Chapter II: The Saints’ Days (4)

The idea of Polemius Silvius in making the 22nd February into a commemoration of St Peter and St Paul found no imitators, but the custom of celebrating instead the _Cathedra Petri_ on this day became general in the Gallican liturgies. The significance of this feast is expressed in the words of the collect for the day: “God who on this day hast given Blessed Peter to be head after Thee to the Church” (_Deus qui hodierna die B. Petrum post te dedisti caput ecclesiæ_); _i.e._ the occasion of the feast was not the foundation or organisation of one particular church, either Rome or Antioch, but the appointment of St Peter to be head of the whole Church in general, or, in other words, the bestowal of the Primacy upon him, or his ordination as bishop (_natale episcopatus_), as others prefer to have it.[656] In this connection it must be borne in mind that, in antiquity, it was already the custom to celebrate the anniversary of the bishop’s consecration, and that special masses exist in the old sacramentaries, and among the sermons of St Leo the Great there are some for such occasions.

From the fourth to the ninth century, we find this feast of the 22nd February (Cathedra Petri), without further specification, in the greater number of calendars and martyrologies, especially in those of Gaul. As the latest which give only one feast of this name, we may mention the martyrology of Wandlebert, the Calendar of Corbie of 826 in d’Achery,[657] and also the Gothic Calendar. Nevertheless, there are some Frankish calendars which contain no feast of this name, as, for example, that of St Geneviève, published by Fronteau, and the Calendar of Charlemagne. It is not in the _Neapolitanum_, nor in certain lectionaries of the same period, such as the _Comes Albini_, the lectionary of Spires, and, finally, the Roman sacramentaries.[658] It is remarkable that neither the _Gelasianum_ nor the _Gregorianum_ have a feast of St Peter’s Chair, yet it is certain that the feast was known in Rome in the fourth century, for the chronographer, referred to on page 295_n._, in his _Depositio Martyrum_ sets down: “VIII. Kal. Martias, Natale Petri de Cathedra.”

A remarkable alteration now took place, doubtless caused by another view being taken of the meaning of the feast. When the words _Cathedra Petri_ were no longer taken as referring to the bestowal of the Primacy or the episcopal and teaching office in general, but as referring to some definite episcopal See, then the question was asked, Is Antioch meant or Rome? For although the official lists reckon Evodius, and not St Peter, as first bishop of Antioch, still there were writers of antiquity, such as Origen, who represent St Peter’s residence in Antioch (Gal. ii. 11) as his Antiochene episcopate. This view led to the division of the feast into a Roman and an Antiochene Feast of St Peter’s Chair; for reasons which are unknown, the 18th January was chosen for the former, while the latter continued to be celebrated on the 22nd February.

The martyrology of the Venerable Bede marks the date at which this division of the feast came into existence. In the original recension, given by the Bollandists, the feast of the 18th January does not appear, but the feast of the 22nd February has the note attached, “At Antioch.” It is possible that Bede considered the feast commemorated the commencement of a particular episcopate, and since, according to his idea, the Antiochene episcopate of St Peter preceded his Roman, and Antioch must have been the first See occupied by the apostle, he added the words, “At Antioch, where the disciples were first named Christians.”

The separation is complete in Ado and Usuardus, and appears in the oldest editions of the _Hieronymianum_, and, in defect of further information, the compiler of this document may be regarded as the originator of the separation.[659] There thus arose a threefold practice—either both feasts were kept, or neither, or that of the 22nd February; the last was the case in only a few dioceses. The Cologne Calendar of the fourteenth century had only one feast, but the more ancient calendar belonging to the ninth century had both.[660]

This diversity of usage, resulting from the independence of each diocese in the adoption of festivals, was put an end to by Pope Paul IV. at the advice of Cardinal Sirleto, when, on the 6th January 1558, he ordered that both feasts should be observed throughout the entire Catholic world.[661] At the consultations concerning the reform of the Breviary in 1742, it was considered that the two feasts should once more be joined into one, but this, however, was not done, which,[662] from a historical point of view, is to be regretted, for neither Eusebius nor the official lists of bishops know anything of an Antiochene episcopate of St Peter. The pseudo-Clementines make use of St Peter’s activity in the See of Antioch for their own ends,[663] and to them must be traced back the statements of Origen, Jerome, and others, for in antiquity, as well as in the Middle Ages, they enjoyed more consideration, and were more widely read, than at the present day. In the ninth century it was regarded as an inviolable principle of canon law—as we know from the case of Pope Formosus—that a bishop must not be translated from one See to another. How could this principle have been maintained in the face of so striking an instance of translation?

