A mediæval liturgist, Beleth, gave expression to the view that the separate apostles had no special festivals in the primitive Church, but that all together were commemorated on the 1st May,[598] and that finally only St Philip and St James continued to be commemorated on this day. The facts, however, as far as we have been able to learn, do not bear out the opinion of this writer which he inferred from the greater calendars, but the festivals of each of the apostles came into existence one by one, from the ninth century onwards, until they reached their full number. The council of Erfurt in 932 raised all feasts of apostles to the rank of holy days of obligation for Germany. Pope Boniface VIII. in 1293 made them all duplicia.
Even before the meeting of the Nicene Council, Constantine had built a church in honour of all the apostles[599] in Constantinople, in which he was afterwards buried.[600] It was rebuilt under Justinian and re-dedicated on the 29th June 550, the feast of St Peter and St Paul.[601] This church had considerable influence upon the cultus of the apostles inasmuch as under Constantius attempts were made to provide it with their relics, obviously with the intention of resembling Rome as closely as possible. The relics of St Timothy were first translated thither from Ephesus on 1st July 356, which caused a great increase of devotion to this saint. He had lost his life in a popular uprising in Ephesus under Nerva on 22nd January 97, of which his successor, Polycrates, has given us an account.[602] The church became possessed of a still greater treasure in the following year when the relics of St Andrew and St Luke were placed in it.
As we should expect from what has been said above, there exists historical material for the feasts of only a certain number of the apostles, while others, as, for example, the feasts of St Matthew, St Matthias, St Bartholomew, and St Thomas, are of no further interest than to mark the translation of their relics.
In conclusion it may be useful to draw attention to the actual increase of the festivals of the apostles in the calendars. The Leoninum has only two, the 29th June and the 30th November. The lectionary of Luxeuil in the seventh century has the same number, i.e., the 22nd February and the 29th June, that of Silos, about 650, has four (22nd February, 29th June, 30th November, 27th December), and, in addition, the feast of St Peter’s Chains. The calendar of St Geneviève (between 714-731) has the same number, omitting St Peter’s Chains. From this point the number of feasts of the Apostles increases rapidly; the calendar of Charlemagne of 781 has eight already, and subsequent calendars contain ten or more. A singular peculiarity appears in the calendar of Polemius Silvius (see below) where we find only one feast of apostles, the 22nd February, “Depositio SS. Petri et Pauli.” The ancient Neapolitan calendar brings the number up to sixteen days, giving two commemorations to some apostles and including the disciples Thaddeus and Barnabas.
9. The Festivals of the Apostles and Evangelists in Particular
(1) ST PETER AND ST PAUL
The 29th June, the commemoration of the martyrdom of the two chief apostles, is the only feast of apostles that is still observed as a public holiday. It can be regarded under two aspects as a universal and as a local festival. It is important as a local festival, because, since a constant tradition maintained that St Peter and St Paul were put to death in Rome under Nero on the same day, it is only natural that this day should be kept in Rome as the dies natalis ss. apostolorum, in the customary manner from the first, and so was never forgotten. But even in other localities, apart from Roman influence and tradition, we find efforts made in antiquity to devote a day to the commemoration of these same two apostles. This is proved by the fact that in the Arian martyrology in use in the East, it had already a place, on the 28th December, after St Stephen and the apostles St James and St John. This is by no means an isolated phenomenon, for in the Armenian calendar it has a corresponding place, i.e., on the 27th December, while in the Nestorian calendar it appears on the second Friday after Epiphany.[603] In Cappadocia, or at least in Nyssa, we find the Christmas season again considered to be the suitable time for a collective feast of the apostles, for the commemoration of the apostles Peter, James, John and Paul follows the Feast of St Stephen.[604] Even in the upper valley of the Rhone, it was felt necessary to observe the day of the death of the two chief apostles, for the calendar of Polemius Silvius, which belongs to this region, contains the entry: depositio ss. Petri et Pauli, but on the 22nd February, the day on which in other parts of Gaul the Feast of St Peter’s Chair was celebrated. That this calendar gives no feast of any sort on the 29th June, shows that in his choice of the day, Polemius was quite independent of the Roman tradition. The considerations which weighed with him in so doing will be explained further on.
In other parts of Italy, the true day of the apostle’s death was well known, and observed, as for example, at Milan in the time of St Ambrose.[605] Among the sermons of Maximus of Turin, belonging to the fifth century, we find no fewer than ten[606] for this feast. The sermons of St Augustine, among which are five for this festival, show that in North Africa the day was kept as a holy day; he speaks of it as a dies festus and a sollemnitas.[607] Moreover St Augustine belongs to the number of those Fathers who expressly state that although both apostles died on the same day of the month, they died in different years,[608] a fact which the historical and biblical science of the day persistently overlooks, which naturally must cause serious misgivings as to the reliability of the principles on which its chronology is constructed.
Among the numerous sermons of St Peter Chrysologus there are none for this day. As regards St Chrysostom, while we have seven sermons of his in honour of the apostle Paul, we have only one “on Peter and the Prophet Elias” conjointly, in which St Peter is only briefly mentioned in the introduction and treated as of secondary importance. There is nothing to show that it was preached on the 29th June.[609] The fact that neither of these saints preached on this day, is an indication of the practice followed at Ravenna and Antioch.