer they secretly commit serious offences (scelera).’ There is no further explanation; and the probable conjecture has been offered that it may have been the practice to have vigils in the cemeteries on the night before the oblation was offered at the tomb of one of the martyrs. That there was in Spain at this date some kind of service in the cemeteries seems not improbable from the fact that the canon immediately preceding that which we have noticed forbids the lighting of wax tapers in cemeteries in the day time.