HEORTOLOGY

A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS FROM
THEIR ORIGIN TO THE PRESENT DAY

BY
Dr K. A. HEINRICH KELLNER
PROFESSOR OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGY IN
THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN

TRANSLATED WITH THE AUTHOR’S PERMISSION FROM
THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION
BY
A PRIEST OF THE DIOCESE OF WESTMINSTER

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LIMITED
DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W.
1908

NIHIL OBSTAT

FR. OSMUND, O.F.M.,
Censor deputatus.

IMPRIMATUR

✠ GULIELMUS,
Episcopus Arindelensis, Vicarius Generalis.

Westmonasterii,
die 24 Feb., 1908.

IMPRIMATUR TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION

✠ THOMAS,
Archiepp̄s.

Friburgi Brisgoviæ,
die 8 Maii, 1906.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST
GERMAN EDITION

In older works on liturgy, the festivals of the Church have been generally dealt with as forming part of a greater whole, while in more recent times various questions relating to them have been discussed in separate articles in encyclopædias and reviews. The time seems now to have come when the cycle of ecclesiastical festivals ought to be regarded as a definite department of study by itself. The older works, besides being difficult of access, do not come up to the standard of modern works on the same subject, and the independent investigations of recent date, although throwing much new light upon some points, have left others untouched, with the result that the reader is unable to gain a clear conception of the matter as a whole.

The solid results gained by investigations into this branch of study in earlier and later times must now be collected, and systematised, and brought up to the level demanded by modern science. Much remains to be done in this department owing to the fresh light that has been thrown upon it by the publication of documents hitherto inaccessible, among which we may mention the so-called Peregrinatio Silviæ discovered by Gamurrini, the Lectionaries of Silos, and the critical edition of the so-called Martyrologium Hieronymianum of de Rossi and Duchesne. The last-named document has so far been more of a hindrance than a help in this branch of study, some attributing too much importance to it, and others none at all.

It has seemed to the author that the time for gathering together the ascertained results derived from these and similar books has come. It is chiefly for theological students and the younger clergy that the following book is intended. Such a work as would make it easy to deal with the subject in sermons and catechetical instructions, and, at the same time, would give clearly and briefly all the information necessary for dealing with the question from the historical standpoint, avoiding equally uncritical credulity and sceptical unbelief—such a work seems to the author demanded by the circumstances of the time.

Moreover, the Minister of Public Worship in Prussia has recently (12th Sept. 1898) required from candidates for the office of catholic teacher in higher grade schools, a considerable acquaintance with the ecclesiastical year among their other qualifications.

This is the reason why the author has confined his attention solely to the worship of the Roman Catholic Church, merely alluding occasionally to the usages of other religious bodies. For the same reason, in accordance with the meaning of the term “Heortology,” he has concerned himself with those festivals alone which are publicly celebrated, or were so celebrated formerly. The majority of these afford no features of historical interest, owing, as they do, their origin to the action of authority. In cases which do not here come under discussion, reference may be made to separate works and to the Bollandists in general. In a matter of such practical interest as this, it cannot fail that some points have been omitted; still, I think, the amount of material collected in the following pages is sufficient for the end I have had in view. In support of the views herein expressed, a somewhat detailed account is given in the third part of the documents which serve as the sources of our information. It has not seemed practical to print a selection from the large number of these documents by way of supplement, since to have done so would have interfered with the object of this book.

Bonn, All Saints’, 1900.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE OF THE SECOND
GERMAN EDITION

This second (revised and enlarged) edition—from which Dr A. Mercati, Professor in the Seminary of Reggio, Emilia, has made the Italian translation—is in substance the same as the first. The sections dealing with the dedication of churches and the feast of the patron saint, with the feast of the Immaculate Conception, with the feasts of St Mary Magdalen, St Cecilia, and St Catherine, and the two concluding sections have been added, and some appendices.

Bonn, May 1906.

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

In this translation, the excursus on the German Protestant “Buss-und-Bettage” and on St Ursula have been omitted as being of less general interest, and a few notes have been added.

London, April 1908.

BOOKS QUOTED AND REFERRED TO

(A) MEDIÆVAL WORKS, WHICH IN SOME DEGREE ARE OF THE NATURE OF ORIGINAL SOURCES

Isidore of Seville († 658).—De Officiis Ecclesiasticis. Migne, Patr. Lat., lxxxiii.

Amalarius Symphosius (“chor-episcopus” at Metz, † between 850 and 853).—De Officiis Ecclesiasticis libri quattuor. Migne, Patr. Lat., cv.

Rabanus Maurus (Abbot of Fulda, later Archbishop of Mainz, † 856).—De Officiis Ecclesiasticis. Migne, Patr. Lat., cvii.

Ado (Bishop of Vienne, † 875).—Libellus de Festivitatibus SS. Apost. Migne, Patr. Lat., cxxiii.

Johannes Abrincensis (Bishop of Rouen, † 1079).—De Officiis Ecclesiasticis. Migne, Patr. Lat., cxlvii. Ordinarius Canonicorum Reg., ib. 188-191.

Pseudo-Alcuin (middle of the eleventh century).—De Officiis Ecclesiasticis. Incomplete in Migne, Patr. Lat., ci. 1175. According to Bäumer, Amalarius Fortunatus is really the author.

Berno of Reichenau († 1045).—De Officio Missæ, and two small tracts on Advent and the Embertides. Migne, Patr. Lat., cxlii.

Lanfranc († 1089).—Decreta pro Ord. S. Benedicti. Migne, Patr. Lat., cl.

Bernold of Constance († 1100). According to Bäumer, the author of the Micrologus. Migne, Patr. Lat., cli.

De Cærimoniis, Sacramentis, Officiis et Observantionibus Ecclesiæ libri tres, by Hugo (Canon of St Victor in Paris, † 1118), or by Robertus Pullus. Migne, Patr. Lat., clxxvii. 381.

Rupert of Deutz († 1135).—De Divinis Officiis. Migne, Patr. Lat., clxx.

Guigo I. de Castro (Prior of the Grande Chartreuse about 1137).—Consuetudines Carthusienses. Migne, Patr. Lat., clii. 631-759.

Honorius of Autun († circ. 1145).—Gemma Animæ. Migne, Patr. Lat., clxxii.

Johannes Beleth (Professor of Theology at Paris, † 1190).—Rationale Divinorum Officiorum. Migne, Patr. Lat., ccii.

Consuetudines Farfenses, ed. B. Albers. Stuttgart, 1900. Older editions in Migne, Patr. Lat., c. 4, and (Hergott) Vetus Disciplina Monast. Paris, 1776.

Sicardus (Bishop of Cremona, † 1215).—Mitrale. Migne, Patr. Lat., ccxiii.

Innocent III. (Pope, † 1216).—De S. Altaris Mysterio libri sex. Migne, Patr. Lat., ccxvii.

Odericus (Canon of Siena, 1213).—Ordo Officiorum Eccl. Senensis. Ed. Trombelli. Bononiæ, 1766.

Codinus.—Curopalates s. de Officialibus Palatii Constantinopolitani et de Officiis Magnæ Ecclesiæ. Rec. Imm. Bekker. Bonn, 1839.

(B) MORE RECENT WORKS EMPLOYED OR REFERRED TO

(a) By Catholic Authors

Allatius, Leo.—De Dominicis et Hebdomadibus Græcorum Recentiorum. Col., 1648.

Arens, Franz.—Der Liber Ordinarius der Essener Stiftskirche, Essen, 1901.

Assemani, Jos. Sim.—Kalendaria Ecclesiæ Univ. Romæ, 1730. Six vols.

Baillet, Adrien († 1706).—Les Vies des Saints. Paris, 1703; second ed. 1739, in ten vols. 4to. Vol. ix. contains a history of the movable feasts.

Bäumer, Suitb.—Geschichte des Breviers, etc. Freiburg, 1895.

Benedict XIV. (Prosper Lambertini).—De Festis D.N. Jesu Christi et B. Mariæ Virginis libri duo. Patavii, 1756.

⸺ Commentarius de Festis B. Virg. Mariæ, etc. Dillingen, 1754.

Binterim, Anton. Jos.—Denkwürdigkeiten der Kathol. Kirche. Mainz, 1829, especially vol. v. part i: “Die kirchichle Heortologie und Chronologie.”

⸺ Pragmatische Geschichte der deutschen Konzilien. Mainz, 1836.

Chevalier, Ul.—Bibliothèque Liturgique. Ordinaires de l’Eglise cath. de Laon. Paris, 1897.—Sacramentaire et Martyrologe de S. Remy et de Reims. Paris, 1900. Ib. of Bayeux. Paris, 1903.

Combefis, Fr., O.S.D. († 1679).—Bibliotheca Patrum Concionatoria. Paris, 1662. Eight vols. A collection of sermons of the Fathers and older scholastics up to St Thomas Aquinas for the whole ecclesiastical year and the principal saints’ days.

Duchesne, L.—Origines du Culte Chrétien. Third ed. Paris. [Engl. transl. by M. L. Maclure, London, 1903.]

Gavantus, Barth. (Mediol.).—Thesaurus Sacrorum Rituum. Romæ, 1628. Amstelod., 1634.

⸺ Id. op., with Novæ observationes et additiones, etc., by C. M. Merati. Romæ, 1735. Aug. Vind., 1740.

Gretser, Jac., S. J.—De Festis Christianorum libri duo. (Ingolstadii, 1612), with Auctarium.

Guéranger, Prosp.—L’Année Liturgique. Translated anonymously into German, with a Preface by J. B. Heinrich. Mainz, 1888-1894. Thirteen vols.

Guyet, Car.—Heortologia. Venetiis, 1729. Almost entirely occupied with the rubrics.

Hoeynck, F. A.—Gesch. der kirchl. Liturgie des Bistums Augsburg. Augsburg, 1889.

Holweck, F. G.—Fasti Mariani. Frib. Brisg., 1892.

Mabillon, Joh.—De Liturgia Gallicana libri tres. Paris, 1685, and in Migne, Patr. Lat., lxxii.

Martène, Edmund.—De Antiquis Ecclesiæ Disciplinis. Antwerp, 1737.

Marzohl, J., and J. Schneller.—Liturgia Sacra oder Gebräuche und Altertümer der Kathol. Kirche. Five vols. Lucerne, 1841. Vol. iii. pp. 55-172 deals with the ecclesiastical year and festivals.

Migne, Abbé.—Diction. des Cérémonies et des Rites Sacrés. German transl. by E. Schinke and Jos. Kühn. Breslau, 1850.

Morcelli, Seph. A.—Μηνολόγιον τῶν Ἐυαγγελίων Ἑορταστικῶν, sive Kalendarium Eccl. Constantinopolitanæ Mille Annorum Insigne. Romæ, 1788.

Muratori, L. A.—Liturgia Rom. Vetus, tria Sacramentaria complectens Leon., Gel., et Antiquum Gregor. Accedunt Missale Francorum, Gothicum et Galicana duo, etc. Venetiis, 1748. The Preface and the Gelasianum are printed in Migne, Patr. Lat., lxxiv.

Nickel, Marc. Ad.—Die heiligen Zeiten und Feste nach ihrer Geschichte und Feier. Six vols. Mainz, 1825-1838.