The Feast of St Peter’s Chair was unknown to the Greeks and Easterns in antiquity, but the modern Uniats have naturally adopted it.

10. _The Festivals of St Mary Magdalen, St Cecilia, and St Catherine_

(_22nd July, 22nd and 25th November_)

The saints which have occupied us until now were all prominent figures throughout Christendom, and stood in close relation to the Redeemer and His work; in consequence, their festivals were kept as feasts of obligation in the Middle Ages, at a period when it seemed almost impossible to do too much towards the development of the cycle of feasts; a large number kept this rank until recent times. Other saints of less importance enjoyed the same distinction through their being the patrons of particular countries, dioceses, or localities; it would take too long to deal with such here; besides, their festivals are not of historical importance. Still, among festivals of this sort there are some which formerly were kept as feasts of obligation; of these several are deserving of notice, since they attained a rank above that of a mere local festival, either because of some special circumstance, or because the life of the particular saint in some way or other caught the popular fancy.

(1) ST MARY MAGDALEN

This is especially the case with regard to St Mary Magdalen, whose feast, not indeed in Rome, but throughout the South of France, and even elsewhere, as in Cologne, was kept as a feast of obligation in the Middle Ages.

According to the general opinion, Mary, the sinner of Magdala, who took her name from that place, either because she was born there, or because it was the scene of her excesses, was the sister of Lazarus and Martha of Bethania; she was the same person who humbly bathed the feet of our Blessed Lord with her tears and anointed them with ointment. According to another opinion, prevalent in the Greek Church, there were three Marys connected with our Lord—Mary, the sister of Lazarus; Mary of Magdala, on the Lake of Gennesaret; and the sometime sinner mentioned in St Luke vii. 37. This latter opinion distinguishes Mary Magdalen from Mary, the sister of Lazarus. The Latin tradition, on the other hand, from Tertullian downwards, regards them as identical; the sister of Lazarus having lived a life of sin at Magdala, came, after her repentance, to live with her brother and sister at Bethania, but was still popularly known as Mary Magdalen. She was also the same person, mentioned by the other two synoptists (St Mark xvi. 9; St Luke viii. 2), who was possessed by seven devils.[664] Both opinions received support from the words of the gospels; but the Roman liturgy has adopted the latter, and even the lections drawn up for St Martha’s Feast are influenced by it. This office of St Martha is only of late introduction in the Liturgy.

