The worship of St Stephen, however, does not date merely from this period, but was much older, and may even be said to be as old as the Church herself, since St Paul gave him the title of “Martyr of Christ” (Acts xxii. 20). Many churches and chapels were dedicated to him in Constantinople, of which the oldest was built by or under Constantine, if Codinus is rightly informed.[492]
Apart from this, his name is to be found already in the earliest liturgical sources, e.g. the Arian martyrology, belonging to about 360, and in all Calendars ancient and modern excepting the Coptic Calendars, published by Selden and Calcasendi. A remarkable variation is observable with respect to the date, for the most ancient Calendars and also the Roman give it invariably as the 26th December, while the Eastern Calendars give it sometimes on the 27th, e.g. the two menologies of Constantinople and the Syrian lectionary. It cannot now be ascertained whether one of these days was the day of his martyrdom or not; it is not impossible, but it must be observed that the Coptic Calendar given in Mai notices only a discovery of his relics on the 27th December, with which agrees a later tradition of the Egyptian Church.[493] Accordingly the 26th or 27th December may have been observed as only the day of a translation of St Stephen’s relics.
3. Festivals of our Blessed Lady in General
The unique position occupied by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the scheme of salvation called for a corresponding recognition from the Church in the development of her festal system. As a matter of fact the Church has amply discharged this duty, inasmuch as not only the events in our Lady’s life recorded in Scripture have been made the occasion of festivals, but others also not mentioned therein. A considerable period, however, elapsed before this work was accomplished. This circumstance has been explained by reference to the fact that the Church, while paganism was still in power, refrained from publicly honouring the parents of our Lord after the flesh, on account of the myths and genealogies current about the gods. More weight may be given to the circumstance that the facts relating to the life of Jesus and the redemption He accomplished had first to be commemorated by fixed festivals before an extension of the Calendar in other directions could be thought of. Then again, in the early ages, it was felt to be an imperative duty to duly honour the commemorations of the numerous martyrs, and the custom of appointing days for the commemoration of saints not martyrs only came into existence later.
The cultus paid to the Mother of God by the Church existed long before the institution of her feasts, for Constantine is said to have built three churches in her honour in his new capital. According to recent investigations, a Church dedicated to her, Maria Antiqua,[494] is said to have existed in Rome before the erection of the Liberian basilica, generally reckoned as the oldest Church of our Lady in the Eternal City. It is certain that Ephesus had a noteworthy Church of our Lady in 431, in which the third Ecumenical Council held its meetings.
As regards festivals, all the churches of the ancient patriarchates observe many of them, especially the oriental Greeks and the Roman Catholic; the latter, without question, observes the largest number. But the ancient Church of Egypt also distinguished itself by its zeal for the worship of our Lady, and in the Coptic Calendars we find a commemoratio Dominæ Virginis Mariæ on the 21st (corresponding to the 15th in the Julian Calendar) of each month.[495] Formerly every Saturday was generally dedicated to her. The first certain instance of the observance of a festival in honour of the Mother of God, which has so far come to light, is found in the panegyric on St Theodosius, preached by Theodore about the year 500. In this it is stated that a commemoration of the holy Mother of God (θεοτόκου μνήμη) was celebrated annually in the Palestinian monasteries, attended by a concourse of all the monks. Unfortunately neither the date of this festival nor its name is given, although there is good reason for thinking that it was the feast of the 15th August, which had been regarded as the day of our Lady’s death from the earliest times.[496] In Spain, in the time of Bishop Ildephonsus of Toledo († 667), a festival of the Mother of God was also solemnly observed. This prelate made penitential processions (litaniæ) in the three preceding days, and composed a special mass for the feast. Here again the particular name of the feast is unfortunately not given. Still it can only have been the feast of the 15th August.[497]
The number of feasts of our Lady observed at the present time in the Catholic Church is, as we have said, considerable, among them being some which affect the public life of the community and some whose observance is confined to the four walls of the Church. They can also be classified as greater and lesser, or, according to the date of their institution, as earlier or later. Among the greater feasts are the Conception, Birth, Annunciation and Assumption of our Blessed Lady, and Candlemas; among the lesser are the Presentation of our Lady in the Temple, her Espousals, the Visitation, and now the Feast of the Holy Rosary.
It is not, however, possible to speak, as many liturgists do, of a Marian ecclesiastical year. For the dates of our Lady’s feasts, viewed in their chronological order, overlap the limits of the year, and being subject to the same principles which regulate saints’ days, fall invariably on fixed days in the Calendar, and so cannot be said to form an integral part of the ecclesiastical year. Nevertheless they form in themselves a cycle of festivals, as is also the case in a lesser degree with regard to St John the Baptist. Two of them, however, have been brought into connection, at least externally, with the ecclesiastical year, i.e. the Annunciation, whose date depends upon Christmas, and the Visitation, whose date is regulated by the births of Christ and St John the Baptist. The former interrupts the course of the Church’s year, and falls within a cycle of feasts with which it has no inner connection. The Conception of our Blessed Lady, the latest in date of her great feasts, depends naturally upon the date of her birth. Finally, nothing can be said touching the grounds which led to the choice of these dates, for no historical evidence for the first institution of these festivals has come down to us. They have been appointed and sanctioned by custom.
We shall first deal with the great festivals of our Lady, the observance of which affected public life. From these we omit Candlemas, originally regarded rather as a festival of our Lord. Three others—the Nativity, Annunciation, and Assumption—can be considered together as far as their institution is concerned, inasmuch as they made their appearance in history at the same period—that is to say, in the seventh century. The reliable evidence for their introduction in Rome is confined to the following; in the later MSS. of the Gregorianum appears a notice which confines the work of Gregory the Great to the first part of the sacramentary. This is the important preface “Hucusque.”[498] In this it is stated the entire preceding part of the book is due to Gregory I., with the exception of what concerns the Nativity and Assumption of our Lady, and a few other matters. From this it follows that the sacramentary used in the time of Gregory I. did not contain these two festivals of the Mother of God.
They had been already introduced, however, by the end of the seventh century. This is clear from the fact that they appear in the Gelesianum, and, secondly, from a statement in the life of Sergius I. (687-701),[499] to the effect that this pope directed that on the Annunciation, Nativity, and Assumption of our Lady, and in the festival which the Greeks call Hypapante, a procession (litania) should go from St Adrian’s to St Mary Major’s. These festivals were at that time already observed in Rome, when Sergius ordered these processions as adjuncts to existing festivals. This comprises all the reliable evidence at our disposal regarding these feasts of our Lady.[500]