Heortology

by K. A. Heinrich Kellner

Formerly the general opinion was that it had been introduced in Rome by Pope Gelasius I. in order that he might replace the heathen Lupercalia, with their midnight torch processions and disorderly proceedings, by a popular Christian festivity. This opinion[396] cannot be maintained in the face of the facts referred to above. The Lupercalia indeed fell on the 15th February, which also happened to be the day on which this festival was originally kept in Jerusalem, but the Gallic pilgrim makes no mention of lights carried in the procession. Again, processions, with or without lights, were so common both among the Christians and heathen of the early Christian era, that any connection between the procession on Candlemas Day and the Lupercalia cannot be inferred.

The Invitatorium (Gaude et lætare, Jerusalem, occurrens Deo tuo), and the preface, which is that for Christmas, show that originally the feast was rather a festival of Our Lord than of Our Lady. The collect for the day speaks of the presentation of the Lord in the Temple alone, and the antiphons for the most part refer to the same event, while the psalms are those of Our Lady’s feasts. The Gospel for the day (St Luke ii. 22-23), the same now as in the fourth century, chronologically speaking, precedes the Gospel for the previous Sunday. For the Sunday after Christmas has St Luke ii. 33-40 for its Gospel, which relates the return of the Holy Family from Judæa to Galilee.

6. The Sundays of the Church’s Year as forming connecting-links between the principal Feasts

During the age of the persecutions it was scarcely possible for Christians to observe any other festival than Sunday, and so it is not surprising that the two writers, who have occasion to speak of the institution of the festivals of the Church, mention only Easter and Pentecost, both of which fall on Sundays. To these Christmas was added in the fourth century, and Epiphany somewhat earlier. These chief festivals, along with others soon added to their number, formed the elements for the organisation of a festal system in the Church, as centres round which the lesser festivals grouped themselves.

The last step of importance, however, in this development of the Church’s year was to connect these chief festivals with one another, so as to make them parts of a whole. The Sundays afforded a convenient means for effecting this. They were associated with the festal character of the nearest feast and were connected with it as links in a chain. The way for this development had been prepared by the season of preparation before Easter, and by the relation in which Easter stood to Pentecost. The Sundays of Lent had their own character as a preparation for Easter, and the Sundays in the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost—Quinquagesima—were marked by the festal character with which antiquity invested the whole period. All that was needed was, first of all, to connect Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, and, in the second place, the institution of a season of preparation before Christmas. This was accomplished between the sixth and the eighth centuries.

During the first six centuries, the ordinary Sundays of the year had neither liturgical position or character, since they were not even enumerated. There was a sort of commune dominicarum, i.e., a number of masses existed from which one could be chosen at will for each Sunday. To these Sundays, which were called simply dominicæ quotidianæ, those after Epiphany and Pentecost belonged.

They numbered altogether twenty-nine or thirty, according as the Calendar gave fifty-two or fifty-three Sundays in the year. For the sum of the days of the year, 365, divided by seven makes fifty-two and one over, and so the year which commences on a Sunday has fifty-three Sundays, the others only fifty-two. The smaller number of these, six at most, come between Epiphany and Septuagesima, but the larger, twenty-three to twenty-eight, between Whitsunday and Advent. The variation depends upon the date of Easter. There is no historical circumstance forthcoming to give these Sundays a specially festal character. With Pentecost the commemoration of Our Lord’s redemptive acts concludes, and it was not the custom in the West to include events from Church history in the cycle of feasts, although the East celebrated a few, as, for example, the General Councils.

With regard to the Roman rite in particular, there are no special masses for the Sundays after Easter and Pentecost in the Leonine sacramentary. A further development appears in the Gelasian sacramentary, where the Sundays in Lent and those between Easter and Pentecost alone have a clearly defined liturgical character, and keep their special place in the Calendar. For the remaining Sundays of the year, there was a choice of only sixteen masses, which are not in the first book of the Gelasian sacramentary containing the course for the year (anni circulus, i.e., Proprium de tempore), but at the commencement of the third book. Along with the masses for week-days and masses for special occasions, they form the contents of this volume. The masses for Advent, however, strange to say, are contained in the second book, thus out of chronological order.

In the Gregorian sacramentary, at the end of the eighth century, the Church’s year has the same form as at the present day, with the sole exception that the Sundays in Advent come at the end, instead of, as at the present time, at the beginning of the Missal. This is due to the fact that Christmas was then usually regarded as the commencement of the year.