Nilles, Nic. S. J.—Kalendarium Manuale utriusque Ecclesiæ Orient. et Occid. Ed. Altera. Two vols. Œniponte, 1896.

Pilgram.—Kalendarium Chronol. medii potissimum ævi monumentis accomodatum. Vienna, 1781.

Probst, Ferd.—Die ältesten Römischen Sakramentarien und Ordines erläutert. Paderborn, 1892.

Schmid, Frz. X.—Liturgik der christkathol. Religion. Three vols. Passau, 1831. Vol. iii. pp. 441-610 deals with the festivals.

Schulting, Corn.—Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica. Col. Agr., 1599. Tom. i. c. 9-17 and tom. ii.

Thomassin, Louis (Cong. Orat. Presb.)—Traité des Festes de l’Eglise. The second vol. contains “Traités Historiques et Dogmatiques sur divers Points de la Discipline de l’Eglise et de la Morale Chrétienne.” Paris, 1683.

Tomasi, Gius. Maria (Cardinal, † 1731).—Opera. Ed. Vezzosi. Rome, 1748, etc.

Veith, P. Ildefous.—On the Latin Martyrologies in the Hist.-pol. Blätter, 1895 and 1896. On the Greek Martyrologies in Studien und Mitteilungen aus dem Benediktinerorden, 1896 and 1897. See the Katholik, 1894, ii. 314 et seqq.

(b) By Non-Catholic Authors

Achelis, Hans.—Die Martyrologien, ihre Geschichte und ihr Wert. Berlin, 1900.

Alt, Heinrich (Preacher of La Charité).—Das Kirchenjahr. Berlin, 1860.

Augusti, J. Chr. Wilh.—Denkwürdigkeiten. Leipzig, 1817, etc. Vols. i.-iii.: “Die Feste der alten Christen für Religionslehrer und gebildete Laien aller Konfessionen.” (The author gives one or two sermons from the Fathers for each feast as an appendix.)

Daniel, Henr. Adalf.—Codex liturgicus ecclesiæ universæ. Four vols. Lipsiæ, 1847.

Dresser, Matth.—De festis et præcipius anni partibus. Lipsiæ, 1584.

Erbes.—Das Syrische Martyrologium und der Weihnachtsfestkreis in Brieger’s “Zeitschr. für Kirchengesch,” 1905, iv., and 1906, i.

Haltaus, Chr. Gottlob.—Jahrzeitbuch der Deutschen des Mittelalters. Translated by G. A. Scheffer. Erlangen, 1797.

Hospinianus (Wirth), Rud.—De Festis Christianorum. Genevæ, 1574. Turici, 1593.

Maltzew, A. von.—Fasten- und Blumen-Triodion, etc. Berlin, 1899. The Introduction deals with the ecclesiastical year of the Orthodox, Armenian, and Roman Catholic Churches.

Ranke, E.—Das Kirchl. Perikopensystem aus den ältesten Urkunden der römischen Liturgie dargelegt und erläutert. Berlin, 1847.

Strauss, Friedr.—Das evangelische Kirchenjahr in seinem Zusammenhange dargestellt. Berlin, 1850.

Usener, Herm.—Religionsgeschichte Untersuchungen. Das Weihnachtsfest. Bonn, 1889.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

HEORTOLOGY

PART I
THE CHURCH’S FESTIVALS IN GENERAL

1. Introduction

The external worship of God, if it is not to remain vague and indefinite, finds expression on the one hand through certain elements belonging to the senses, such as signs and words, and on the other it is connected with places and times. By the changes of day and night, of seasons and years, Creation calls upon man to raise his mind to God at stated times and to enter into communion with Him. The day with its brightness is suited for work, night with its stillness invites man to turn his thoughts in upon himself. The change of day and night calls upon us to begin the day’s work with God, and to commend ourselves to His keeping in the darkness of the night. The course of the seasons, too, matures the fruits of the earth necessary for our support, and the succession of years reminds us of the fleeting nature of everything earthly, for our whole life is composed of successive years. Consequently the civilised peoples already in remote antiquity have found a call to the worship of God in the changing seasons and times, and so have introduced sacred seasons. Sacred times and places are common to all religions in general. The change of times, bringing with them corresponding changes in nature, made a religious impression upon mankind. In turn, man sanctified certain times and dedicated them to God, and these days thus consecrated to God became festivals.

The worship of God takes precedence over the daily affairs of common life, and accordingly displaces such of them as are not necessary for the support of natural life or the wellbeing of society. Thus it came to pass that the ordinary affairs of life gave place to the worship of God, and rest from labour became an essential part of the worship paid to Him. Man abstained from his wonted tasks on certain days, which received in consequence a higher consecration. And so among the ancient Romans, the idea of a day of rest and a holy day were intimately connected and received the name of feria. But it was among the Hebrews that the days set apart for the worship of God received the most distinctive character as days of rest.[1]

The Christian Church on her part, in wishing that the day set apart for the worship of God should be observed as far as possible as a day of rest from labour, acts in accordance with ideas and customs which nature itself has planted in the human race, and which need no other justification. The term sabbatismus (Sabbath rest) soon entered into the theological language of Christendom, and in public life the Christian holy days, at first only Sundays, gradually, even in secular legislation, became recognised as days of rest, sometimes in a larger and sometimes in a smaller number.

The entire number of ecclesiastical holy days and seasons is actually codified for us in the different Church Calendars. Their contents fall into two essentially different divisions, each possessing an entirely different origin and history. The first division consists of festivals of our Lord, distributed over the year, regulated and co-ordinated in accordance with certain laws. The second division consists of commemorations of the saints in no wise connected with the festivals of our Lord or with one another. Occupying to some extent an intermediate position between these two chief divisions come the festivals of our Blessed Lady, which have this in common with the festivals of the saints, that they fall on fixed days, but, on the other hand, they are to a certain extent connected with each other, and with some feasts of our Lord. This is carried out in such a way that they are distributed throughout the entire Church’s year, and are included in each of the festal seasons.

The former of these two divisions is the most important, and its chief feasts are also the oldest. The festivals of our Lord, Easter and Pentecost especially, compose what is called the Church’s year in the stricter sense, and, if they coincide with a saint’s day, they take precedence. The Church’s year is built upon a single basis and according to one plan, which did not originate in the mind of any one person, but developed out of the historical conditions resulting from the connection of Christianity with Judaism.

In the course of the ecclesiastical year, the Church brings before us the chief events in our Lord’s life and the most striking instances of His work of redemption. The central point of the whole is the commemoration of His death and resurrection—i.e. Easter—to which all other events are related, whether those which reach backward to Christmas, or those which reach onwards to the completion of His redemptive work at Whitsuntide. In addition, there is, on the one hand, Advent, as a time of preparation for our Lord’s coming, reminding us of the four or five thousand years which intervened between the Creation and that event, and, on the other, the Sundays after Pentecost, representing the period after the foundation of the Church, and devoted to the consideration of the redemption won for us, along with its doctrines and blessings. The weeks of the year form the links of the chain, each Sunday marking the character of the week which follows it.

The sacred seasons, as they pass in orderly succession, give outward expression to the spirit which animates the Church, and are of the utmost importance from the point of view of her worship, since they form one of the chief elements in the instruction of mankind in the truths of Christianity. By them one easily becomes familiar with Christianity itself.

Every religion has its festivals, but none has so rich and so carefully thought out a system of feasts as the Catholic Church. If we may compare it to some artistically constructed edifice, we can regard the festivals of our Lord as forming the piers which support all the rest, the lesser feasts as contributing the decorations, and the Sundays, with their attendant weeks, as the stones of which the walls are built. Naturally all this did not exist at first, but, like many other things in the Church, has grown up into its present proportions from small beginnings.

We are not told that the Divine Founder of the Church appointed a single festival or left behind Him any instructions on the matter; still the germ, destined by Providence to develop afterwards into the system of festivals with which we are familiar, existed from the beginning. The subsequent rich and varied development of this system was not the work of individuals, but was due to the working of the spirit which ever rules the Universal Church, and ever renews itself within her. Love towards the Redeemer and gratitude for what He has done for us called the round of Christian festivals into being. The authorities in the Church have played the part of the gardener, pruning away superfluous shoots and branches. In view of the numerous institutions of this kind, some of which date back to remote antiquity, it was not a mere figure of speech which Tertullian made use of when, referring to the numerous heathen festivals, he addressed the Christians of his time with the words, “You have your own ‘fasti’” (“Habes tuos fastos.”—De Corona, c. 13).

The outline of the ecclesiastical year was prefigured in the Old Law, while the synagogue furnished the fundamental elements in its festivals, the Sabbath in particular, and in the division of the year into weeks. This renders a glance at the religious year of the Jews necessary, for, apart from it, it is impossible to understand the essential character of the Christian year.

The Jewish festivals in the time of Christ were instituted either in commemoration of events connected with the divine covenant, such as the Passover, or they were of an agrarian character or commemorated some national event, as the dedication of the Temple, Purim, Jom Kippar, etc.

According to the dates of their origin they fall into two classes:—

(a) The ancient festivals instituted by Moses: the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, in the earlier part of the year; the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles, in autumn, i.e. on the first, seventh, and fifteenth days of the month Tizri.

(b) The more recent festivals instituted by the Synagogue, such as the Dedication of the Temple on the 25th Chisleu; Purim, or the Feast of Haman, on the 14th Adar. To these were added four fast days as days of national humiliation.

Consequently, since the death of Christ took place on the first day of the feast of the Passover (15th Nisan), and since the Descent of the Holy Ghost followed on the day of Pentecost, the chief Jewish feasts served as the foundation of the Christian ecclesiastical year, and the Apostles could join with the Jews in their Passover celebration. Certainly the object of their feast was very different from that of the Jews, yet, outwardly there was no separation from the synagogue.

2. Sunday and its Observance as a Day of Rest

The Sabbath and the week of seven days, by their appointment in the ancient Law, formed already a necessary element of the ecclesiastical year and maintained their position in the Church. The division of the year into weeks is not specifically Jewish, but rather Semitic, since we find it in existence in ancient Babylon, though there a new week began with the first day of every month, and the first, seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the month were always days of rest.[2] This system of dividing time into weeks received a religious consecration among the Jews, inasmuch as the Sabbath rest was enjoined by the Law under the severest sanctions. All servile work of whatsoever kind must be laid aside on the Sabbath, according to the Jewish law. It was not even permitted to light a fire or prepare food. Important as was the place given to rest, it was, however, only one part, and that a subordinate part of the Sabbath festival. The most important part was the performance of the acts of divine worship God enjoined upon the people, that is to say the sacrifice of a holocaust, consisting of two yearling lambs, along with “flour tempered with oil and the libations.”[3]

There is no evidence of the Sabbath having been abrogated by Christ or the Apostles, but St Paul declared its observance was not binding on Gentile converts, who soon formed the majority of those converted to the faith; and in Col. ii. 16, he classes it along with the feasts of the new moon. Accordingly, the observance of the Sabbath fell more and more into the background, yet not without leaving some traces behind.[4] It appears at first to have rather existed side by side with Sunday.[5] Among the Christians, the first day of the Jewish week, the prima sabbati, the present Sunday, was held in honour as the day of our Lord’s resurrection and was called the Lord’s Day.[6] This name took the place of the name dies solis, formerly in use among the Greeks and Romans. The different days of the week were named after the heavenly bodies, which in turn took their names from the chief divinities of heathen mythology. Thus the names dies solis, lunæ, Martis, etc., were very general and widespread in antiquity. The Christians did not employ these titles for liturgical purposes, but called the week-days simply feriæ, and distinguished them merely by numbers.[7] In the romance languages the ecclesiastical name for Sunday, dies dominica, has quite taken the place of all others.