In addition, we must take into account the adventures of the Magdalen and her family after our Lord’s death, or rather the adventures ascribed to her. Our information is scanty; the pseudo-Clementines state that Lazarus followed St Peter in his missionary journeys in Syria;[665] other documents mention Cyprus as the scene of his labours and death. Absolutely no information concerning the further doings of his sisters has come down to us from antiquity; however, Western mediæval documents dating from the thirteenth century are remarkably rich in details; in these it is admitted, indeed, that he was Bishop of Cyprus, although this would have been incompatible with the actions here ascribed to him. This information is contained in a voluminous work which has been audaciously ascribed to Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda, although it is difficult to see how he, in his retired monastery, surrounded by forests, could have gained possession of such information.[666] The greater part of this work, chapters i.-xxxv., is devoted to a description of the life of St Mary Magdalen and her family, which follows and elaborates the biblical narrative; but it contains several additions to the facts mentioned in the New Testament; especially there is a great deal said about Marcella, as the housekeeper of the family at Bethania is said to have been called, who later on played an important part in the legend. The second part begins with the thirteenth year after Christ’s Ascension, when St James the Great had been beheaded and St Peter was in prison. Then, according to the story, Herod Agrippa drove the faithful from Palestine, and twenty-four of the disciples of Jesus, with Maximinus at their head, were sent by the apostles as missionaries to Spain and Gaul. St Mary Magdalen joined them, and Martha and Lazarus followed her example, the latter being at the time Bishop of Cyprus; they embarked unmolested, and were carried by the south-east wind to the shores of Southern Gaul, where Maximinus became Bishop of Aix in Provence. The other disciples distributed themselves over the other provinces, of which there were seventeen in Gaul and seven in Spain—twenty-four in all, just the number of the disciples. As a matter of fact, Spain and Gaul did comprise this number of provinces, not however in the time of Christ, but in the fifth century, as the _Notitia Dignitatum_ shows. This betrays the late origin of the legend. St Mary Magdalen is said to have lived at Aix with Bishop Maximinus, and to have often preached there to the faithful. According to other accounts, she is said to have passed thirty years in a life of solitude and penance in the cave of the Ste Baume, near Marseilles, while Lazarus is said to have been Bishop of Marseilles, where he died a martyr.

More trustworthy, though not so interesting, is the information which we find in Greek sources concerning Lazarus and his sisters. From these we learn no more than that the Emperor Leo VI. in 887 built a church in his honour in Constantinople, and in 899 a monastery;[667] thither the relics of Lazarus, but not those of his sisters, were translated from Citium in Cyprus, where they had hitherto reposed. The menology of Basil and the calendars of the Copts and Syrians show that St Mary Magdalen was honoured in the Greek Church on the 22nd July. The resurrection of Lazarus was specially commemorated in the Constitution of Manuel Comnenus on the second Saturday before Easter.[668]

In the West the earliest traces of the cultus of St Mary Magdalen are found in Bede, and then in the martyrologies of Rabanus, Ado, and Usuardus, always on the 22nd July, and with the designation, “Natale.” The _Hieronymianum_ does not mention Lazarus and St Mary Magdalen, but the name of Martha occurs five times; however, the sister of Lazarus cannot be intended, for the days (29th July and 17th October) are not those on which she is commemorated. Although the first-named martyrologies contains the mention of St Mary Magdalen, it knows nothing of her voyage to the South of France. Usuardus, indeed, puts Lazarus and Martha together on the 17th December, but merely says that a church was erected in their honour at Bethania. As far as the service-books are concerned, the name of St Mary Magdalen appears for the first time in a missal of Verona of the tenth century, and then in some missals of the eleventh century, but the missals of the Roman rite (secundum consuetudinem Rom. curiæ) mentions her only in the thirteenth century; it is the same with regard to St Martha.[669] Even to the present time Lazarus has not obtained a place in the Roman Breviary, but his commemoration is sanctioned for certain localities on the 17th December. The lections for his office contain no account of his life.

The attitude of the Roman Breviary is significant as indicating the change of views. The lections for St Mary Magdalen are simply taken from a homily of St Gregory, and contain no references to her life, while those of the much later office of St Martha (29th July) contain the more recent form of the legend with the later additions. They know nothing, however, of the pseudo-Rabanus, according to whom St Mary and her companions were forcibly placed by the Jews on board a boat without rudder or sail, and yet, notwithstanding, reached Marseilles in safety.

With regard to St Mary Magdalen in particular, the tradition must not be overlooked which states that she was originally buried in Ephesus; this is maintained by Gregory of Tours at the end of the sixth century, and then, at the beginning of the seventh century, Bishop Modestus of Jerusalem states that St Mary joined St John at Ephesus after the death of our Lady, and there suffered martyrdom; the third witness is Bishop Willibald of Eichstätt, who visited her grave in Ephesus.[670] In 887, as we have said, Leo VI., the Philosopher, placed her relics in the Church of St Lazarus, which he had built in Constantinople, but the writers who mention this fact do not imply that her relics were translated from Cyprus, as some modern writers arbitrarily assert, on account of the mention of St Lazarus’ relics being brought from that island on the same occasion.[671] However this may be, the tradition says nothing about St Mary Magdalen being the sister of Lazarus; in fact, she is described by Glycas as a daughter of Simon the Leper. This tradition furnishes fresh grounds for the belief that the account of the translation of St Mary’s relics refers to a truly historical event.[672]

