[46] This view (fanciful though it seems) should not be summarily dismissed; see Kellner, pp. 101-2.
[47] [According to Clement of Alexandria (Strom. i. 145, 146) the Basilidians kept Jan. 6 as the festival of the Baptism, and it was preceded by a Vigil. Edd.]
[48] It may interest the English student to be given a sketch of the principal features of the Sarum Breviary and Missal in relation to the subject of the festival. At Mattins the first three lessons are from Isaiah (lv. 1-5, 6-12; lx. 1-7), speaking of light, and the calling of the Gentiles. The versicle after the 1st lesson is ‘and the nations, shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising.’ The response and versicle after the 2nd lesson touch on the gifts of gold and incense from Saba; ‘the kings of the Arabs and of Saba shall bring gifts’; and this note is sounded again and again. The 4th, 5th and 6th lessons are from a sermon of St Leo, and the responses and versicles relate to the visit of the Magi. In the response and versicle to the 7th lesson the baptism of Christ is recounted; and subsequently there are several references to the baptism. The collect is solely confined to the thought of the revelation of God’s only begotten Son to the Gentiles by the guiding of a star; and this is the dominant (though not exclusive) feature of the rest of the service. During the octave the baptism is given greater prominence; and on the octave itself the miracle at Cana has an important place, as well as the baptism. In the Missal the propers are confined to the revelation to the Gentiles and the visit of the Magi. But on the octave and the Sunday within the octave the baptism of Christ forms the leading thought.
[49] Duchesne, Chr. Worship, E. tr., 266 f., where certain variations in the Armenian and Nestorian Kalendars are exhibited.
[50] Possibly ‘the Baptist’ is a bungle of the transcriber.
[51] [On these commemorations of St James and St John see further C. L. Feltoe in J. Th. St. x. 589 f. Edd.]
[52] The Hieronymian Martyrology is a mechanical and unintelligent piecing together of Eastern and Western lists, to which African additions were made as late as A.D. 600. Its origin has been investigated by De Rossi and Duchesne, V. de Buck and Achelis: see Wordsworth’s Ministry of Grace, p. 66.
[53] Cathemerinon, Hymnus XII.
[54] De Corona, 3.
[55] Contra Celsum, VIII. 22.