The festival was kept with special solemnity at Jerusalem, as we learn from the description of it given by the Gallic Pilgrim. Unfortunately, the beginning with the special account of the feast is missing, but there is no doubt that the foregoing paragraph described the Epiphany, for the succeeding festival is spoken of as quadragesima de Epiphania (c. 26).
According to this document a procession from Jerusalem to Bethlehem took place on the eve, returning in the early morning. After a time for rest, the service commenced about the second hour of the day in the great church on Golgotha, which was richly decorated. At the conclusion of the function the faithful proceeded to the church of the Anastasis, and, about the sixth hour, or twelve o’clock, the festival was at an end. In the evening vespers (lucernare) were sung. On the second and third days service was held in the same church, on the fourth day in the church called Eleona on the Mount of Olives, on the fifth day in the Lazarium, the grave of Lazarus in Bethania, on the sixth day in Sion, on the seventh day in the church of the Anastasis, on the eighth day in the church of the Holy Cross. Thus both in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem the feast lasted eight days—a kind of octave.
In the Eastern Churches the day is further distinguished by the solemn blessing of the water, mentioned by Chrysostom and intended to recall the miracle at Cana. This is a very popular festival, but in many places has been stripped of its religious character; it is performed by the clergy going in procession to the sea or to a river, reciting a prayer, and then throwing a crucifix into the water which is fetched out again by swimmers and takes place on the 18th January (old style).
With regard to the antiquity and spread of the feast, it was unknown in North Africa during the third century, for Tertullian makes no reference to it, and even in the time of St Augustine it was rejected by the Donatists as an Oriental novelty.[385] In Origen’s time, at least, it was not generally observed as a festival in Alexandria, since he does not reckon it as such. For Rome, evidence is wanting for the earliest times, but since the daughter Church of North Africa knew nothing of the festival at first, it may be inferred that originally it was not kept at Rome but was introduced there in the course of time. In Spain, it was a feast-day in 380, in Gaul, in 361, and there is evidence of its existence in Thrace as early as 304.[386] In the East it generally held the place of Christmas as our Lord’s birth-day,[387] and as such it had already, as early as the first half of the third century, become domiciled in the Church, as is shown by the recently published Testamentum Jesu Christi, where it is twice named as a high festival along with Easter and Pentecost.[388] In the Roman Empire, as early as A.D. 400, Epiphany was one of the days on which games in the circus were forbidden by law. Not until Justinian’s[389] time were the law courts closed[390] on this day also.
5. The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(CANDLEMAS)
By the mosaic law, every mother, after giving birth to a son, remained unclean for seven days, in the first instance, and then, for thirty-three days longer, was excluded from participation in public worship. After the birth of a daughter the period of ceremonial uncleanness was twice as long. Thus the whole period lasted for forty or eighty days, and at its conclusion the woman had to bring a yearling lamb for a holocaust and a pigeon for a sin-offering. In case of poverty, two young pigeons or turtle-doves sufficed as an offering (Lev. xii. 2-8). According to the narrative in the Gospels, Mary, after the birth of Jesus, fulfilled the commands of this law and brought the prescribed offering to the Temple on the fortieth day, on which occasion the meeting with Simeon and Anna took place (St Luke ii. 22 et seqq.).
Our Blessed Lady and her divine Son, in the first place, and, secondarily, Simeon and Anna are the actors in this scene, and it would have been strange had this event not been commemorated very early among the Church’s festivals.
The first reference to such a commemoration belongs to the last decades of the fourth century and comes from Jerusalem. It is contained in the diary of the so-called Silvia. The day was ushered in by a solemn procession, followed by a sermon on St Luke ii. 22 seqq., and a Mass. It had as yet no special name, but was known merely as the fortieth day after the Epiphany. This goes to prove that at that time the Epiphany was regarded in Jerusalem as the day of the Lord’s birth, and it follows indirectly from the expressions used (hic) that the festival was not yet known in the Pilgrim’s home.[391]
It seems probable that the festival was first of all observed in Jerusalem from whence it spread through out the whole Church. The person by whom, and the time when it was first introduced into Constantinople and the Byzantine empire, are known to us. A plague having caused frightful mortality, the Emperor Justinian, as soon as it had passed away, ordered the Purification to be observed for the first time in 542.[392] The contradictory evidence in Georgius Hamartolus and Nicephorus[393] that it was the Emperor Justin, Justinian’s predecessor, who introduced the festival and ordered it to be observed throughout the world, seems due simply to a confusion between the two emperors. In any case the spread of the feast throughout a wider area dates from this time.
The name by which the festival was known, now that it was widely adopted in different districts, was “The Meeting,” in Greek Hypapante, in Latin Occursus Domini, in reference to the meeting between the Child Jesus and Simeon and Anna; it may be that this festival was introduced at Rome in consequence of Justinian’s commands, but no evidence to that effect is extant. As far as Rome is concerned, it appears in the Gelasian sacramentary with the new name of Purificatio, and as a feast of our Blessed Lady, without any mention of a procession.[394] Pope Sergius I. (687-701) ordained, however, a procession on this as on the other principal festivals of Our Lady. In the passage in question of the Liber Pontificalis, the festival has the remarkable name of St Simeon’s Day, “which the Greeks call Hypapante,” which seems to show that the festival had not yet been well established in Rome. Moreover, the 2nd February was observed among the Greeks as the actual day of Simeon’s death, because in his canticle he had said, “Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant ... in peace.”[395] That the festival was only introduced at a late date in many places in the West is proved by the fact that in the Lectionary of Silos, the oldest belonging to the Spanish Church, and dating about 650, it does not appear. The same is the case with regard to the Calendar of St Geneviève in Paris (731-741) published by Fronteau.