The investigation of scholars have brought to light the following facts as throwing light upon the Provencial legend: (1) An early sarcophagus at Marseilles, belonging to a certain Lazarus, Bishop of Aix (407-417), who was thought to be the Lazarus mentioned in the New Testament; (2) the existence of reputed relics of St Mary Magdalene in the Monastery of Vezelay in the diocese of Autun. The earliest official mention of Lazarus is in a decree of Pope Benedict IX. of the year 1040[673]; this pope consecrated the Church of St Victor at Marseilles, and from this date the legend developed rapidly. Its complicated history has been clearly set forth in the investigations of L. Duchesne and J. Rietsch; the latter shows that it is probable the Emperor Leo VI. presented the relics of St Lazarus to the widowed Empress Richardis on her visit to Constantinople during her travels in the East; she probably gave them to the Convent of Andlau in Alsace, over which she presided.

Among the numerous works on this subject we may mention: M. Faillon, _Monuments Inédites sur l’Apostolat de Sainte Marie Madeleine en Provence_ (a collection of all documents genuine and otherwise bearing on the question), Paris, 1848. Lacordaire, _Vie de Sainte Marie Madeleine_, Paris, 1860, popularised the legend, and made it a point of national honour to defend it. L. Clarus (Volk), _Geschichte des Lebens, der Reliquien und des Kultus der heiligen Geschwister Magdalena_, _etc._ Regensburg, 1852, is uncritical, but pleasantly written. L. Duchesne, _Sainte Marie Madeleine_, Toulouse, 1892. J. Rietsch (_Die Nachevangelische Geschichte der Bethanischen Geschwister_, _etc._, Strassburg, 1902) has probably settled the question of the relics by his careful investigations.

(2) ST CECILIA

A parish church was dedicated to St Cecilia in Rome as early as 499, to which two priests were attached, and a cemetery was named after her fellow-sufferers, Tiburtius and Valerian, in the sixth century. No further information respecting her cultus has come down to us from antiquity, and in the literature of the patristic period, with the exception of Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth century, her name is not mentioned. Her cultus was apparently limited to Rome, although she had a chapel or church in Ravenna,[674] as the poet just mentioned states.

A change took place when Pope Paschal I. in 821 discovered the saint’s body, in consequence, as he said, of a vision; until then it was believed that the Lombards had carried it away with them. Paschal had the body taken from the cemetery of SS. Sixtus and Prætextatus, where he found it, and brought to her church in Rome, where it still remains. Immediately after her death, according to the statement in her _Passio_, her body must have been placed in the papal crypt.[675] Her name was then inserted in the martyrologies of Ado, Usuardus, and Rabanus Maurus, and placed under the 22nd November, which is certainly the day of the translation of her relics, for the _Hieronymianum_ in its oldest recension gives the 16th September as the day of her death (_Natalis_). St Cecilia appears in Bede and in the Frankish calendars of the eighth century composed under Roman influence, but in the most ancient calendar of Carthage, one looks for her name in vain.[676] After the miraculous discovery of her relics and their translation, on account of the interest taken in such matters in the ninth century, her fame spread throughout the whole Christian world; and churches were dedicated to her, even in the recently converted North Germany.

