Heortology

by K. A. Heinrich Kellner

8. The Festivals of the Apostles in General

The cultus of the apostles followed the same lines of development as that of other saints. At first it was merely local, but although the tendency to observe the festivals of the apostles throughout the whole Church was stronger than in the case of other saints, still their festivals did not attain earlier to universal observance than those of ordinary saints, that is to say, at the period of the compilation of universal martyrologies, though there were, of course, some exceptions.

The earliest calendars of particular churches have, on the average, only a few feasts of apostles, usually only one or two. It was only in course of time that the longing for completeness appeared, which in the tenth century was carried to such a pitch by the Greeks that they set down in their calendars not merely every personage who had received honourable mention in the New Testament, but even the Seventy Disciples, although there was but slender authority for their names.

From the first a difference was made between the apostles who had lived and worked within the existing boundaries of the Roman Empire, and those who had ended their lives in barbarian countries. In the far East, there was a second world-power similar to the Roman power in the West, i.e., the empire of the Parthians, or that earlier Persian Empire of the Achæmenides, which in its turn, again, had risen from the ruins of the ancient empires of Babylon and Assyria. The Jews had obviously numerous relations from old time with this Eastern Empire in consequence of their historical connection with it. After the return from exile, many Jews had remained there, and probably many others returned thither at a later time. In fine, the circumstances attending on the first Whitsunday show that many Jews were scattered throughout those provinces. The Eastern Empire consisted of a number of vassal states, which recognised a supreme sovereign, the King of Kings, but, in other respects, remained independent and sovereign, as for example, Armenia, whose inhabitants were moreover closely allied by blood with the Persians.

The Jews, as Semites, had naturally more sympathy with these Easterns, once their ancient grievances had been forgotten, than they had with the Greeks and Romans who, at the beginning of the Christian era, were their oppressors. This explains why some of the apostles, some for life and others only temporarily, betook themselves thither, and spent their lives there in mission work and even ended their days in those parts. This is also the reason why we have so little reliable information concerning their life and work, and why the days of their deaths were not celebrated for so long a period in the West. The apostles who devoted themselves to the Eastern Empire were probably Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, Simon Zelotes, and Jude. Thaddeus also laboured there for a time in Mesopotamia and Osrhoëne. No traces remain of the labours of Matthias who is said to have preached to the Ethiopians, and of whose life, a writer of the ninth century, Autpert, Abbot of Monte Cassino, confesses nothing is known.[596]

Several of the apostles have been commemorated from the first in the calendars, and always on the same day, while others, on the contrary, appear on different days in different parts of the Church, a circumstance which seems confusing to the historical investigator, but which can easily be explained when one has correctly grasped the principles which operate in liturgical matters. With regard to those who have everywhere been commemorated from the first on the same day, one can usually be certain that they died as martyrs in the Churches in question.

Although the only correct view is to maintain that the commemorations of the apostles were treated in the same way as the days devoted to the memory of the martyrs, and that their names appeared in the calendars on the day of their death (dies natales), still this is true of only a few indeed of their commemorations in the calendars actually in use. For the majority of the apostles died in barbarian countries with no one on the spot to collect information, and only much later a few floating pieces of information concerning them were collected from popular tradition. Another difficulty may have arisen from the different systems of chronology in use, and so even when the day of an apostle’s death was set down it was probably not understood by the Greeks and Romans, and so was forgotten. For these and other reasons it came to pass that, later on, when the commemoration of a certain apostle had to be fixed in the calendar, the date of the invention or translation of his relics was generally chosen, or finally the date was fixed simply by chance.

As absolutely trustworthy, I can, therefore, regard only the day of the death of St Peter, St Paul, and St Andrew, perhaps also the day of the death of St Mark and St Luke, since they ended their days in civilized countries, at a period when the hierarchy of the Church had already been established in those parts. With regard to St John, the question is open to doubt, first, because he did not die a martyr’s death, and secondly, because he did not preside as bishop over a particular congregation. Had he done so, the list of bishops for that particular city would have been careful to inform us of the fact.

Although the cultus of each apostle was originally local, yet there are early traces that the cultus became universal. Thus already in the fifth century a day within the octave of St Peter and St Paul seems to have been dedicated to the cultus of all the apostles in common. We find in the so-called Sacramentary of Leo I. the following prayer: Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui nos omnium apostolorum merita sub una tribuisti celebritate venerari, etc. The same prayer appears also in the Gelasianum, where it is found in lib. 2, No. 33.[597]