These names were already in use in the Apostolic period, and Sunday was the day on which the eucharistic worship of God was performed.[8] Christian worship in the earliest time consisted of two parts. Already, in the letters of Pliny, we find mention of a nocturnal service of preparation at which psalms were sung, prayers recited, and passages read from Holy Scripture. The eucharistic part of the service followed at dawn. These two parts appear sharply distinguished, especially in the diary of Silvia (or Etheria). The vigil service developed out of the first part. The second part in Silvia’s diary usually bears the name of Oblatio, while the term missa denotes merely the dismissal of the faithful and the respective divisions of the psalmody.[9] There also seems to have been a general confession of sins at the commencement of the service, which explains the exhortation of the “Teaching of the Apostles,” that the faithful should confess their sins on Sunday. At any rate, Eusebius plainly refers to the practice, and adds, “We, the adherents of the New Covenant, are constantly nourished by the Body of Christ; we continually partake of the Blood of the Lamb, and celebrate every week on Sunday the mysteries of the true Lamb, by Whom we have been redeemed.”[10] Upon the cessation of persecution, the present arrangement of divine service soon became established—that is to say, Mass and Sermon at nine A.M., with Vespers and Compline as popular devotions in the afternoon.

Besides Sunday, at least in Tertullian’s time, the liturgy was performed on Wednesday and Friday, the so-called Station Days. In the East, on the other hand, it was performed only on Saturdays, at least in many places.[11] To put on one’s best clothes for attendance at worship was a custom of the heathen, which the Christians retained, and which has survived to the present day.[12]

As to the grounds for celebrating Sunday, the Fathers are unanimous from the earliest times—it was kept as a festival because Christ rose again on the first day of the Jewish week.[13] A clear indication of this is given by the practice observed in Jerusalem in the fourth century of reading at the psalmody on each of the Sundays in Quinquagesima, the Gospel of the resurrection of Jesus.[14]

The first Christian Emperor did his best to promote the observance of Sunday and to show it all respect as a day of prayer. He gave leave to the Christian soldiers of his army to be absent from duty in order that they might attend divine service. The heathen soldiers, however, had to assemble in camp without their arms, and offer up a prayer for the Emperor and his family.[15] Eusebius, in his “Life of Constantine,” mentions in detail these pious endeavours of the Emperor, yet his information must have been incomplete, since Sozomen[16] informs us that Constantine also forbade the law-courts to sit on Sunday. It has been attempted to throw doubt on the veracity of this information because of the silence of Eusebius; but Sozomen was an advocate, and must have been better up in the existing legislation than Eusebius, and, moreover, a clear grasp of the point at issue along with a lucid representation of all the facts concerned is not one of the excellences of Eusebius. The information given by Sozomen is further supported by the fact that a law of Constantine’s directed to the same end is in existence.[17]

The prohibition of the transaction of legal business on Sunday was frequently renewed by his successors, and extended so as to suspend the courts of arbitration, and to prohibit summonses for debt.[18]

A law of Valentinian II., in A.D. 425, forbade games in the Circus, and all theatrical representations on Sunday. To the honour of the Emperors it must be said that they suppressed these representations more than once.[19] The Emperor Leo also renewed the law concerning the Sunday rest, and went so far as to forbid music on Sundays,[20] but his law is not included in the general collection of statutes, having been repealed after a short time.

As regards working on Sunday, the Church very carefully avoided the adoption of a pharisaical observance of the day; but, from the beginning, there was a consensus of Christian opinion against the continuance of all work which rendered the attendance of the faithful at divine worship impossible—as, for instance, the labours of slaves or the work of servants. In course of time this was extended so as to exclude all kinds of work out of keeping with the dignity of the day. As to details, different views prevailed to a great extent in different places and times.[21] The first Christian Emperor had already, according to Eusebius,[22] made a law prescribing throughout his Empire rest on Sundays, and even on Fridays as well. Ecclesiastical legislation on its part maintained that slaves must have sufficient free time to attend divine worship and receive religious instruction in church. Attendance at this was regarded as the duty of all grown up Christians.[23] For the rest, the prohibition of work on Sunday was not always regarded in antiquity as of general obligation. Thus, for example, the Council of Laodicea forbade Christians on the one hand to celebrate Saturday in the Jewish manner, and, on the other, enjoined rest from labour only “in so far as it was possible.”[24]

That the establishment of rest from labour had special reference to slaves is shown by the so-called Apostolic Constitutions. In them we have (8, 33) the days on which slaves were to be free from labour once more enumerated in detail, and the limits of the earlier legislation considerably extended.

Days of rest for slaves were to be: Saturday and Sunday, Holy Week and Easter Week, the Ascension, Whitsunday, Christmas, Epiphany, all festivals of Apostles, St Stephen’s Day, and the feasts of certain martyrs. Naturally the object of this ordinance was not to make all these days festivals in the strict sense of the word.

In his anxiety to do honour to the holy days of the Church, the first Christian Emperor went still further. He desired to make Friday, the day of Christ’s death, a day of rest and devotion as well.[25] We have no information as to how far this regulation took practical effect during his life. No trace of such a custom exists at a later date except among the Nestorians. How earnest he was in securing the execution of these decrees is shown by the fact that he commanded the prefects of the provinces not only to observe Sundays, but also to celebrate the commemorations of the martyrs, within their jurisdictions.[26]

It has been already observed that Saturday as well as Sunday had its liturgical observance. In certain Eastern countries it attained to a position almost equal to that of Sunday. For, in the Apostolic Constitutions, it is laid down that the faithful shall attend divine service on this day also, and abstain from servile work,[27] although the rank of Sunday was acknowledged to be higher.[28] The Council of Laodicea forbade indeed, as we have observed above, the abandonment of work on Saturday, but it enjoined the reading of the Gospel as on Sunday (Can. 16). Traces of this pre-eminence of Saturday among the week-days exists at the present time in the Churches of the East.[29]

In conclusion, it is to be noticed that, in the Middle Ages, the rest from labour commenced, contrary to our present custom, with the Vespers of Saturday. Pope Alexander III., however, decreed that local custom should retain its prescriptive right, and so it came to pass that the practice of reckoning the feast day from midnight to midnight became general.[30]

3. The Classification of Festivals

According to the points of view taken, festivals may be divided into different classes:—

1. According to the object of the festival, into festivals of our Lord and festivals of the saints.

The former fall into three divisions: (a) movable feasts—Easter, Pentecost, etc.; (b) immovable feasts—Christmas, Epiphany, etc.; (c) such as are not included in the above cycles and are immovable, e.g., the Transfiguration, Invention of the Cross, etc.

The saints whose feasts are celebrated are either Old Testament personages—although these do not appear in the Roman Calendar as they do in others, especially those of the Oriental Churches—or Apostles, martyrs, virgins, confessors, angels, and, finally, the Mother of our Lord.

2. With regard to their observance, festivals may be either local or general.

3. According to their character, we may theoretically divide the festivals into commemorative and devotional festivals. Commemorative festivals are those which celebrate a historical event, e.g., the birth, and death of Jesus, the death of an Apostle, of a martyr, etc. These, in many cases, are celebrated on the actual day of the event commemorated. As devotional festivals, we may rank those which celebrate some mystery of the Faith, e.g., the Holy Trinity, or those which, although they commemorate a particular event, such as the Transfiguration, do not celebrate it on the day on which it actually happened.

Since the number of festivals altered much in the course of centuries, and their objects are so various, they are distinguished from one another by differences of rank and a whole series of gradations has arisen.

In the first place there are purely ecclesiastical festivals whose celebration is confined within the four walls of the Church (festa chori), and festivals which have their bearing upon the common life of the people, chiefly on account of the rest from labour which is conjoined with them (festa fori).

The so-called feriæ and the festivals strictly so called are clearly distinguished from one another. According to the practice of the Church, the ordinary days of the year have their place in the liturgy, and share to a certain extent in the festal character of the season, although distinguished from those days on which is commemorated some mystery of our redemption or the memory of a saint. These latter are holy days (festa) in a higher sense.

These holy days again are divided into greater or lesser feasts—in the language of the rubrics, into festa duplicia and simplicia, with an intermediate class, the semi-duplicia. This is more marked in the arrangements of the Breviary than in the Missal. This does not exhaust the differences between festivals, for there are further distinctions in their rank, especially in the case of the festivals of our Lord and of the chief mysteries of our redemption, i.e. duplicia majora, and duplicia primæ and secundæ classis. The festa duplicia primæ classis are usually kept up for eight days—the so-called octave; so too some of the secundæ classis.

The different rank of feasts is not so elaborate among the Greeks and Russians, for they divide their festivals simply into greater, intermediate, and lesser, which are marked in their Calendars by special signs.

The octave which belongs to the chief festivals has its origin in Judaism, for the Jews prolonged for eight days the festivals which commemorated the two chief religious and political events in their history—the Exodus from Egypt or the Passover, and the Dedication of the Temple.[31] With regard to the Passover, there was another reason for prolonging the feast during eight days. Since many Jews, after the Exile, remained scattered throughout various countries, there was a risk, owing to the uncertain character of the Jewish Calendar, that the correct date of the feast might not be known to all. In order to avoid the misfortune of celebrating the feast on a wrong day, the feast was prolonged for eight days, one of which would certainly be the right day. The first, second, seventh, and last days were especially regarded as festivals.[32] Then Pentecost and Christmas were also observed with an octave, and so matters remained for a long period. It was owing to the influence which the Franciscan Order exerted in liturgical affairs that the number of octaves was increased. The Franciscans provided an inordinate number of festivals with octaves in their Breviary, and observed each day of the octave with the rite of a festum duplex. In this way a number of saints’ festivals, in addition to the feasts of our Lord, were provided with octaves. According to the ancient Roman rite, the observance of the octave consisted merely in a simple commemoration of the festival inserted in the office on the eighth day, without taking any notice of the festival on the intervening six days.[33] A single example of this ancient custom still exists in the Breviary in the festum S. Agnetis secundo.

Formerly saints’ festivals were not distinguished from one another in rank, but all were kept with the rite of a festum simplex, as it is now called, and also were provided with one lection only, as the Breviary developed. An alteration in this respect was introduced by Gregory VII., who appointed that the commemoration of Popes who were also martyrs should be celebrated as festa duplicia.[34] Next, Boniface VIII., in 1298, ordered that the feasts of the Apostles, Evangelists, and four great doctors of the Western Church should be advanced to the same rank.[35] The Franciscans brought about a complete revolution by celebrating in their Breviary and in their churches all festivals of the saints as duplicia, and by adding a number of new saints.[36] Pius V. reduced the rank of many feasts, but over and above the duplicia he permitted doubles of the first and second class. To the ordinary duplex, or duplex simpliciter per annum, Clement VIII. added yet another species, the duplex majus.[37] Thus, according to the present regulations, feasts are ranked either as simplex, semiduplex, duplex, majus, duplex II. and I. classis.[38]

4. The Gradual Increase of Festivals. Their Decrease in the Last Three Centuries. The Present Position

It is a recognised fact in history that the festivals of the Church in the course of centuries considerably increased in number, and that, when this increase had reached its highest point, their number began again to diminish. This was partly effected by means of legislation and without disturbance, but partly by the violent proceedings attendant upon the French Revolution. The stages in this process will be best understood from an account of the secular and ecclesiastical legislation by which they were brought about.