From the point of view we are considering, sufficient has been said about St Cecilia, still we cannot omit the opportunity of making some remarks on the date and circumstances of her martyrdom. We have a full account of it in the _Passio S. Cæciliæ_, which, according to Fachmäuner, was drawn up at the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century. This document states that Cecilia was condemned to death and executed by a prefect of Rome called Turcius Almachius; a Roman bishop (papa urbanus) placed her body in the papal crypt, and dedicated her house as a church; this pope had already been a confessor for the Faith on two occasions before the death of St Cecilia. These statements cause great difficulty, since Pope Urban I. (223-230), who can alone be meant here, lived during the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, who was very well disposed towards the Christians, and during whose reign they were free from persecution. It is exceedingly improbable that a high official could have persecuted them in Rome, under the eyes of the emperor, in the way described in the _Passio_. It is impossible that Pope Urban I. could have twice been a confessor at this time, and no evidence of such a thing exists; moreover, we have no evidence for the existence of a prefect of Rome called Turcius in that period, but we do find persons of this name in official positions in the time of Constantine and later. All this, taken along with the circumstance that it was a time of much unsettlement in Rome, agrees well with the fourth century, when the emperor was seldom in the capital, but does not suit the reign of Alexander Severus.

The fact that St Cecilia appears neither in the ancient Roman Calendar, the _Depositio Episcoporum_, nor in the chronographer of 354, points to the conclusion that she must belong to the reign of Julian. All the indications of time agree with this date; the only thing against it is the name of the contemporary pope—Urban; this may be an error, but how the name found its way into the _Passio_ can be explained on various grounds; either the original text did not contain the pope’s name, which was introduced by mistake at a later date by some redactor of the original document, or, if the words “papa urbanus” were in the original document, they are to be taken in the sense of “Bishop of the city of Rome.”[677] This falls in with the pontificate of Liberius all the better, since, in the years 355-365, he was opposed by an anti-pope, Felix, who had a small following, and spent his time mostly outside Rome, where also he died.

The circumstance that the pope, whatever his name may have been, had been twice a confessor for the Faith also suits Liberius, who had been banished under the Arian Constantius to Berœa (355-357). After the Councils of Seleucia and Rimini in 359, Constantius even desired his death, because he refused to subscribe to the Arian Creed, and he was obliged to remain in hiding for two years in the catacombs until the death of the tyrant (November 361).[678]

The opinion that the martyrdom of St Cecilia took place under Alexander Severus has hitherto received the most support, and the difficulties have been explained on the supposition that it happened while the emperor was absent from the capital; this, however, is arbitrary, and does not really remove the other difficulties. There is no need to dwell upon the dates which have been assigned in more recent times. With regard to the more ancient dates, Ado, Usuardus, and De Rossi place the martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, plainly on account of the use of the plural by the prefect when he said (c. 24) “the emperors” had commanded that the Christians should be punished by death, but this general command was repeated during all the persecutions from Nero to Diocletian. Less wide of the mark is the most ancient attempt of all to fix the date, _i.e._, made by the first compiler of the _Liber Pontificalis_, for although not remarkable for historical knowledge, he places the death of Cecilia under Diocletian.

The family of the Turcii did not belong to Rome, but came from Samnium, where one of the name in the third century is mentioned as a proprietor of brick works in Aufidena.[679] Various members of the family quickly made their way to high offices in the State,[680] and in the summer of 363 a Turcius Apronianus was prefect of Rome, where he distinguished himself as a persecutor of the Christians. His wife, however, was a sister of the elder Melania, St Jerome’s pupil, through whose influence the whole family was baptised in 397. As a Christian Turcius Apronianus enjoyed the friendship of St Paulinus of Nola and the priest Rufinus.[681] His descendants flourished all through the fifth century, at the end of which a Turcius Asterius Secundus was consul. All this, taken in conjunction with the influential position of the family, easily accounts for the absence, in ecclesiastical literature of a subsequent period, of references to St Cecilia, at whose death a Turcius had played such an evil part. Otherwise it would be incredible that the preacher and poets of that date should have passed over a story which presented so many points of interest.[682] Nothing more is known of Turcius Almachius than what is related in the passion of St Cecilia. He must have been prefect from the end of 361 to the autumn of 362.

When all has been said, we must admit that the account of St Cecilia’s martyrdom, as it has come down to us, gives rise to serious difficulties from whatever point of view we regard it. Tillemont and Baillet were inclined to regard it as lacking all authority. The only way to give full force to all the facts of the case is to place it in the period to which it really belongs, _i.e._ to the reign of Julian the Apostate.

