4. Let us attend, however, to the great Festivals of the Church. These are declared by Chrysostom (in a Homily delivered at Antioch 20 Dec. A.D. 386) to be the five following:—(1) Nativity: (2) the Theophania: (3) Pascha: (4) Ascension: (5) Pentecost.[365] Epiphanius, his contemporary, (Bishop of Constantia in the island of Cyprus,) makes the same enumeration,[366] in a Homily on the Ascension.[367] In the Apostolical Constitutions, the same five Festivals are enumerated.[368] Let me state a few Liturgical facts in connexion with each of these.
It is plain that the preceding enumeration could not have been made at any earlier period: for the Epiphany of our Saviour and His Nativity were originally but one Festival.[369] Moreover, the circumstances are well known under which Chrysostom (A.D. 386) announced to his Eastern auditory that in conformity with what had been correctly ascertained at Rome, the ancient Festival was henceforth to be disintegrated.[370] But this is not material to the present inquiry. We know that, as a matter of fact, “the Epiphanies” (for τὰ ἐπιφανία is the name of the Festival) became in consequence distributed over Dec. 25 and Jan. 5: our Lord's Baptism being the event chiefly commemorated on the latter anniversary,[371]—which used to be chiefly observed in honour of His Birth[372]—Concerning the Lessons for Passion-tide and Easter, as well as concerning those for the Nativity and Epiphany, something has been offered already; to which may be added that Hesychius, in the opening sentences of that “Homily” which has already engaged so much of our attention,[373] testifies that the conclusion of S. Mark's Gospel was in his days, as it has been ever since, one of the lections for Easter. He begins by saying that the Evangelical narratives of the Resurrection were read on the Sunday night; and proceeds to reconcile S. Mark's with the rest.—Chrysostom once and again adverts to the practice of discontinuing the reading of the Acts after Pentecost,[374]—which is observed to be also the method of the Lectionaries.
III. I speak separately of the Festival of the Ascension, for an obvious reason. It ranked, as we have seen, in the estimation of Primitive Christendom, with the greatest Festivals of the Church. Augustine, in a well-known passage, hints that it may have been of Apostolical origin;[375] so exceedingly [pg 205] remote was its institution accounted in the days of the great African Father, as well as so entirely forgotten by that time was its first beginning. I have to shew that in the Great Oriental Lectionary (whether of the Greek or of the Syrian Church) the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark's Gospel occupy a conspicuous as well as a most honourable place. And this is easily done: for,
(a) The Lesson for Matins on Ascension-Day in the East, in the oldest documents to which we have access, consisted (as now it does) of the last Twelve Verses,—neither more nor less,—of S. Mark's Gospel. At the Liturgy on Ascension was read S. Luke xxiv. 36-53: but at Matins, S. Mark xvi. 9-20. The witness of the “Synaxaria” is constant to this effect.
(b) The same lection precisely was adopted among the Syrians by the Melchite Churches,[376]—(the party, viz. which maintained the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon): and it is found appointed also in the “Evangeliarium Hierosolymitanum.”[377] In the Evangelistarium used in the Jacobite, (i.e. the Monophysite) Churches of Syria, a striking difference of arrangement is discoverable. While S. Luke xxiv. 36-53 was read at Vespers and at Matins on Ascension Day, the last seven verses of S. Mark's Gospel (ch. xvi. 14-20) were read at the Liturgy.[378] Strange, that the self-same Gospel should have been adopted at a remote age by some of the Churches of the West,[379] and should survive in our own Book of Common Prayer to this hour!
(c) But S. Mark xvi. 9-20 was not only appointed by the Greek Church to be read upon Ascension Day. Those same twelve verses constitute the third of the xi “Matin Gospels of the Resurrection” which were universally held in high [pg 206] esteem by the Eastern Churches (Greek and Syrian[380]), and were read successively on Sundays at Matins throughout the year; as well as daily throughout Easter week.
(d) A rubricated copy of S. Mark's Gospel in Syriac,[381] certainly older than A.D. 583, attests that S. Mark xvi. 9-20 was the “Lection for the great First Day of the week,” (μεγάλη κυριακή, i.e. Easter Day). Other copies almost as ancient[382] add that it was used “at the end of the Service at the dawn.”
(e) Further, these same “Twelve Verses” constituted the Lesson at Matins for the 2nd Sunday after Easter,—a Sunday which by the Greeks is called κυριακή τῶν μυροφόρων, but with the Syrians bore the names of “Joseph and Nicodemus.”[383] So also in the “Evangeliarium Hierosolymitanum.”
(f) Next, in the Monophysite Churches of Syria, S. Mark xvi. 9-18 (or 9-20[384]) was also read at Matins on Easter-Tuesday.[385] In the Gallican Church, the third lection for Easter-Monday extended from S. Mark xv. 47 to xvi. 11: for Easter-Tuesday, from xvi. 12 to the end of the Gospel.[386] Augustine says that in Africa also these concluding verses of S. Mark's Gospel used to be publicly read at Easter tide.[387] The same verses (beginning with ver. 9) are indicated in the oldest extant Lectionary of the Roman Church.[388]
(g) Lastly, it may be stated that S. Mark xvi. 9-20 was with the Greeks the Gospel for the Festival of S. Mary Magdalene (ἡ μυροφόρος), July 22.[389]