The first church dedicated to the Archangel in Rome, or rather in its neighbourhood, seems to have enjoyed great veneration. The oldest Roman sacramentary, which goes by the name of Leo the Great, gives no less than five masses for the anniversary of its dedication; in three of them St Michael is mentioned by name in the prayers or prefaces. From the fact that in the other masses the angels in general are spoken of without special mention of St Michael, we must not conclude, as many liturgical writers have done, that they deal with the cultus of the angels in general. The church was situated, according to subsequent information, on the Via Salaria at the sixth milestone from Rome; but beyond this nothing further is known about it. These masses for the day of the Consecration of the Basilica of the Holy Angel in the Via Salaria[703] are placed on the 30th September in the Leonianum. As regards later Roman sacramentaries, the prayers for a mass in honour of St Michael are given in the Gelasianum on the 29th September. The Gregorianum gives on the same day the dedication of the basilica of St Michael without the addition “in via Salaria.”[704] It is probable that another church of St Michael is meant here whose dedication took place on the 29th and not the 30th September. The day of this church’s dedication has continued to our own time to be kept as the Festival of St Michael the Archangel.
In the city itself there was also a church erected in honour of St Michael, the date and founder of which are both unknown. Among the ecclesiastical buildings of Pope Symmachus (498-514) in the city of Rome, the Liber Pontificalis says that he enlarged and beautified the basilica of St Michael.[705] A church of St Michael was also built by a pope of the name of Boniface near the Circus Flaminius,[706] and, in the ninth century, the Church of St Michael in Sassia was also erected.
The Churches of the West accepted the Roman date, the 29th September, for the Feast of St Michael,[707] and in the Middle Ages it ranked as a holy day of obligation, especially in England, where King Ethelred in 1014 provided it should be observed with a vigil and a preparatory fast of three days.[708] In Germany the Council of Mainz (813) in its thirty-sixth canon established it as a festival; and the imperial banner, to be carried in battle, bore the figure of St Michael. In France the feast was established by the sixty-first canon of the diocesan Synod of Tours in 858. In Constantinople the feast was observed on the 8th November; it is marked in the menology as the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael, while in the Basilianum the same day is called only a Synaxis of the Archangel. In the later Coptic Calendar of Calcasendi, St Michael occurs no less than six times (7th April, 6th June, 5th August, 9th September, 8th November, and 8th December). In the Syrian lectionary he is set down in the 6th September.
In the course of the sixth century a second Festival of St Michael began to be celebrated in the West, in consequence of an apparition near Sipontum on Monte Gargano which took place on the 8th May; the year, unfortunately, is not known, but the Bollandists place it in the interval between 520 and 530. Since Monte Gargano, like Chonæ in the East, became a famous Western place of pilgrimage, this local festival gradually came to be observed in other places in the West. The calendars and martyrologies frequently confuse it with the feast of the 29th September, as, for example, the two oldest recensions of the Hieronymianum, those of Metz and Weissenburg; and similar mistakes occur in other calendars.[709]
Gabriel and Raphael have no special commemoration either in the Hieronymianum or in other ancient martyrologies and calendars of the Latin Church, neither do they appear in the Greek menologies; it is only in the tenth and eleventh centuries that in a few instances we find them commemorated on special days.[710] Although Gabriel appears in the most ancient Coptic Calendar, it is doubtful whether the day chosen for his commemoration, the 18th December, is not in the first instance a commemoration of the Annunciation, and only secondarily and accidently a feast of the Archangel. In the same way, his name appears in the Syrian lectionary on the 26th March, the day after our Lady’s Annunciation.
A special festival in honour of the Guardian Angels was first celebrated in the sixteenth century in Spain on the 1st March,[711] and afterwards in France on the first free day after Michaelmas. Pope Paul V. permitted the whole Church to celebrate the Feast of the Guardian Angels (27th September 1608), and, at the request of the Emperor Ferdinand II., prescribed its observance throughout the imperial dominions. Clement IX. in 1667 placed the feast on the first Sunday in September, and provided it with an octave. Clement X. in 1670 made it a festum duplex of general obligation, and gave it a fixed place in the calendar on the 2nd October; the older date, however, still remains in Germany and in a part of Switzerland.[712] Leo XIII. raised it to a duplex majus.
14. The Two Festivals in Honour of the Holy Cross
(3rd May and 14th September)
The discovery of the true cross is ascribed to St Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. Helena was born about 246 at Drepanum in Bithynia, of humble origin, having served as maid in an inn (stabularia) where Constantine Chlorus made her acquaintance about 273. From their union sprang the future Emperor Constantine, born on 27th February 274 at Naïssus, now Nisch in Servia. When Constantine Chlorus was raised to the rank of Cæsar on 1st March 292, he, like his colleague, had to separate from his wife (whether Helena or another is disputed), in order to form a more influential alliance, with Theodora, daughter of Maximianus Hercules, by whom he had three sons.
But in 306, when Constantine after his father’s death became the emperor’s colleague and Cæsar, he raised his mother to a position of honour and brought her to the court. When, in 311, he professed Christianity, Helena also followed his example, and at the age of sixty-four or sixty-five became a Christian. The misfortunes of her son’s family life disturbed her last years, and she was especially grieved at the death of her grandson Crispus, whom Constantine caused to be murdered in 326, at the instigation of his stepmother Fausta.[713] As a pious Christian she found consolation in the performance of good works, to which she devoted herself. She died in 326, and her body was buried at Rome in the Via Lavicana, but two years later it was taken to Constantinople.[714] In her honour Constantine changed the name of her birthplace to Helenopolis, and bestowed upon her the title of Augusta; on medals she is called Flavia Julia Helena.
She obtained great honour after her death, and in Jerusalem especially her memory was held in veneration by the religious virgins of the locality;[715] St Ambrose calls her a woman of good and holy memory; St Paulinus of Nola had a high idea of her worth, and speaks of her as deserving all veneration, and Theodoret, although imperfectly informed as to the facts of her life, praises her exuberantly.[716] As to her admission among the ranks of the saints, this was effected only at a late date, and in a few instances. We find her name, indeed, in the eighth century in the menology of Constantinople set down along with that of her son on the day of his death (21st May). This shows that the author of the menology was ignorant of the day of her death, and also that no cultus was paid to her immediately after her decease; still, to both the term saint is applied in this document. No trace of her cultus appears in the West before the ninth century. The most ancient MSS. of the Hieronymianum do not contain her name; she is not to be found either in Bede or Ado; Usuardus has placed her in his martyrology under the 18th August,[717] and from him her commemoration passed into the Roman martyrology on the same day, but in the other liturgical books she has no place.[718] When we find “S Helena” in a graffito or in an itinerary, this cannot be regarded as a fact of much importance.[719]