(3) ST CATHERINE

The Festival of St Catherine, though only of late introduction, quickly spread throughout the whole of Western Christendom; not only did Faculties of Theology select her as their patroness, but her day (25th November) was widely adopted for annual fairs, and her name was frequently given to children of both noble and lowly families. The original form of her name was Æcaterina (Αἰκατερίνα), the modern Russian Jekaterina; its derivation from the Greek _katharos_ cannot, therefore, be maintained. Catherine is said to have been a noble virgin of Alexandria, who, according to the legend, expostulated with the tyrant Maxentius on account of his cruelty during the Diocletian persecution, and was, in consequence, seized by him and forced to hold a disputation with fifty philosophers. Not only did St Catherine hold her own against the philosophers, but even won them over to Christianity; whereupon the empress, who had heard of her wisdom, visited her in prison, escorted by two hundred soldiers. The soldiers, however, along with their captain, were converted also, and condemned to death in a body by the emperor. The martyr herself was next tortured, milk, instead of blood, flowing from her wounds, and then put to death by the sword. So far the legend as given by Metaphrastes; the carrying of her body by angels to Mount Sinai is a later addition.

It does not require much exercise of the critical faculty to realise the improbabilities of this story, and at the present day critics are all but unanimous[683] in rejecting it; and so we need only concern ourselves with it here in so far as it has given rise to the Feast of St Catherine. In this connection we observe that not only the ancient Church as a whole knew nothing of St Catherine, but, what is still more to the point, neither the Syrian nor Egyptian Calendars published by Selden and Mai make any mention of this remarkable martyr. Among the Greeks, the _Menologium Basilianum_ is the first to mention her, while in the Latin Church she does not appear until the fourteenth century. Durandus, although he treats of all the important saints’ days, does not name St Catherine, neither does the _Liber Ordinarius_ of Siena concluded in 1263. In the numerous Italian missals consulted by Ebner, St Catherine is usually found only in the supplements which date from the fourteenth century. In the body of the missal, she appears only in the missal of Trani, belonging to the end of the thirteenth century. It is not difficult to fix the period at which the legend met with general acceptance, for St Catherine is absent from the menology of Constantinople, but is commemorated as a martyr of the second class in that of Basil. To this period belongs three Latin poems found among the works of Alfanus,[684] Abbot of Monte Cassino, and later Archbishop of Salerno (1058-1085). Alfanus, whom St Peter Damian calls a lover of truth, but who is proved to have been very credulous by a story which he tells of some unnamed Byzantine monarch,[685] appears to have been the first to make the legend known in the West. The origin of the story is lost in obscurity, and, as in the case of the legend of St Lazarus, we have hitherto been unable to discover reliable data on which to base any conclusion. The story of St Catherine may well be one of those popular tales, drawn up in a historical form, which were circulated in the Middle Ages, and occupied the place of poetic fiction. Its excision at any early date from the service-books is much to be desired in the interests of the respect due to them.

11. _The Festival of All Saints_

The Festival of All Saints has no intimate connection with the ecclesiastical year, but is of the nature of an addition from without, and, like the saints’ days, is fixed for a special date. In the earliest ages the Church paid an external cultus to the martyrs alone, among whom she included, at an early date, St John the Baptist, but it was only in the course of centuries that other saints, not martyrs, attained to this distinction. The cultus of simple confessors, however, formed at first quite the exception, and only became general along with the introduction of canonisations. Thus in the early ages there was no Festival of All Saints, but only a commemoration of all the martyrs, the intention being that no martyr might be left unhonoured. Their number had been increased to such an extent by the Diocletian persecution, that it was no longer possible to celebrate a special commemoration of each one separately, and so many martyrs had to be passed over; thus a commemoration of all the martyrs was instituted as a matter of course.