Tertullian[39] is the first ecclesiastical writer who enumerates the feasts celebrated among the Christians. The only festivals known to him, and to Origen after him, are Easter and Pentecost.[40] His statement is all the more noteworthy, because the exigencies of his controversy with Celsus required he should specify all the festivals by name. These are, besides Sundays, the Parasceve, Easter, and Pentecost. Tertullian and Origen are witnesses respectively for the East and West, and since their evidence coincides, it is certain that in the third century only the first germs existed of that Church-life which subsequently was to reach so rich a development. The cessation of persecution removed those hindrances which up to then had stood in the way of its evolution.

The increase of festivals can now be traced with the assistance of secular legislation, inasmuch as the Christian Emperors prohibited the sitting of the law-courts and games in the circus on certain days. It has been already shown that Constantine, as early as 321, appointed that no legal business should be transacted on all Sundays of the year. In a proclamation concerning the regulation of legal vacations, put forth by Valentinian II. and his colleague in the Empire, and dated from Rome on the 7th August 389, the seven days before and after Easter are added to the Sundays.[41] In the same way as special sittings of the law-courts were abolished on Sundays, so, later on, the proceedings before the judge of arbitration were forbidden.

When a day became recognised as exempt from legal business, this did not at once render it a festival or holy day, otherwise, according to the law of 389, there would have been fifteen consecutive holy days. The prohibition of legal proceedings in the courts on a given day, had regard, in the first place, to the removal of all hindrances which might interfere with attendance at divine worship on the part of those employed therein. In the second place, however, it must be remembered that in those days the sittings of the criminal courts almost always implied the application of torture; and such proceedings on holy days seemed especially out of place. This must also have been the reason why Valentinian and his colleague forbade prosecutions in the criminal courts throughout the whole of Lent. He certainly did not aim at changing all the days of Lent into feast-days. This law was renewed by Justinian.[42]

The legislation concerning Christmas and Epiphany exhibits a good deal of vacillation, probably connected with the fact that these two festivals were not yet generally celebrated and recognised everywhere in the fourth century. They seem to have been originally mentioned in the law of 389, but to have been struck out by the redactors of the Codex Theodosianus.[43] It was only through the inclusion of the law in question in the Code of Justinian that they were finally marked as days on which the law-courts did not sit. This privilege had been already taken away from heathen festivals by a law of Valentinian and his colleague in 392.[44]

Alongside these laws we find others forbidding games in the Circus and in the theatres. These interfered with the attendance of many persons at divine service as much as, or even more than, the proceedings in the law-courts, for they began early in the morning and lasted the whole day. Valentinian II. and his colleague, on the 19th June 386, re-enacted one of their earlier laws forbidding the performance of such plays on Sundays.[45] Through later legislation, it came to pass that the same held good for the seven days before and after Easter as well, and in 395 were added all the days of the year which were regarded as feriæ.[46] Finally, a law of Theodosius II. of 1st February 425, gives a list of all those days on which these spectacles (theatrorum atque circensium voluptas) were forbidden. These were all the Sundays of the year, Christmas, Epiphany, and the whole period from Easter to Pentecost.[47] In A.D. 400 Arcadius and Honorius forbade races on Sundays, plainly for the reason that they drew away the people from divine service.[48]

In order to illustrate the increase in the number of festivals, we make use, as we have said, of the official decrees on the subject put forth by the authorities both in Church and State, where such are at our disposal. The service-books, which do not always give the distinction between festa in choro and in foro with precision, will be consulted when necessary.

A list of feasts and sacred seasons appears for the first time in the fifth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, viz. the Birthday of our Lord (25th December), Epiphany, Lent, the Holy Week of the Passover, the Passover of the Resurrection, the Sunday after Easter, on which is read the Gospel of unbelieving Thomas, Ascension, and Pentecost. This gives the festivals in the fourth century. Other evidence of the same period, i.e. the sermons of Chrysostom and others, affords certain proof for the existence of five or six festivals only, according as Good Friday is included among them or not, viz. Christmas, Epiphany, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension of Christ, and Pentecost.[49]

A list of the festivals celebrated at Tours and in the neighbouring Abbey of St Martin’s during the fifth century, is given us by Perpetuus (461-91), the sixth bishop of the see.[50] In this is shown the days on which the principal service is held in the cathedral, and those on which it is held in other churches in the town:—

Natalis Domini. In ecclesia.

Epiphania. In ecclesia.

Natalis S. Joannis (24th June). Ad basilicam domni Martini.

Natalis S. Petri episcopatus (22nd February). Ad ipsius basilicam.

VI. (al. V.) Cal. Apr. Resurrectio Domini Nostri J. Chr. Ad basilicam domni Martini.[51]

Pascha. In ecclesia.

Dies Ascensionis. In basilica domni Martini.

Dies Quinquagesimus (Pentecost). In ecclesia.

Passio S. Joannis. Ad basilicam in baptisterio.

Natalis SS. Apostolorum Petri et Pauli. Ad ipsorum basilica.

Natalis S. Martini (i.e. the day of his consecration as bishop, the 4th July). Ad ejus basilicam.

Natalis S. Symphoriani (22nd July). Ad basilicam domni Martini.

Natalis S. Litorii (13th September). Ad ejus basilicam.

Natalis S. Martini (11th November). Ad ejus basilicam.

Natalis S. Brictii (13th November). Ad basilicam domni Martini.

Natalis S. Hilarii (13th January). Ad basilicam domni Martini.

The regulations for festivals contained in the statutes of Sonnatius, Bishop of Reims (614-31), show a further development. It marks as festivals: Nativitas Domini, Circumcisio, Epiphania, Annunciatio Beatæ Mariæ, Resurrectio Domini cum die sequenti, Ascensio Domini, dies Pentecostes, Nativitas beati Joannis Baptistæ, Nativitas apostolorum Petri et Pauli, Assumptio beatæ Mariæ, ejusdem Nativitas, Nativitas Andreæ apostoli et omnes dies dominicales. These thirteen days were to be celebrated “absque omni opere forensi.”[52] The omission of Candlemas Day is remarkable. The day after Easter appears for the first time as a holy day. The Council of Maçon, however, had already gone further and forbidden (Can. 2) servile work throughout the whole of Easter week. This extension of the festival was probably at that time unique, while we often meet with it in the ninth century, when it had probably become general.

According to this document, the number of days which in the course of the year were exempt from labour did not exceed sixty-three in the seventh century. Their number was considerably increased in the subsequent period. In the notes on festivals ascribed to St Boniface, it has increased to seventy-one, including the two Sundays on which Easter and Pentecost fall. These notes are included in the collection known as statuta quædam S. Bonifacii,[53] and even if they do not owe their origin to St Boniface, they belong without doubt to his period. Days in which rest from labour (sabbatismus) is enjoined in this document are Christmas (four days), the Circumcision, Epiphany, Purification, Easter (four days), Ascension, Nativity of St John the Baptist, the festival of SS. Peter and Paul, the Assumption, the Nativity of Our Lady, St Andrew’s Day (30th November). Pentecost is passed over because it has already been mentioned in the thirty-fourth canon, but it was to be celebrated in the same manner as Easter, that is, during four days with a vigil.

In the Frankish Empire, during the ninth century, the regulations for holy days were everywhere reduced to order, and in consequence we possess numerous ordinances bearing on the subject. With the exception of festivals of local saints and patrons, they present little variety. With regard to the Assumptio B.V.M. alone, there seems to have been some fluctuations in France at the beginning of the ninth century, as a statement of the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in 809 proves. The Council enumerates the following festivals: Natalis Domini, natales S. Stephani, S. Joannis Evangelistæ, SS. Innocentium, octabas Domini (the Circumcision), Epiphania, Purificatio S. Mariæ, Pascha dies octo, Litania major, scensa Domini, Pentecoste, natales S. Joannis Baptistæ, SS. Petri et Pauli, S. Martini, S. Andreæ. De Assumptione S. Mariæ interrogandum reliquimus.[54] The Council of Mainz in 813, however, in its thirty-sixth canon, includes this last festival along with the others, as well as the litania with four days, i.e. including the preceding Sunday. It also directs that, besides the commemoration of those martyrs and confessors whose relics repose within the diocese, the anniversary of the dedication of the church shall also be celebrated.[55] About the same time, i.e. in 827, Bishop Hetto of Basle put out a statute, in the eighth chapter of which the festivals entailing rest from servile work (dies feriandi) are enumerated: Christmas and the three following days, Octava Domini, Theophania, Purificatio S.M., Pascha (which, according to the seventh chapter, was prolonged for eight days), the three Rogation days, the Ascension, the Saturday before Pentecost, St John Baptist, the festivals of the Apostles, Assumptio S. Mariæ, St Michael, the Dedication of the Church, and the Feast of the patron saint, these two last to be observed locally. Three other days, i.e. St Remigius, St Maurice, and St Martin, were not exempt from servile work.[56] This arrangement differs from the preceding, inasmuch as it includes all the Apostles, while the other mentions only SS. Peter and Paul, and St Andrew. The festivals of the Apostles are also absent from the list given by the Council of Mainz in 809.

The Council of Mainz in 813, and the statutes of Bishop Rudolph of Bourges and Bishop Walter of Orleans in the same century, prescribe eight days for the festival of Pentecost, as well as for Easter, and mention in addition the Nativity of our Lady and St Remigius as festivals.[57] The Council of Ingelheim in 948 retained the Easter octave but reduced the festival of Pentecost to four days, which were finally reduced to three by the Council of Constance.[58] A few additions to these festivals are given in the collections of canons put out at a subsequent period by Burchard of Worms[59] and Ivo of Chartres.[60]

The Canon Law contains two lists of festivals, the one representing the state of things in the twelfth, the other that in the thirteenth century. The former, in the decretal of Gratian,[61] enumerates all the Sundays in the year from Vespers to Vespers, and then, throughout the year, the following days are exempt from servile work: Christmas and the three following days, St Silvester, Octava Domini, Theophania, Purificatio S. Mariæ, Easter and the entire Easter week, the three Rogation days, the Ascension, the days of Pentecost (probably three), St John the Baptist’s Day, all the Apostles, St Lawrence, Assumptio and Nativitas B.M.V., the Dedication of the Church, St Michael and All Saints, and, finally, the festivals approved by the bishop of the diocese. This list exhibits a further increase on its predecessors.

