With regard to the liturgical observance of the day, its chief characteristic until well on in the Middle Ages was a procession. At the time of the Gallic pilgrim’s visit to Jerusalem, this was observed in a striking manner. The people proceeded in solemn procession after the sixth hour (towards 12 o’clock) on Wednesday from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, there to celebrate the Vigil in the church built over the grotto where Christ was born. The next day, divine service, with a sermon, was performed in the accustomed manner, and, in the evening, the procession returned to Jerusalem.[239] The question which naturally presents itself, why the service was not rather held on the Mount of Olives, as it was in the eighth century,[240] remains unanswered. It is to be further observed that the name Ascension (ascensa) is not used to designate the festival. The pilgrim simply speaks of the fortieth day (quadragesima) after Easter.
Elsewhere in the East, it was customary to observe the Festival of the Ascension outside the city, as, for example, in Constantinople and Antioch. In the latter place, the people went to the small town of Romanesia, where Chrysostom delivered his sermon on the feast.[241] In the Middle Ages, processions were wont to take place on this day in Gaul and Germany, and this custom shows how deeply people were moved by the desire to imitate as far as possible, in the introduction of liturgical practices, the actions of our Lord. In this case, the determinating factor was that our Lord had led the Apostles out of the city to the Mount of Olives.[242]
Another custom peculiar to this festival is that, after the reading of the Gospel at the High Mass, the Paschal candle, which up till then has been burnt at all High Masses, is extinguished and put aside. In earlier times, the event of the day was represented by hanging up a figure of our Lord, which was made to disappear through an opening in the roof. The festival has an octave since the fifteenth century, and, in consequence, the following Sunday, formerly called simply Dominica post Ascensionem, is now called Dominica infra Octavam. The Mass of the feast forms one of the rare exceptions where the event commemorated is described in the Epistle, Acts i. 1-11. The Gospel for the day is taken from St Mark xvi. 14-20, where, in verse 19, the Ascension is briefly alluded to. As a matter of fact, verses 10-20 are wanting in the oldest Alexandrian MSS. Still they are in other respects well supported, and must be regarded as genuine.[243]
The introduction of the festival of the Ascension was rendered all the easier since Scripture distinctly specifies the day on which the event took place.[244]
10. Whitsunday
Whitsunday is of equal rank with the two other chief festivals, but has no special season either preceding or following it, and is unattended by any lesser festivals depending upon it. Whitsunday is the close of the whole period which began with Easter, called in the early centuries Quinquagesima, because it extended over fifty days. This entire period is festal in character, and therefore so long as it lasted people in ancient days prayed standing upright, and no fasting was practised.[245] The ascetics did not observe a single fast during this time,[246] and it seems that even the day before Whitsunday was not a fast in the earliest ages, any more than it is now among the Greeks. A number of ascetics were of opinion that this period of joy should last only forty days, because our Lord appeared to His disciples for only forty days, and that the following ten days, as far as fasting, prayer, and kneeling were concerned, should be like the rest of the year—an opinion which Cassian, among others (Coll. 20, 21), strongly opposed.[247] This divergence of opinion, which was rather widespread, seems to have resulted in Whitsunday being passed over and ignored. So, for example, it is entirely omitted from the oldest Gallican Sacramentaries, the series of festivals ending with the Ascension.[248] In the later service-books, it appears simply under the name Quinquagesima.
Pentecost meant originally the entire period from Easter to Whitsunday, and this terminology had been already in use among the Jews, and is employed by St Luke in Acts ii. 1 (cum complerentur dies pentecostes). The Greek word Pentecost was gladly adopted by the Latins in early times, and more especially, later on, since the Latin term quinquagesima might easily be confused with the Sunday of the same name.
Whitsunday, of course, commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and disciples. This happened fifty days after the Resurrection, on an ancient Jewish festival called in the Pentateuch the Feast of Weeks,[249] because it was celebrated exactly seven weeks after the Passover. As it fell on the fiftieth day after the Passover, it was also called Pentecost, even in pre-Christian times.[250]
The Jewish Pentecost was originally only a festival of thanksgiving for harvest, and, although the Law was given on Mount Sinai and the Mosaic Church came into existence on the same day, yet the feast was not devoted to the commemoration of this event. This purpose was served by the festival of the Simchah Thorah in October, which owed its institution to the Rabbis. On the other hand, the fact that the descent of the Holy Ghost implied the foundation of the Christian Church, afforded the Fathers a parallel which they were not slow to make the most of.[251] The Feast of Weeks was to the Jews only the conclusion of the harvest, in thanksgiving for which, bread, made from the newly gathered wheat, was presented to Jehovah as a sacrifice.
The festival of Whitsunday reaches back to the commencement of the Church, although there is no evidence for it, as there is in the case of Easter, it being uncertain whether the passage, 1 Cor. xvi. 8, refers to the Jewish or to the Christian Pentecost. This is not astonishing, for, on the one hand the feast, originally of only one day’s duration, fell on a Sunday, and, on the other, it is so closely bound up with Easter that the one entails the other. That the festival of Whitsunday belongs to Apostolic times is stated in the seventh of the fragments attributed to Irenæus, but these are admitted to be interpolated. In Tertullian, the festival, along with Easter, appears as already well established, so that it must have been in existence for some time. As at Easter, prayer was made standing, and it was the second and last date for the solemn baptism of catechumens.[252] Tertullian, moreover, in accordance with the usage already in use, gives the name of Pentecost, not merely to the day of the festival, but to the whole period from Easter to Whitsunday—a use of the term which appears here and there at a later date,[253] and points out the period as a time of joy.[254] The last day, however, was clearly held in Tertullian’s time to be a festival in an especial sense.[255] Origen and the Canons of Hippolytus make references in passing to the festival of Whitsunday.[256] The Apostolic Constitutions say Whitsunday is to be regarded as a high festival, because on it the Lord Jesus sent down the Holy Ghost.