Formerly saints’ festivals were not distinguished from one another in rank, but all were kept with the rite of a festum simplex, as it is now called, and also were provided with one lection only, as the Breviary developed. An alteration in this respect was introduced by Gregory VII., who appointed that the commemoration of Popes who were also martyrs should be celebrated as festa duplicia.[34] Next, Boniface VIII., in 1298, ordered that the feasts of the Apostles, Evangelists, and four great doctors of the Western Church should be advanced to the same rank.[35] The Franciscans brought about a complete revolution by celebrating in their Breviary and in their churches all festivals of the saints as duplicia, and by adding a number of new saints.[36] Pius V. reduced the rank of many feasts, but over and above the duplicia he permitted doubles of the first and second class. To the ordinary duplex, or duplex simpliciter per annum, Clement VIII. added yet another species, the duplex majus.[37] Thus, according to the present regulations, feasts are ranked either as simplex, semiduplex, duplex, majus, duplex II. and I. classis.[38]
4. The Gradual Increase of Festivals. Their Decrease in the Last Three Centuries. The Present Position
It is a recognised fact in history that the festivals of the Church in the course of centuries considerably increased in number, and that, when this increase had reached its highest point, their number began again to diminish. This was partly effected by means of legislation and without disturbance, but partly by the violent proceedings attendant upon the French Revolution. The stages in this process will be best understood from an account of the secular and ecclesiastical legislation by which they were brought about.
Tertullian[39] is the first ecclesiastical writer who enumerates the feasts celebrated among the Christians. The only festivals known to him, and to Origen after him, are Easter and Pentecost.[40] His statement is all the more noteworthy, because the exigencies of his controversy with Celsus required he should specify all the festivals by name. These are, besides Sundays, the Parasceve, Easter, and Pentecost. Tertullian and Origen are witnesses respectively for the East and West, and since their evidence coincides, it is certain that in the third century only the first germs existed of that Church-life which subsequently was to reach so rich a development. The cessation of persecution removed those hindrances which up to then had stood in the way of its evolution.
The increase of festivals can now be traced with the assistance of secular legislation, inasmuch as the Christian Emperors prohibited the sitting of the law-courts and games in the circus on certain days. It has been already shown that Constantine, as early as 321, appointed that no legal business should be transacted on all Sundays of the year. In a proclamation concerning the regulation of legal vacations, put forth by Valentinian II. and his colleague in the Empire, and dated from Rome on the 7th August 389, the seven days before and after Easter are added to the Sundays.[41] In the same way as special sittings of the law-courts were abolished on Sundays, so, later on, the proceedings before the judge of arbitration were forbidden.
When a day became recognised as exempt from legal business, this did not at once render it a festival or holy day, otherwise, according to the law of 389, there would have been fifteen consecutive holy days. The prohibition of legal proceedings in the courts on a given day, had regard, in the first place, to the removal of all hindrances which might interfere with attendance at divine worship on the part of those employed therein. In the second place, however, it must be remembered that in those days the sittings of the criminal courts almost always implied the application of torture; and such proceedings on holy days seemed especially out of place. This must also have been the reason why Valentinian and his colleague forbade prosecutions in the criminal courts throughout the whole of Lent. He certainly did not aim at changing all the days of Lent into feast-days. This law was renewed by Justinian.[42]
The legislation concerning Christmas and Epiphany exhibits a good deal of vacillation, probably connected with the fact that these two festivals were not yet generally celebrated and recognised everywhere in the fourth century. They seem to have been originally mentioned in the law of 389, but to have been struck out by the redactors of the Codex Theodosianus.[43] It was only through the inclusion of the law in question in the Code of Justinian that they were finally marked as days on which the law-courts did not sit. This privilege had been already taken away from heathen festivals by a law of Valentinian and his colleague in 392.[44]
Alongside these laws we find others forbidding games in the Circus and in the theatres. These interfered with the attendance of many persons at divine service as much as, or even more than, the proceedings in the law-courts, for they began early in the morning and lasted the whole day. Valentinian II. and his colleague, on the 19th June 386, re-enacted one of their earlier laws forbidding the performance of such plays on Sundays.[45] Through later legislation, it came to pass that the same held good for the seven days before and after Easter as well, and in 395 were added all the days of the year which were regarded as feriæ.[46] Finally, a law of Theodosius II. of 1st February 425, gives a list of all those days on which these spectacles (theatrorum atque circensium voluptas) were forbidden. These were all the Sundays of the year, Christmas, Epiphany, and the whole period from Easter to Pentecost.[47] In A.D. 400 Arcadius and Honorius forbade races on Sundays, plainly for the reason that they drew away the people from divine service.[48]
In order to illustrate the increase in the number of festivals, we make use, as we have said, of the official decrees on the subject put forth by the authorities both in Church and State, where such are at our disposal. The service-books, which do not always give the distinction between festa in choro and in foro with precision, will be consulted when necessary.
A list of feasts and sacred seasons appears for the first time in the fifth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, viz. the Birthday of our Lord (25th December), Epiphany, Lent, the Holy Week of the Passover, the Passover of the Resurrection, the Sunday after Easter, on which is read the Gospel of unbelieving Thomas, Ascension, and Pentecost. This gives the festivals in the fourth century. Other evidence of the same period, i.e. the sermons of Chrysostom and others, affords certain proof for the existence of five or six festivals only, according as Good Friday is included among them or not, viz. Christmas, Epiphany, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension of Christ, and Pentecost.[49]