The decretal of Gregory IX., Conquestus est nobis, of the year 1232,[62] is important for the Middle Ages, although it does not represent the highest point in the development. According to it, legal business was not to be transacted on the Natalis Domini, S. Stephani, Joannis Evangelistæ, SS. Innocentium, S. Silvestri, Circumcisionis, Epiphaniæ, Septem Diebus Dominicæ Passionis, Resurrectionis cum septem Sequentibus, Ascensionis, Pentecostes cum duobus qui sequuntur, Nativitatis Baptistæ, Festivitatum omnium Virginis Gloriosæ, Duodecim Apostolorum et præcipue Petri et Pauli, Beati Laurentii, Dedicationis Beati Michælis, Sollemnitatis omnium Sanctorum ac Diebus Dominicis ceterisque sollemnitatibus, quas singuli episcopi in suis diæcesibus cum clero et populo duxerint sollemniter celebrandas. Setting down the number of Our Lady’s feasts as five, and the Apostles’ as eleven, we have here ninety-five days in the year on which no legal proceedings took place, not counting the particular festivals of the country and diocese. The above-mentioned decretal is silent concerning servile work. We may assume that there were ten out of the fifteen days exempt from legal proceedings on which servile work was permitted, and thus the total of days exempt from labour must have amounted to eighty-five in the course of the year, omitting the festivals proper to the diocese.[63]

With this, the highest point of development was almost attained, for only a very few festivals were added later, such as Corpus Christi, and, for certain localities, the Conception of Our Blessed Lady, and one or two more, but the number of local festivals might, under certain circumstances, be largely augmented. Between the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries there were dioceses in which the number of days exempt from labour reached or even exceeded a hundred, so that, generally speaking, in every week there was another day besides the Sunday on which ordinary occupations were laid aside.[64] In some dioceses[65] the number of festivals observed exceeded those proscribed by lawful authority.[66]

In the Byzantine Empire the number of days exempt from legal proceedings was even more considerable than in the West. A distinction was made between whole holidays and half holidays. The Emperor Manuel Comnenus reduced their number by a constitution, dated March 1166. According to this, the first-class comprised no fewer than sixty-six days, not including Sundays, and the second comprised twenty-seven.

From the Calendar of Calcasendi,[67] we learn what were the festivals observed by the Copts in Egypt, in the eighth century, under Mahomedan rule. They distinguished between greater and lesser festivals, and kept seven of each.

The greater festivals are:—

1. Annuntiatio, Calcasendi adds: Innuunt per eam annuntiationem consolatoris, qui ipse est juxta eorum disciplinam Gabriel, Mariæ, super quam sit pax, de nativitate Jesu, super quam sit misericordia Dei. The festival was held on 29th Barchamoth—25th March.

2. Olivarum s. festum palmarum in die solis postremo jejunii illorum, alias festum Alschacaniu (a corruption of Hosanna), Palm Sunday.

3. Pascha celebrant die solutionis jejunii eorum.

4. Feria quinta quadraginta (scil. dierum), i.e. festum ascensionis.

5. Festum quinque (scil. decadum dierum), i.e. pentecoste.

6. Nativitas Domini.

7. Immersio, i.e. baptismus Domini, Epiphany.

The lesser festivals are:—

1. Circumcisio Domini.

2. Quadragesima (scil. dies, reckoned from Christmas), Candlemas Day; the date 8th Mesori is given.

3. Feria quinta confœderations sive testimonii, Maundy Thursday.

4. Sabbatum Luminis, Holy Saturday.

5. Festum claudens s. terminans est octiduo post pascha, Low Sunday.

6. Festum transfigurationis (6th August).

7. Festum crucis, on the 14th September.

For the Egyptian Christians, Good Friday was not a festival of either the first or second class. In this it stood in marked distinction from the preceding and following days—Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday, which were regarded as festivals of the second class.

The festivals observed in the latter period of the Byzantine Empire under the Paleologi are found in the treatise of an official of the palace, George Codinus, De Officiis Palatii, in which detailed information is given of the costume, insignia, etc., with which the Emperor and his courtiers attended divine service in the different churches of the capital. Beside the great festivals—Christmas, Epiphany, Hypapante, Easter, and Pentecost—the following days were distinguished by the attendance of the Court at divine service: the First Sunday in Lent, called by the Greeks Orthodox Sunday, Palm Sunday, Holy Saturday and the Easter Octave, the 1st September being New Year’s Day. To these were added a great number of saints’ days, i.e. 1st January, St Basil; 23rd April, St George; 21st May, Constantine; 24th June, Nativity of St John the Baptist; 30th June, the Feast of the Apostles; 8th August, the Transfiguration; 15th August, the Assumption (κοίμησις τῆς ὑπεραγίας θεοτόκου); 29th August, the Beheading of St John the Baptist; 31st August or 2nd July, the Translation of Our Lady’s garment to the Church of the Blachernæ; 8th September, the Nativity of Our Lady; 14th September, the Invention of the Cross (ὕψωσις τοῦ σταυροῦ); 26th October, Feast of the Martyr Demetrius Myroblyta; 13th November, St Chrysostom; 21st November, the Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple; and, finally, the day of the Resurrection of Lazarus, which was kept on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. The Court did not attend divine service on Good Friday, although it did on Holy Saturday. No mention is made of the Ascension.

The large increase in festivals in the Middle Ages was due to the fact that the bishops exercised the right given them by Canon Law,[68] of introducing new feasts within the limits of their dioceses. This arose from the ancient custom, that it belonged to them to watch over the cultus of the martyrs, and it depended upon their authorisation whether or not a given martyr should be recognised and venerated as such. Later, when the religious orders became widespread and influential, it usually happened that some monastery began to venerate a mystery or a saint, and then, as this cultus was taken up by the people, other monasteries, or the whole Order, adopted the festival,[69] and, finally, the bishops gave their approbation to the institution of the holy day in question. Lastly, the civil power and the Roman See intervened, and the new holy day was in this way fully sanctioned. Things, however, did not always proceed so far, for in many cases the festival was confined to a single diocese, the result being great variety in particulars and general uncertainty. These abuses became more deeply felt in course of time, and so Urban VIII., in his constitution Universa per orbem, published in 1642, warns the bishops not to use their rights in this respect for the future, and at the present day these rights, without having been abrogated, are regarded as antiquated.[70]

The fact that formerly the bishops enjoyed the right of introducing festivals into their dioceses, or of excluding them, must constantly be borne in mind, because, if it is left out of sight, the institution and development of even a single festival cannot be understood, much less the historical development of the whole festal cycle. When we realise that this principle was acted upon from the beginning, and for more than a thousand years, during a period remarkable for its rich development in many directions, the wonder is that the result is as harmonious and systematic as it is. No departure was made from the natural basis upon which the whole was built up, and the attempts of the Councils were all in the direction of uniformity.

The abuses resulting from the excessive multiplication of holy days was remarked upon even in Catholic times, especially by John Gerson, at a provincial synod at Reims in 1408, and by Nicholas de Clemangiis, who, in a work[71] devoted to that purpose, published about 1416, spoke out boldly against the introduction of any more festivals. In the sixteenth century, the Protestants in their Gravamina denounced the great number of festivals, and already in 1524 the legate Campeggio settled their number, and so put an end to their arbitrary increase for the future.[72]

By the introduction of diocesan and local festivals, the number of holy days became excessive in some localities, and great uncertainty arose as to which festivals should be celebrated by all, in accordance with the general precepts of the Church, and which should not. This, and the complaints of the poor that they were prevented by the number of holy days from gaining their livelihood, while others again took advantage of them to indulge in laziness or the pursuit of pleasure, was the ground which Gerson had already adduced in his time. The same reasons now induced Pope Urban VIII. to regulate the arrangements of festivals and to fix limits for the whole Church beyond which it would not be lawful to go. For this purpose, he published, on the 24th September 1642, the important constitution Universa per orbem, in which the following holy days are prescribed: 1. Feasts of our Lord—Christmas, Easter and Pentecost, with the two following days, New Year, Epiphany, the Ascension, Trinity, Corpus Christi, the Invention of the Cross. 2. Feasts of Our Lady—Candlemas, the Annunciation, the Assumption, and the Nativity. 3. Saints’ Days—St Michael (8th May), Nativity of St John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, St Andrew, St James, St John, St Thomas, SS. Phillip and James, St Bartholomew, St Matthew, SS. Simon and Jude, St Matthias, St Lawrence, St Silvester, St Joseph, St Anne, All Saints’, and the patron saint of the country. The actual reduction was small, and concerned chiefly the lesser saints days, such as St Mary Magdalene, St Cecilia, St Catherine, St Martin, etc. A more important consequence of this constitution was, that the original right of the bishop to appoint festivals, although recognised by the Council of Trent, was rendered practically ineffective.

In the eighteenth century, the hatred against the Church which showed itself at the Courts of the Bourbon sovereigns, and the so-called advance of culture, necessitated fresh regulations on this point. First of all, at the request of the provincial synod of Tarragona in 1727, Pope Benedict XIII. consented to the reduction of the number of festivals for a part of Spain. From this arose the distinction between half and whole holy days.[73] Rest from servile work was maintained only on the Sundays and seventeen festivals, i.e. half the number given in the list above, and for the other seventeen days it was enjoined that the faithful assist at Mass only. After attendance at divine service, all kinds of work were to be permitted. This permission was extended in 1748, by Benedict XIV., to Naples, Sicily, and several Spanish dioceses.

The same Pope extended this reduction of festivals to Austria in 1754, inasmuch as only fifteen complete holy days besides Sundays were left; while on the other days, which were to be observed according to the provisions of the bull, Universa per orbem, it was enjoined that Mass should be heard and the fast kept on their vigil. This last injunction soon fell into disuse, and even assistance at Mass on the suppressed holy days was not strictly observed. Accordingly, the Empress Maria Teresa desired an alteration, and Pope Clement XIV. issued a new brief in 1771. In this, the direction to keep a fast on the vigil of the suppressed festivals, and to attend mass, was set aside, and the following festivals were prescribed to be kept as complete holy days; Christmas, St Stephen’s Day, New Year, Epiphany, Easter (two days), the Ascension, Pentecost (two days), Corpus Christi, SS. Peter and Paul, All Saints, the five principle feasts of our Lady, and the festival of the patron saint of the country, i.e. eighteen days in addition to the Sundays. A similar arrangement was introduced, in 1772, into the then electorate of Bavaria, in 1775, into Poland and East Prussia, and in 1791, into the whole of Spain.[74]

Under Pius VI. permission was frequently given for the reduction of the number of festivals at the request of certain dioceses and districts as appears from the bullarium of this Pope.

It became necessary to make new arrangements concerning festivals for Prussia, after the incorporation of Silesia. This was effected by a brief of Clement XIV. of the 24th June 1772, especially granted to the diocese of Breslau, but applying to all Prussia as it then existed. The festivals retained were: Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas (each two days), the Circumcision, Epiphany, the Ascension, Corpus Christi, five feasts of Our Lady, (i.e. the Purification, Annunciation, Assumption, Nativity, and Conception), SS. Peter and Paul and All Saints. Where there were several patron saints, only one, the principal, was to be celebrated.