As far as we know at present, we first meet with this commemoration in the Church of Antioch, which, on the first Sunday after Pentecost, kept a commemoration of all the holy martyrs. We have some sermons of St John Chrysostom preached on this day.[686] In course of time the feast became general throughout the East, and an All Saints’ Sunday finds a place in the Eastern calendars, while the Uniats have accepted the Roman date for the feast.

In the West the festival passed through the following phases. The Emperor Phocas († 4th October 610), as master of Rome and lord of Central Italy, gave the Pantheon to Boniface IV. at the pope’s request. The building had been erected by Agrippa in honour of Augustus in 27 B.C. The learned are not agreed as to whether it was originally a temple or a bath (Laconicum sudatio), but it had certainly statues of the gods in the niches which adorn its interior; however, in the seventh century it no longer served its original purpose, and its maintenance was a source of expense to the imperial treasury. The pope had the building cleansed and made into a church, which he dedicated to our Lady and all the martyrs;[687] the day of the dedication was the 13th May (609 or 610), which thus came to be observed in Rome as a commemoration of all the holy martyrs.

A second stage in the early development of the feast was reached in the next century, when Gregory III. (731-741) dedicated an oratory in St Peter’s to “the Redeemer, His holy Mother, all the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, and all the just and perfect who are at rest throughout the whole world.” In this oratory the monks were to celebrate vigils and say mass in honour of the saints.[688] Here we have the same idea manifested which underlies the Festival of All Saints. A Roman basilica had been already dedicated in honour of all the apostles, and the day of its dedication, the 1st May, probably served as a commemoration of all the apostles. The Church of “S. Maria ad Martyres,” the Pantheon, was, moreover, thoroughly restored by Gregory III.[689]

The third and decisive stage in the progress was reached under Gregory IV. (827-844). A mediæval, but, in this case, well-informed writer states that a great number of pilgrims went annually to Rome for the Feast of all the Martyrs (13th May), and that, since the supply of provisions in Rome in spring was insufficient for the support of both pilgrims and inhabitants, Gregory IV. changed the feast from the 13th May to the 1st November.[690] Frankish writers of the same period inform us that this pope exhorted Louis the Pious to introduce the festival into France, and that Louis, with the consent of all the bishops of Gaul and Germany, accordingly ordered it to be observed throughout his empire in 835.[691]

Many writers on this account give this as the year in which the festival was instituted, and attribute its origin to Louis the Pious, but in this they are mistaken. Sixtus IV. (1471-1484) provided All Saints’ with an octave.[692]

12. _The Commemoration of All Souls_

The pious duty of prayer for the departed (2 Machabees xii. 46) finds expression in private and public devotions. The public prayers usually take place on stated days, _i.e._ the day of the death, the seventh and thirtieth days after death, and the anniversary; the observance of these devotions is left in the hands of the relatives and friends of the deceased. The religious Orders began at an early date to observe these pious customs with regard to their own departed members.[693] Besides this, for the last thousand years a particular day in the year has been set apart for the commemoration of all the departed in general; this was the 2nd November, or, if the 2nd fell on a Sunday, the 3rd. The impulse which led to its introduction into the ritual of the Church came from Cluny, for in 998 the Abbot Odilo issued an ordinance to this effect (the so-called _Statutum S. Odilonis pro Defunctis_)[694] to all the monasteries of his congregation. In this it was directed that in all monasteries of the Order on the 1st November, after vespers, the bell should be tolled and the office of the dead recited, and on the next day all the priests of the congregation were to say mass for the repose of the faithful departed.

This example found imitators without there being any legislation on the point. Other Orders speedily took it up, such as the Benedictines and Carthusians, etc.;[695] but it was longer before the secular clergy adopted this practice in each diocese. The date of its introduction varies greatly in different countries; it will be sufficient for us to give a few dates for which we have certain information, which have a special interest for us.

