Heortology

by K. A. Heinrich Kellner

In addition, a so-called synaxis of St John the Baptist is marked in the two Greek menologies. This is an instance of a peculiar custom among the Greeks, according to which, after certain chief feasts of our Lord and our Lady, there is held a second festival, or synaxis, on the following day, in honour of the personages who had taken part in the event commemorated by the feast. Thus with the feast of the 2nd February is coupled that of St Simeon, with that of the Nativity of our Lady, the feast of Joachim and Anna, and here, after Epiphany, the day of Christ’s baptism, we have the feast of St John the Baptist, on the 7th January.[475]

The cultus of St John the Baptist received a great extension throughout the whole Church in the fourth and fifth centuries, owing to the discovery of his relics. The records of the Church contain much information concerning both the discovery and the translation of these relics, though they give rise to insoluble difficulties.

In the first place one must bear in mind how the disciples of St John, on hearing of the death of their teacher in the fortress of Machærus,[476] came and took his body and buried it (St Matt. xiv. 12; St Mark vi. 29). The head doubtless remained at first in the keeping of Herodias, who had accepted it as a present. According to a creditable tradition, Samaria was the place of St John’s burial, as it was outside the limits of Herod’s tetrarchy, and under the jurisdiction of the Roman governor. The remains reposed there until the persecution of Julian in 362, when the pagan rabble violated the tomb and burnt the remains. A portion of them, however, was saved by monks and carried to Alexandria, where Athanasius deposited them provisionally in a church. Later on they were placed in the church erected by the Patriarch Theophilus in honour of the Baptist in the ruins of the destroyed Serapeum. The dedication of this church followed on the 27th May 385 or 386.[477] Tillemont was inclined to regard the 29th August as the day of the translation, which in this case as in others came to be regarded as the ecclesiastical commemoration of the event. Against this, however, is the fact that the more ancient Coptic Calendars know nothing of the 29th August as a feast of the Baptist.[478]

With regard to the saint’s head, there are two different accounts in existence. According to one account, given by Sozomen (7, 21), it is said to have been found in Jerusalem in the possession of monks belonging to the sect of the Macedonians, who carried it to Cilicia, when they were driven out from that city. When the Emperor Valens heard of this, he despatched an official to convey the relic to Constantinople. As they approached Chalcedon, the mules which drew the vehicle in which the messenger travelled with the relic refused to proceed any further, and all efforts to continue the route were unavailing—a circumstance frequently repeated in later legends. Valens and his court regarded this as miraculous and did not venture to bring the relic near the city. Accordingly it remained in a village near Chalcedon in charge of adherents of the Macedonian sect, until the reign of Theodosius, who brought it to Hebdomon, a suburb of Constantinople, where he had a church erected in honour of the Baptist.

The Paschal Chronicle makes mention of this translation in 391, as well as of another under the date 453, without throwing any light on the connection of the one with the other. This second translation, of which Rufinus also speaks (“Hist. Eccl.” 2, 28), is said to have come about in the following manner.

The head is reported to have been brought from Machærus to Jerusalem and there buried. In the time of Constantine it was taken to Emesa and hidden away in a cave. Why this was necessary at that particular period is not stated. Here it was discovered by a priest called Marcellus, the superior of a monastery in those parts. He composed a long and detailed account of the discovery, containing also a history of the previous vicissitudes of the relic.[479] The discovery was made in consequence of many dreams, and a fiery star is said to have guided Marcellus to the spot where the sacred treasure rested in an urn, deeply buried in the earth. Marcellus informed Bishop Uranius of Emesa of his discovery, and the bishop solemnly removed the relic on the 24th February, 452. It was first of all placed in the cathedral, and then soon afterwards in a chapel expressly built to receive it, to which it was conveyed on the 26th September of the same year. Here it rested under the Mohammedan dominion, and in 760 a large church was even built to replace the chapel. We have here a threefold translation of the head of St John the Baptist. It is asserted that a part of it is preserved at Amiens which was brought thither from Constantinople in the thirteenth century. Two of the three days commemorating these translations are marked in the Greek menologies, the 24th February and the 26th September.[480] The story of these translations throws no light upon the choice of 29th August for the beheading of the saint.

From a liturgical point of view, the birth of the Baptist was kept with special distinction at Rome in earlier times. In the Leonine sacramentary it is already provided with a vigil. Other saints’ days indeed were similarly provided, but the vigil of St John was to be kept as a fast, and, moreover, in addition to the two formularies for the Mass of his feast, there are two more specially intended for use in the Baptistery of St John. As early as the fifth century in Rome, three Masses seem to have been celebrated on St John’s Day as on Christmas, one on the vigil after Vespers, one during the night, and the third on the morning of the 24th June—this last being celebrated in the Baptistery. In the Gelasianum we find only two Masses, one for the vigil, and one for the day itself, but in the Gregorianum we find three again to be said at special times, as in the Leoninum.[481] Accordingly, Menard observes that Alcuin[482] also speaks of three Masses on St John’s Day commemorating the three great triumphs—as he calls them—which the Baptist had celebrated in preparing the way for our Lord, in baptizing Him, and in having been a Nazarite from his mother’s womb. The ordo of the Canon Benedict of St Peter’s, belonging to the year 1143, makes no mention of three Masses, though it speaks of two offices.[483] When the Council of Seligenstadt in 1022 (cap. 1) prescribed abstinence for the fourteen days before St John, it was acting without precedent, and was influenced by the desire to make the festival of the forerunner as like to Christmas as possible.

As at Rome, so too in Latin North Africa, the Nativity of the Baptist must have been celebrated with special honour, for we possess no fewer than seven sermons of St Augustine on it, and he distinctly speaks of it as a festival which had come down from his predecessors.[484]

The Proto-martyr St Stephen. The cultus of this saint received also a great impulse from the discovery of his relics at Kaphar-Gamala.[485] This took place on the 5th December, in consequence of a revelation said to have been made to a priest of Jerusalem called Lucianus, in presence of John Bishop of Jerusalem, and of a Spanish priest from Braga, named Avitus, who was then stopping in Jerusalem. Lucianus wrote an account of the event in the form of a letter to all the churches,[486] which Avitus translated into Latin.[487] Whereupon the worship of the first martyr spread, one might say, in every direction. Pilgrims seeking relief from their sufferings visited his churches and chapels, numerous answers to prayer and miracles of healing followed, of which the sermons of St Augustine and his work on the “City of God” afford evidence.[488] Pope Simplicius († 483) erected a basilica in St Stephen’s honour at Rome. The festival of the discovery of his relics was fixed for the 3rd August.

Upon their discovery the relics were first taken to Jerusalem, but portions of them were bestowed upon other places, as, for example, a hand to the city of Constantinople, or rather to the Emperor Theodosius II.,[489] and smaller relics elsewhere. In the year 439 the Empress Eudocia brought the remaining relics to Constantinople and had them placed in the basilica of St Lawrence.[490] Over the tomb a chapel was erected, well known to pilgrims of the sixth century as the grave of St Stephen.[491] St Augustine, in the passages already quoted, speaks of churches erected in St Stephen’s honour in many places.