These regulations remained in force only until 1788, for King Frederick William II. requested a further reduction in the number of festivals through his agent in Rome, Ciofani. In consequence of this, Pius VI. transferred the feasts of the Assumption and Nativity of our Lady to the Sundays following, and, at the express wish of the King, appointed that the Wednesday in the third week after Easter, one of the Protestant days of penitence and prayer, should rank as a festival, an order that all might implore the same God for a fruitful harvest. In compensation for the suppressed festivals of the Apostles and other Saints, there was to be observed the commemoration of all the Apostles on the 29th June, and a similar commemoration of all the holy martyrs on the 26th December. These had already been appointed by Clement XIV.[75]

These regulations remained in force for Prussia, and were even extended to its newly acquired territories by a brief of Leo XII., dated 2nd December 1828. By this means, the districts on the left bank of the Rhine, which, while under French dominion had only kept the four holidays prescribed by the Code Napoleon, again enjoyed a notable increase in the number of festivals. In order that this might not interfere with the livelihood of the industrial classes, who had to compete with Protestants, it was conceded at the representations of Archbishop von Spiegel that, in the industrial districts, servile labour might be performed after attendance at Mass on the festivals introduced in obedience to the brief of Leo XII. Owing to the deeply religious character of the district in question, very little use was ever made of this concession, and it has accordingly become obsolete. This is the origin of the regulations for Catholic festivals at present in force in Prussia. In one point, however, an alteration has been made, for when the Protestant day of penitence in prayer which falls in November, was fixed by authority in 1893, the Catholics fell in with the arrangement, and now celebrate the Presentation of our Lady in the Temple as a movable feast on the same day.

The greatest alterations in respect of the Church’s holy days was caused by the French Revolution. By a decree of the Convention on 5th October 1793, the Christian mode of reckoning was abolished and a new mode substituted for it. The years were to be reckoned from the establishment of the French Republic on 22nd September 1792. The division of time into weeks was also abolished and the months, now uniformly of thirty days, were divided into the decades. The French observed this mode of reckoning until 1st January 1806. While it was in force, Napoleon undertook the re-establishment of ecclesiastical affairs in France, and as far as the regulations for holy days are concerned, traces of the then existing state of things survives until the present day. For the Church had to fall in with the reckoning then in force, to the extent of either abolishing all holy days which fell in the week, or of transferring them to the Sunday. According to the ordinance of the Cardinal Legate Caprara, dated Paris, 9th April 1802, only four holy days were left, i.e. Christmas, Ascension, the Assumption (because the 15th August was Napoleon’s name-day), and All Saints. This ordinance affected all France as it was then, that is including the Netherlands, and the whole left bank of the Rhine.

In the Appendix[76] will be found a detailed list of the festivals observed in different countries upon which servile work is forbidden. A list of this kind, in addition to its practical value, is instructive as showing how the interests of religion are affected by the culture and social conditions of each country at a given period, and also how politics have intruded themselves into the sphere of religion. The latter fact is especially prominent in Protestantism. From the beginning, Protestantism was affected by two opposing streams—one favourable to the observance of festivals, prevailing among the Lutheran, the other opposed to it, prevailing among the Calvinists. Luther wished to retain all feasts of our Lord, and even Epiphany, Candlemas, the Annunciation found favour with him as such. Saints days and the two festivals of the Holy Cross were alone to be abolished. Certain secular governments tolerated even more festivals, such as St Michael and St John the Baptist. The Church Order of Brandenburg retained the feasts of Apostles, and even Corpus Christi, but without a procession, and the Assumption—this last for the sake of the peasants.[77] The same regulations were observed in Saxony and Würtemburg. Strict Calvinism retained only Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost; its spread and increasing influence manifested itself gradually in the regulations concerning festivals. The Prussian Union, and the Agenda of the so-called Evangelical State Church of 1895 recognise as holy days of obligation only the three principal festivals, each with two holidays, i.e. the Sunday and the Monday, New Year, Epiphany, Good Friday, the Ascension, along with the days of penitence and prayer. Contrary to the principles of Calvinism, the Established Church of England possesses a Calendar richly furnished with festivals.[78]

PART II

CHAPTER I
THE CHURCH’S YEAR

A. Easter, and the Sacred Seasons connected with Easter

1. Easter, its Name and History

Were it our object to deal with the Church’s year as affording material for a series of doctrinal instructions, we should begin with Christmas, the festival of Christ’s birth, for, so viewed, the ecclesiastical year becomes chiefly a compendium of the chief acts in the drama of our salvation, and recalls in orderly succession the principal events in our Saviour’s life. But if we make the Church’s year in itself the object of our studies, especially if we deal with it historically, we are bound to commence with Easter, because, in order of time, it existed from the first and formed the natural starting-point for all the rest. It did not, as other festivals, come into existence gradually, but formed a connecting link with the Old Testament, and was, in the strictest sense of the words, the appointment of a Higher Power, providentially ordering all things according to Its good pleasure. Easter owes its origin not to human wisdom, or piety: it comes to us with higher sanctions.

Easter is the chief festival of Christendom, the first and oldest of all festivals, the basis on which the Church’s year is built, the connecting link with the festivals of the Old Covenant, and the central point on which depends the date of the other movable feasts. At an early date, the Fathers mention Easter as the most important of the festivals, as, for example, St Leo the Great,[79] on the grounds that the incarnation and birth of the Son of God served as a prelude to the mystery of the Resurrection, and that Christ had no other purpose in being born of a woman than that He should be nailed to the Cross for us.[80] Other Fathers and the Roman martyrology call it the feast of feasts (festum festorum).

With regard to the name, the English word “Easter” comes from Eastre, in German “Ostra,”[81] the goddess of Spring worshipped by the ancient Saxons and Angles, whose name survives in many place-names, such as Osterode, Osterberg, etc. In her honour fires, known as the Easter fires, were kindled in spring. In Latin, we find at first dominica resurrectionis alone used in the liturgy, never Pascha. Pascha has no connection with the Greek πάσχω, but is the Aramaic form of pesach, to pass over, ‎‏פַּסְחָח‎‏ for ‎‏פֶּסַח‎‏. In Christian times, the similarity in the sound of the words easily suggested, by a sort of play upon the words, that which to Christians is the chief object of the Easter festival. In the Pentateuch, pascha is only found in the strict sense of transitus, phase.[82]

The points to be dealt with regarding Easter are its antiquity, and its connection, in point of view of time and of signification, with the Jewish Passover, with which it is connected by the death of Christ, as well as by the day on which that death took place. Then, the character and duration of the feast, the preparatory solemnity of Lent, and the subsequent Octave must be dealt with.

With regard to Easter and its antiquity in early ecclesiastical literature, the Apostolic Fathers, owing to the questions dealt with in their writings, do not mention it. Only in the interpolated letter of Ignatius to the Philippians (c. 14) is Easter mentioned. The passage is directed against the Quartodecimans, which of itself is proof of its later date. Nothing is to be found in the Didaché or in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies. When we come to the apologists, we find no reference to Easter in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho (c. 40), and nothing in either of his Apologies. Clement of Alexandria speaks only of the Jewish passover, without referring to the Christian feast. Melito of Sardis, however, wrote an entire treatise on the festival of Easter, in the year when Servilius Paulus was Pro-Consul of Asia, for at that time a disagreement concerning Easter had broken out in Laodicea. Clement of Alexandria replied to Melito, who had written in defence of the Quartodeciman practice.[83]

In 198, when the difference between Asia and the rest of the Church concerning Easter came under discussion, an exchange of letters took place between the leading authorities of the Church, Pope Victor, Bishop Narcissus of Jerusalem, Polycrates of Ephesus, Bacchylus of Corinth, Irenæus, and others taking part. Irenæus composed a special treatise De Paschate, sometimes called De Schismate, unfortunately lost. In the fragments falsely attributed to him, Easter is referred to in the third and seventh.

References to Easter are frequent in Tertullian. With regard to the name, it is to be noticed that with him pascha denotes, not the single day of the Easter festival, but a longer period of time, in which a fast was observed and baptism administered,[84] in other words, Passion-tide and the Easter Octave.[85] Moreover, for the actual day of our Lord’s death, he uses the word, parasceve.[86] The festival of Easter, as he further relates, was kept in the first month (i.e. March),[87] and was prefigured by the Jewish Passover.[88] We possess a treatise on Easter, of the year 243 A.D., formerly attributed wrongly to St Cyprian, but, probably, a translation of work of Theophilus of Cæsarea. It is entitled De Paschate Computus, and was written elsewhere than at Rome, in the interest of the Easter cycle of sixteen years drawn up by Hippolytus. The remarks of Hippolytus on the Quartodecimans afford us important evidence for the Ante-Nicene period. “These,” he says, “agree with the Church in preserving all the apostolic traditions, but differ from her in one point, inasmuch as, out of contentiousness, wilfulness, and ignorance, they maintain that the Christian feast must always be kept on the 14th Nisan, no matter on what day of the week it falls.”[89]

If the Arabic Canons ascribed to Hippolytus, especially the twenty-second, are really his, it would appear that he held Easter might be kept in the same week as the Jewish Passover, but on the Sunday, and should be preceded by a week’s fast on bread and water.[90] This date coincides with the Easter cycle of sixteen years drawn up by Hippolytus, and which, after all, is only the Jewish cycle of eight years doubled.

The seventh and sixty-ninth of the so-called Apostolic Canons refer to Easter and its preparatory fast. The seventh is also important on account of what it says about the period within which Easter may fall: “Whosoever keeps Easter with the Jews before the vernal equinox, let him be anathema.” From which it appears that the Jewish Passover could fall before the vernal equinox. The last day of Nisan alone must never precede the equinox, and, consequently, the Passover must frequently have fallen before the 21st March, and may have done so in the year of our Lord’s death.

Of Eusebius’ treatise on Easter,[91] dedicated to the Emperor, only a portion remains and this contains nothing either about Easter or its date. Constantine gratefully accepted the dedication in a letter which Eusebius, not without vanity, incorporated in his Vita Constantini (4, 35). The Emperor’s encyclical,[92] communicating to the churches the conclusions concerning Easter arrived at by the Nicene Council, would have been more deserving of a place in the same work.

2. The Connection of the Christian Festival with the Jewish

The connection between the Christian and the Jewish feasts is both historical and ideal—historical because our Lord’s death happened on the 15th Nisan, the first day of the Jewish feast; ideal, because what took place had been prefigured in the Old Testament by types of which it was itself the antitype.

The Jewish Passover was a repetition of what had taken place on the evening of the exodus from Egypt. On that occasion, the children of Israel had killed a lamb and marked their doorposts with its blood in order that the destroying angel might pass over their houses. Then, dressed for the journey, they had consumed the lamb at a ceremonial meal. This last meal of which the Israelites partook in Egypt on the eve of their departure, i.e. on the 14th Nisan, was of a religious character, and was, on this account, to be repeated every year on the same day, and at the same hour, as a memorial feast, at which each father of a family had to instruct his household in the signification of the rites they were performing.[93]

The manner of celebrating the feast was minutely prescribed. Each householder, for example, had to choose a lamb without blemish of the first year, on the 10th of the first month, i.e. Nisan, as it came to be called later, or, if he had none in his own herd, he must procure one from elsewhere and keep it in readiness for the feast on the evening of the 14th Nisan. The lamb was to be killed, roasted, and eaten by the household, who remained standing, along with unleavened bread, and bitter herbs, nothing being allowed to remain over.[94] From this onwards to the 21st Nisan inclusive, unleavened bread was alone to be eaten, and hence the period from the 15th to the 21st Nisan was called the days of unleavened bread. The first and last days, the 15th and the 21st, were regarded as especially sacred, and servile work was forbidden on them.[95] During the whole week, holocausts, meat offerings, and sin offerings were offered daily in the Temple on behalf of the entire people, as well as offerings presented by individual believers on their own behalf. The 16th Nisan was marked by an offering of a special kind, that of the first-fruits of harvest, consisting of the presentation of a sheaf of ripe barley along with the offering of a yearling lamb.[96] This offering of the first ripe fruits served also to mark the time when the Passover was to be celebrated, for, owing to the fact that the Jewish year did not begin on a fixed date, this had to be in some way determined by a stated event in the order of nature. In Palestine the barley was already ripe by March.

