The ritual directions for Maundy Thursday, of which we possess a considerable number dating from the Middle Ages, naturally begin with the Psalmody. This began at midnight, and its distinguishing feature was, that the lights lit at its commencement did not remain burning, but were extinguished, one at a time, after each psalm, until, at the concluding prayers, the church was in total darkness. The number of candles varied in different places, between fifteen, twenty-four, thirty, and thirty-four.[144] Such was the “dark mattins,” tenebræ.
The second characteristic ceremony of the day was the reconciliation of the penitents. These had to remain prostrate on the ground while the Miserere and other prayers were recited over them and their absolution pronounced. On this occasion, as we have remarked above, red vestments were worn. The reconciled penitents were admitted to communion with the rest of the congregation at the Mass which followed.
This Mass was of a festal character, and, in many places, in primitive times, two Masses were celebrated, one at the usual hour in the morning, and the other towards evening at the time of vespers. In other places, on the contrary, there was only one Mass, at which all the faithful communicated.[145] These different customs in course of time became a cause of astonishment and offence, and so Bishop Januarius enquired of St Augustine what ought to be done. The reply was, that each ought to follow the custom of his own diocese. In Rome also, at the period when the Gelasian sacramentary was in use, two Masses were still celebrated, for the sacramentary gives a Missa ad Vesperum.[146] The same authority notices only the reconciliation of penitents and the consecration of the Holy Oils among the other ceremonies performed on Maundy Thursday. The Gregorian sacramentary gives only the latter, as also does Ordo I., the earliest of the sixteen ancient Roman ordos.[147] In liturgical writings relating to our subject which belong to the Middle Ages, especially in the pseudo-Alcuin, the consecration of the Holy Oils is given at considerable length.[148] St Cyprian had already spoken of the consecration of oil required for ritual purposes without saying on what day it took place.[149]
At the conclusion of the Mass, the altar was washed by the bishop or officiating priest, and, in the afternoon, the washing of the feet was performed, at which the Superior washed the feet of his subjects, or the bishop the feet of twelve old men representing the twelve apostles. In the Middle Ages, the usual name for this ceremony was Mandatum.[150] The washing of the altar and the consecration of the Chrism is spoken of by Isidore of Seville.[151] In the later Middle Ages, to these ceremonies was added the reading of the Bull in Cœna Domini, containing a list of errors condemned by the Church under pain of excommunication. The reading of this Bull continued from the fourteenth to the end of the eighteenth century.
Finally, in some countries, the public ceremonial recitation of the Creed by the catechumens (redditio symboli) was prescribed for Maundy Thursday, as by the forty-sixth canon of the Synod of Laodicea, and by the sixty-eighth Trullan canon. This, however, in Rome, was done on Holy Saturday by each person in turn from some conspicuous place in the church.[152]
Good Friday
The day of our Lord’s Passion was universally regarded as a day of mourning—“dies amaritudinis,” St Ambrose calls it, “on which we fast.”[153] A fast day, on liturgical principles, can never be a festival, though, vice versâ, a festival can fall on a fixed day of fasting or abstinence, as, for example, the Annunciation.
When, at an early date, the Roman emperor made a law forbidding the Courts to sit on Good Friday, this did not make it a festival. On the contrary, the Church Order of the period of Constantine expressly declares that “both it and Holy Saturday are days of sorrow, and not feasts.”[154] Accordingly, there was enjoined upon all whose health enabled them to observe it, an unbroken fast lasting over the two days, directly based upon St Mark ii. 20. For, as the eighth canon of the fourth Synod of Toledo says, “The whole Church is wont to spend Good Friday in fasting and sorrow, on account of our Lord’s Passion.” There is scarcely any other point on which such liturgical agreement exists in all lands and in all periods of Christian antiquity as on this. The above-named Synod mentions with reprobation a mistaken expression of grief, i.e. in many places the churches were shut up for the whole day, and no services, neither divine office nor sermon, were held (seventh canon). The Synod does not blame the omission of Mass, for this was universal. This sentiment of sorrow was outwardly manifested, after the introduction of liturgical colours, by the fact that on Good Friday, black vestments were worn.[155] In the Middle Ages, discussion arose over the question why the days of the saints’ deaths were kept as festivals, but Good Friday as a day of mourning. The monk Helperich, who lived at St Gall at the end of the ninth century, replied; Christ, unlike the saints, attained to no higher degree of glory through His death. He died not for His own sake but for us. The Jews, His enemies, rejoiced over His death, but the apostles bewailed and lamented.[156]
It may be observed here that in Würtemburg, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Reuss ä. L., Altenburg, and Lippe, Good Friday is one of the days of penitence and prayer, but, on the other hand, wherever Calvinism is in the ascendent, the dogmatic significant of the day, as the day of our redemption has been partially changed. There it ranks as a Church festival, and in other respects is given up to excursions and entertainments, just as if someone would pass the day of his father’s death in rejoicings, because a rich inheritance had fallen to him.