[56] Les Vies des Saints (Paris, 1739), II. 4.
[57] Serm. 197, 198.
[58] This is so as regards the text printed by Muratori; but in Menard’s text there is a benediction that in its language is not unlike the collect in the Book of Common Prayer.
[59] De Eccl. Off. I. 40, 41.
[60] In Dom Cabrol’s Les Origines liturgiques (Appendice C.) will be found an interesting collection of liturgical passages illustrating the Church’s protest against idolatry on the Kalends of January.
[61] De Orat. 18.
[62] Concil. Carthag. III. c. 29.
[63] Ep. LIV. 7, ad Januarium. The well-known passage in Socrates (H.E. v. 22) seems to indicate that he believed that, excluding Alexandria, the Egyptians and the inhabitants of the Thebais ordinarily partook of the mysteries in the evening after a full meal.
[64] Spelman (Glossarium Archaeologicum, s.v.) derives our Maundy from maund, ‘a basket,’ because gifts for the poor were carried in baskets; and this derivation has attained some popularity. But there is little to support it. In Germany from the later mediaeval period Der grüne Donnerstag (Green Thursday) has been the popular name of the day. No entirely satisfactory explanation of the term has been offered. There is no question that in several German churches green vestments were worn by the priest and his ministers at the Mass of Maundy Thursday.
[65] Chr. Worship, E. tr., p. 248. See also Cabrol, Les Origines liturgiques, pp. 173 f.