Several of the actions prescribed at the offering of this lamb pointed forward to the atoning death of the Messias, such as the sprinkling of the doorposts with its blood, in order that the destroying angel might pass over the house, and the direction that none of the lamb’s bones were to be broken. There were also several other small particulars which emphasised and completed the ideal connection between the sacrifice of the Passover and that of the Cross, as certain Fathers perceived at an early date.

Isaias, speaking in his prophecy, of the sufferings of the Messias, calls Him the Lamb chosen by God, who bears the iniquity of others.[97] St John the Baptist pointed out Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and by the writers of the New Testament the same idea is frequently employed. St John the Evangelist expressly refers to the typical character of the Passover rites, when he applies the passage, “A bone of it shall not be broken,”[98] to Christ on the Cross, and sees its fulfilment in the fact that the soldiers refrained from breaking His limbs. St Paul declares in general that the sacrifice of Christ replaces the Passover, and sees a typical signification in the unleavened bread.[99] It appears, he had no objection to Christians holding a Passover supper, although, elsewhere he expresses himself strongly against their continuing to observe Jewish practices, such as Sabbaths and new moons.[100] As to the Fathers, it is sufficient, to quote Justin and Tertullian,[101] who in particular see in the fact that the Passover lamb was transfixed in two pieces of wood arranged cross-wise, a figure of the Cross in which Christ was stretched. Speaking generally, there is no doubt the Jewish Passover was taken over into Christianity, and thereby its typical ceremonies found their true fulfilment.

Apart from the relation of the sacrifice of Christ’s death to the Jewish Passover, and its dogmatic signification, sentiment and mere human feeling would have led Christians to regard with reverence the day on which our Lord, the Founder of the Church, died, and to keep the day sacred in each succeeded year on which He had offered the sacrifice of Himself. But for this it was necessary, in the first place, to know on what day exactly His death had taken place.

For the Jews, this was easy; it was the 15th Nisan in their Calendar, but for Christians of other countries, it was very difficult. In the Roman Empire, to which they all belonged, different methods of reckoning time and different calendars were in use. Since 45 B.C., the Romans themselves used the revised Julian Calendar, leaving at the same time perfect freedom to subject nations either to adopt it, or continue their own methods.[102] Chief among the existing systems were the Egyptian, the Syro-Macedonian, and the Semitic, each with its own way of dating the year. The two first systems admitted of being brought into agreement with the Roman Calendar, with more or less difficulty, since, according to them, the year began on a fixed date, but with the Jewish Calendar it was not so, for its was based on the lunar year, and never synchronised with the solar year as to the beginning of months and years. The Egyptian year, at the commencement of the Christian era, began on the 29th August, and consisted of twelve months of thirty days each, and five additional days (ἐπαγόμεναι) belonging to no month. Every fourth year was a leap-year, namely the third, seventh, eleventh, fifteenth year, according to the Julian reckoning. The Syro-Macedonian Calendar commenced with the autumnal equinox. The Syrians, however, later on, partially adopted the Julian Calendar in a somewhat modified form.[103] The Egyptian system of introducing additional days was essentially the same as the Roman, except that their leap-year was always one year in advance of the Roman leap-year. To their usual five additional days, they added yet one more, making a total of six. Consequently the next year, i.e. the fourth, eighth, twelfth, sixteenth, etc., began on the 30th instead of the 29th August.[104] For reckoning years, the Egyptians made use of the years of the sovereign’s reign, but as they began the year with the 1st Thoth, preceding the proclamation of the sovereign’s accession, it often happened that more years than he was entitled to were set down to one sovereign, while another who had reigned for less than a year was simply passed over.[105]

It was extremely difficult for those nations, whose Calendars were arranged on a different system, to fix the day of Christ’s death by their own chronology, for the Jewish 15th Nisan might fall on widely different days, sometimes in March, sometimes in April. How difficult it was to discover, the days on which the death and resurrection of Christ ought to be commemorated, will become more obvious from what follows.

3. The circumstances which led to Easter being a movable Feast

To the real and historical connection between the Christian Easter and the Jewish Passover, is due the explanation of a striking peculiarity in the Church’s year, viz., the movable feasts, of which Easter is the starting-point. Easter falls on no fixed date, because the Jewish 15th Nisan, unlike the dates of the Julian and Gregorian Calendars, varied year by year. The extent and nature of this discrepancy are caused by the Semitic Calendar. At the commencement of the Christian era, this Calendar was not only used by the Jews, but also extensively followed in Syria, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Babylon, Armenia, Osrhoëne, and in a great part of Asia Minor, although other nationalities in these countries kept each to its own Calendar. Thus, for example, the Greeks in Antioch followed the Syro-Macedonian Calendar, and so on. Where a mixed population existed in any place, different Calendars would be found in use.

The special features of the Semitic, or Jewish Calendar, which concern us in this connection are the following:—

1. The Jewish day ended at sunset, and so the evening hours, from about six p.m. belonged to the following day. This caused difference in dates, for what happened according to Roman ideas at ten p.m. for example, was regarded by the Jews as happening on the following day.

2. The Jewish year was a variable lunar year, i.e. it consisted of twelve months, each of which began with the new moon, the full moon consequently falling on the 14th of each month. The moon completes her orbit round the earth in twenty-nine and a half days, or two orbits in fifty-nine days. The Jewish months, accordingly, varied from twenty-nine to thirty days alternately (Tischri and Nisan having thirty days), it being impossible to commence a month in the middle of a day. Thus the twelve months of the Jewish year make up 354 days. Eleven and a quarter days were required to make up the length of a solar year. Had this discrepancy not been rectified in some way, every Jewish month, and the new year as well, would, in the course of thirty years, have made the circle of the year. For, if in one year, the 1st Nisan coincided with the 1st March, in the next it would fall on the 12th, and so on.

The Semites brought about the necessary adjustment, not by leap-years, but by the insertion of an additional month. For example, eight solar years have a total of 2920 days, not counting the addition days of leap years. The same number of days make up ninety-nine lunar months, or, in other words, eight lunar years and three intercalary months, are equal to eight solar years. Thus, in eight years, three additional months must be introduced, making the number of days almost equal with the days of eight solar years, except for a small discrepancy, caused by the additional day in leap year. When these additional days had reached the number of thirty, they could be accounted for by the introduction of a further additional month. In regulating these points, the equinoxes were of the utmost importance, and, in the second place, the ceremonial oblation of the first fruits.

If it was evident that the month Nisan would terminate before the vernal equinox—its beginning and middle had to precede the equinox, as well as the quarta decima lunæ—and if the barley was not in ear by the 14th, then it was considered the discrepancy had to be set right. This was done by prolonging the last month of the expiring year, Adar, for twenty-nine days longer than usual. In other words, an additional month was added to the year, designated merely as Veadar. This was the intercalary month. This, happening thrice in eight years, brought the lunar and solar years into agreement by a very simple expedient. The equinox could be controlled by help of the Zodiac, for, on the 20th March, the sun enters Aries, and, on the 23rd September, Libra.

Had the Jews followed out this method scientifically, i.e., had the introduction of the intercalary months followed fixed laws and been ruled by astronomical observations and calculations, then, though still difficult, it would have been possible to make the Jewish Calendar synchronise with others. But the introduction of these additional days was, so to speak, arbitrary and dependent upon the good pleasure of the priests. Thus we can never say for certain that such and such a year was a leap year with the Jews, and accordingly no date in the past can with certainty be made to synchronise with a date in the Julian or any other Calendar.[106]

Until their dispersion after the Jewish war in A.D. 70, and even much later, the Jews reckoned their new moons and leap years, and also the beginning of each year, not by strictly astronomical data, but by the method just described. The rule was that the month began with the day on the evening of which the new moon first became visible, and also that the passover should be kept when the sun was in Aries.[107] Maimonides, agreeing with what we have said above, informs us that a second Adar was interposed if the vernal equinox fell on the 16th Nisan or later. But it would be a great mistake to think that a scientifically accurate system, founded on these principles, was employed for calculating the new moons and leap years, such as would make it possible to bring the dates of the Jewish year into certain correspondence with the Julian Calendar. Still we must not think no attempts were made to reduce the Calendar to order on the basis of some cyclic system, but the caprice of the Sanhedrin always succeeded in rendering these attempts unavailing. Ideler (i. 512) shows how the new moons were treated, and Maimonides tells us that the Sanhedrin was influenced by many considerations in the choice of leap years. The Talmud preserves a remarkable letter written by Rabbi Gamaliel, the teacher of St Paul, to the Jews of Babylon and Media, which may appositely be quoted here. “We herewith inform you that we, in conjunction with our colleagues, have deemed it necessary to add thirty days to the year, since the doves (to be offered in sacrifice) are still too tender, and the lambs (for the passover) too young, and the time of Abib (the barley harvest) has not arrived.”

This passage may well serve as a warning to those who, whenever they find a fixed date in ancient Jewish writings, forthwith, with the aid of lunar tables, transpose it into a date according to the Julian method of reckoning, and possibly flatter themselves they have found a fixed point which will form a basis for further calculations.

In consequence of what we have said, it seems natural that Jewish converts to Christianity in apostolic times in the East should have fixed the date of Easter by Jewish methods, without departing, in this respect, from Jewish customs, especially as they formed the majority in the Church. This was all the more natural since in Syria and in many parts of Asia Minor, a Calendar drawn up on similar principles to the Semitic, was in use alongside the Greek (i.e. Roman) Calendar. This custom, however, although retained by the Quartodecimans, was never widespread, and did not long survive. The principal consideration, which demanded a departure from Jewish methods, was, that from the Christian point of view, the Resurrection, and not the day of Christ’s death, formed the chief feature of the commemoration; the latter, although a day to be had in remembrance, could not well be kept as a joyous festival. But the Resurrection took place on the Sunday after the 15th Nisan, and so this Sunday came to be the chief day of the Christians’ feast.

Through the gradual spread of Christianity in non-Semitic lands in the West, the necessity must soon have arisen of fixing the day of the Resurrection by the Julian Calendar, and of deciding according to it the day on which Easter had to be celebrated. But, as we have said, it is very difficult to transfer a date from the Jewish to the Julian Calendar, and, in most cases, quite impossible when the date is that of an event already long past.

Let us apply all this to the point in question.

If it was asked, “On what day did Christ die?” the answer was, “On the 15th Nisan.” But if it was asked again, “On which day of the Roman Calendar does the 15th Nisan fall?” the reply must be, “Who can tell? In one year it may fall in March, in another in April; sometimes on one day of our Calendar, sometimes on another.”

The reply, “On the 15th Nisan,” conveyed nothing either to the Romans or to the Egyptians; it was intelligible to the Semites alone. Thus, where the Semitic Calendar was not understood, it was necessary to fix the day by some other method. In the choice of methods, the Church of Alexandria, and, most of all, the Church of Rome, took the lead. The simplest plan would have been to discover on which day of March or April the 15th Nisan had fallen in the year of Christ’s death, i.e. 782 U.C. But it was impossible to do this with certainty after a few decades had elapsed. Another starting-point had to be sought, and this was naturally given by the spring full moon, i.e. the full moon nearest to the vernal equinox, for the 15th Nisan must fall either on this full moon or thereabouts. Thus in Rome and Alexandria, all the principles which are in force at the present day were gradually adopted, i.e. Easter is to be celebrated on the Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. There is evidence that this rule for determining the date of Easter was followed in Rome from the time of Pope Sixtus I., possibly even earlier. The further developments do not concern us here.

Here and there in the West, there was a tendency to commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ on fixed days in the Julian Calendar—on the 25th and 27th of March, for example—but it never became general. For the most part, the data for the calculation of Easter were the same as those employed for calculating the Jewish passover; that is to say, the full moon on the one hand, and the vernal equinox on the other, Sunday being introduced as an additional factor in the calculation, since our Lord had risen on that day of the week. In this way the above rule was established, and so, in the date of Easter as determined at the present day, the variable Jewish lunar year has left a trace behind it, and, also, the connection in which Christianity stands to Judaism receives a practical expression deserving of being preserved to the end of time.[108]

4. The Final Settlement of the date of Easter and the Attempts made to commemorate the day of the Month on which Christ died

The manner in which the commemoration of our Lord’s passion and death admitted of being celebrated in agreement with the Jewish Calendar, is due to the minuteness with which the fourth Evangelist describes the events of Holy Week.

On the 9th Nisan our Lord arrived at Bethania. The next day, the 10th, took place the triumphal entry into Jerusalem[109]—Palm Sunday.

11th Nisan, Monday. Curse pronounced on the barren fig-tree, and second, cleansing of the Temple.

12th Nisan, Tuesday. Conferences between our Lord and the Pharisees and Sadducees; the widow’s mite; attempts of the Greeks to see our Lord.

13th Nisan, Wednesday. Judas betrays our Lord to the Chief Priests.

14th Nisan, Thursday. The Last Supper and the Betrayal.

15th Nisan, Friday. Condemnation and Death of Jesus.[110]

16th Nisan, Sabbath. The body of Jesus in the sepulchre.

17th Nisan, Sunday. The Resurrection.

In this way, these events could be annually commemorated on the same days in the Jewish Calendar, the day of the week, however, varying, as it does in the case of the Jewish passover. That this was actually done is recognised by Isidore of Seville, when he says,[111] “Formerly the Church kept Easter with the Jews on the fourteenth day of moon, no matter on what day of the week it fell.” But where the Julian, or even the Egyptian, Calendar was in force, if a man wished to proceed accurately in this way, without being tied down to fixed days of the week (i.e. Friday for the day of our Lord’s death, and Sunday for the Resurrection), he would nevertheless have to learn on what day of his own Calendar the 15th Nisan of the Jews fell in the year of our Lord’s death. For it was quite impossible for him to look for it at one time in March, at another time in April, according to his own Calendar.

Hence arose a striking divergence at the very beginning, which did not admit of being adjusted. Obviously, another method for fixing the date of Easter had to be devised for Gentile converts and for those districts where the Julian, or, at any rate, a non-Jewish, Calendar was in force. At the same time, it is also quite credible, because resting on clear proof, that in Syria and Asia Minor, the Apostles fixed the date of Easter on Quartodeciman principles, while at Rome and Alexandria another method obtained from the beginning. Granted that the Roman Church, during the Apostle’s lifetime, consisted only of converts from Judaism, still the Jews as a whole were such a small minority in Rome that they must have conformed to the Roman method of reckoning time, and were probably, most of them, unfamiliar with the Jewish Calendar. It was different in Asia Minor where the Jews were very numerous and free to follow their own customs, and where a Calendar closely allied to the Jewish was used by the native population.

When the Christians of Asia Minor claimed for this practice the ordinance of the Apostles, especially St John and St Philip,[112] their appeal is as much deserving of credit as the claim of the Romans to base their practice on the ordinance of St Peter. That they actually did so, we learn from the Festal Letters of St Athanasius,[113] who says: “The Romans lay claim to a tradition from the Apostle Peter, forbidding to go beyond the 26th Pharmuthi (the 21st April), on the one hand, and the 30th Phamenoth (the 26th March), on the other.” Here we have also the limits of the period within which Easter at that time fell, the 25th March being reckoned as the day of the vernal equinox.

The Churches which had never followed the Quartodeciman practice, surpassed the others in number and influence, so much the more as Egypt, where the Church had been organised by a disciple of St Peter, and also Greece, were among their number. When strife arose over this point, the numerically weaker party ought to have yielded, but rather than this, they separated from the Catholic Church under the form of Ebionitism. Irenæus traces the opposition of the Roman Church to the Quartodeciman Easter back to Sixtus I. (116-125). “The Roman Bishops,” he says according to Eusebius,[114] “neither observed the Passover in this way themselves, nor allowed those under their authority so to observe it.” Should the thought here arise in the mind that the Roman practice came into existence first under Sixtus, it is contradicted by the letter of Polycrates to Pope Victor where it is said that Rome appealed to the Apostles Peter and Paul in support of her custom.

The chief reason why the Jewish Quartodeciman practice of the other Churches finally succumbed, was that Christians desired to commemorate not merely the day of our Lord’s death alone, which was linked to the 15th Nisan, but also His Resurrection. The Resurrection had a close connection with His death in point of time, and its commemoration was already firmly established in apostolic times in the form of Sunday (see above, [p. 5]). It was thus impossible to pass over the Sunday, and so practically an entire week was occupied by the commemoration. The events of Holy Week given above could not be separated from each other; they must be kept in connection. The Jews, as Epiphanius[115] remarks in his polemic against the Audians, keep their passover on a single day, while the Christians required a whole week for their Easter commemorations. And so, although they took the date of the Jewish passover as the basis of their calculations, they nevertheless did not limit the duration of their feast to that one day. Finally, another point which had weight, was that the Christians of the fourth century had a fixed idea that the 14th Nisan must not fall before the vernal equinox.[116]

Along with this generally observed custom of commemorating in the Church the passion and death of our Lord, repeated attempts were made to discover and establish a fixed date for the solemnity. Already in the third century it was thought this had been successfully achieved, and in Tertullian we find 782 U.C. given as the year of Christ’s death, and the 15th Nisan identified with the 25th March. This date would be incorrect in any case, even if 782 were really the year of Christ’s death, for in that year, the Jewish passover could only have fallen on either the 19th March or the 17th April of the Julian Calendar. Nevertheless the 25th March met with no small acceptance, being accepted, amongst others, by Hippolytus, Augustine, and Perpetuus of Tours, who accordingly marked the 27th March in his Calendar as the true day of the Resurrection. It appears also in the spurious acts of Pilate. In the Carolingian period this date constantly occurs in the martyrologies, as, for instance, in the Gellonense of 804, in that of Corbie of 826, in Wandelbert of Prüm, in the different recensions of the so-called martyrology of Jerome, and others. Whether this day was liturgically observed, or had merely an historic interest, cannot be decided from the Calendars, but the former is probable.

Finally, it may not be without interest to observe how in subsequent centuries attempts were made to explain the fact that Easter, unlike other festivals, was movable. It is conceivable that in course of time, the true explanation, viz., the connection of the Christian with the Jewish feast and its consequent dependence on the Jewish Calendar, was forgotten, and attempts began to be made to account for the fact on other grounds, typical or otherwise.

After the observance had everywhere become well established, it must have struck people that the day of our Lord’s death was very differently commemorated in the Church from the day of His birth, viz. as a movable feast. Among the questions which Januarius submitted to St Augustine, there was one bearing on this point. Augustine[117] replied that our Lord’s birthday was merely a commemorative festival, while Easter had a mystical connection with the Jewish passover, as also its name is of Hebrew, not Greek, origin. Easter is the fulfilment of our redemption which consists in an inward renewal of mankind, and with this idea of renewal, the first month of the Jewish and ancient Roman year corresponds. Afterwards, however, Augustine forsakes this safe path and loses himself in the symbolism of numbers and in forced astronomical interpretations.

Shorter and more to the point is the explanation given by Martin, Bishop of Dumio (561-572), who died Bishop of Braga in 580. In his treatise De Paschate,[118] he says many people only add to the confusion by their unsuccessful attempts to explain why the date of Easter is fixed by the moon, after the Jewish custom. So, too, the attempts recently made by many bishops of Gaul to celebrate the Resurrection on a fixed day (the 25th March) cannot be approved. Now the passion of Christ is the redemption of the creature. The creation of the world took place in Spring (c. 4), and, consequently, the renewal of the world must also take place in Spring, in the first month of the year. Two things had to be taken into consideration with regard to this festival—the day of the week and the phase of the moon. In order to be right in both, ecclesiastical antiquity had appointed that Easter should not be kept before the 23rd March or after the 21st April (c. 7).

The most important passage in this treatise bearing upon the history of Easter is the remark that many Gallic bishops about 570 commenced their celebration of the festival on the 25th March as an immovable feast. This is also confirmed by Bede,[119] who had a distinctly clearer insight into the nature of the question, and thus expresses himself concerning the dispute about Easter. “Originally the Apostles kept Easter on the full moon in March, on whatever day it fell. After their death different customs prevailed in different provinces. The Gauls kept the festival on the 25th of March. In Italy, some fasted twenty days, others seven, but the Easterns remained faithful to the custom of the Apostles.” To remedy this state of things, Pope Victor put himself in communication with Theophilus of Cæsarea, who held a Synod which decided that the Resurrection should be commemorated on a Sunday, so fixing the day of the week on which it was to be kept.

5. The Liturgical Celebration of Holy Week and Easter

The Christian passover, as originally limited to Holy Week and Easter Week, was consecrated in the first place to the remembrances of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, and to this the religious ceremonies, in so far as they differed from the ordinary services, owed their special character. But, in the second place, it is to be observed that so long as the Catechumenate remained in existence, and even to some extent afterwards, Easter was the only season regularly appointed for baptism. At Easter, the labours of the Catechists came to an end, the course of preparation was finished, the Catechumens received the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist. To this fact, in the second place, the Easter services owe much of their special character, and even now, long after the practice of the Church has changed, rites connected with the administration of baptism are to be found in the ritual of the Easter festival. Thus, the consecration of the font on Holy Saturday, first of all, and then the consecration of the Holy Oils on Maundy Thursday, must be owing to the fact that they were required for the administration of Baptism and Confirmation. On this ground, as well as because of the importance of the feast in itself, it is obvious that Easter, from the liturgical point of view, is conspicuous among all the other festivals, and that a number of rites are then performed which are not repeated in the course of the whole year.[120]

To these rites belong the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday, and on the Tuesday and Wednesday in Holy Week, the procession on Palm Sunday, the Consecration of the Holy Oils on Maundy Thursday, the missa præsanctificatorum on Good Friday. More than the others, Holy Saturday is conspicuous for a number of rites peculiar to itself, viz.:—

1. The blessing of the fire from which the other lights in the Church are lit, and the blessing of the five grains of incense for the pascal candle: both ceremonies being performed outside before the door of the Church.

2. The procession thence into the Church.

3. The blessing of the pascal candle by the singing of the Exsultet or præconium paschale.

4. The reading of the prophecies from the Old Testament.

5. The blessing of the baptismal font, in which the pascal candle is employed.

6. The baptism of catechumens, if there are any.