The first diocese to adopt All Souls’ Day seems to have been Liège, where it was introduced by Bishop Notker († 1008).[696] It appears in the martyrology of Besançon, called after Bishop Protadius, and compiled between 1053 and 1066; it is mentioned in the fourteenth of the Roman Ordos, which belongs to the thirteenth century; it is not found in the Cologne Calendar of the same century, nor in the more ancient one published by Binterim; it is also absent from a calendar put out in 1382.[697]

We have more detailed information respecting the Church of Milan. Bishop Otricus (1120-1125) had already introduced the observance of All Souls’ Day, but placed it on the day following the dedication of the cathedral, _i.e._ the 15th October. This arrangement continued to the time of St Charles Borromeo, who in 1582 adopted the Roman, or rather the original date.[698] In the Greek and Russian Churches the commemoration of the departed is kept on the Saturday before the Sunday “Apoecros,” which corresponds to our Septuagesima Sunday. The Armenians keep it on Easter Monday.

13. _The Festivals of the Angels_

The existence of higher and purely spiritual beings formed part of the religious belief of the Jews; they are mentioned in countless passages of the Old Testament, but no worship was paid directly to them by the Synagogue. In the Christian Church the cultus of the angels, especially of St Michael, can be traced back to remote antiquity. In more recent times special days have been set apart in honour of the other two angels named in the Holy Scriptures, and also of the Guardian Angels; St Gabriel is honoured on the 18th March, St Raphael on the 24th October.

The first Christian emperor built a church in honour of St Michael on the headland called Hestiæ on the Bosphorus. It was built on the spot called Anaplus, distant from Constantinople seventy stadia by land and thirty-five by water. The place afterwards took the name of Michaelion, after the church. On the opposite headland on the Asiatic shore Justinian also erected a church of St Michael. Nicephorus makes Constantine the founder of both churches, but Theophanes speaks only of one built by him.[699] According to Du Cange, there is said to have been no fewer than fifteen churches and chapels of St Michael in Constantinople and the neighbourhood in the Middle Ages. Other towns also erected, at an early date, churches dedicated to St Michael, as, for example, Ravenna in 545. St Michael enjoyed special veneration at the same period at Chonæ in Phrygia,[700] an ancient and celebrated place of pilgrimage, and the chief centre in the Byzantine Empire of the cultus of the angels.

Chonæ, the present Khonas on the Lycus, situated on a tributary of the Mæander in the ecclesiastical province of Laodicea, is the name given since the ninth century to the ancient Colossæ, to the Christian community of which city St Paul addressed one of his epistles, wherein he already speaks of the worship of angels. Even in the time of the apostles there existed a half-Jewish, half-Gnostic sect which disturbed the peace of the local church by teaching that Christ was inferior to the angels, who must be worshipped and invoked in preference to Him; St Paul (Colossians ii. 18) rejects this teaching as heretical, nevertheless, it did not die out, for in the fourth century the Council of Laodicea was compelled to censure this false worship of the angels in its thirty-fifth canon.[701] This was not a prohibition of the cultus of the angels in general, for at the same period St Ambrose and St Hilary in other parts of the Church exhorted the faithful to invoke them.[702] The true worship of the angels existed also in Colossæ, for Metaphrastes tells us that an apparition of the Archangel Michael himself took place there, in honour of which Manual Comnenus later on prescribed that the Festival of the Apparition of St Michael should be kept as a festival of the second class on the 6th September (Apparitio S. Michælis in Chonis).

The first church dedicated to the Archangel in Rome, or rather in its neighbourhood, seems to have enjoyed great veneration. The oldest Roman sacramentary, which goes by the name of Leo the Great, gives no less than five masses for the anniversary of its dedication; in three of them St Michael is mentioned by name in the prayers or prefaces. From the fact that in the other masses the angels in general are spoken of without special mention of St Michael, we must not conclude, as many liturgical writers have done, that they deal with the cultus of the angels in general. The church was situated, according to subsequent information, on the Via Salaria at the sixth milestone from Rome; but beyond this nothing further is known about it. These masses for the day of the Consecration of the Basilica of the Holy Angel in the Via Salaria[703] are placed on the 30th September in the _Leonianum_. As regards later Roman sacramentaries, the prayers for a mass in honour of St Michael are given in the _Gelasianum_ on the 29th September. The _Gregorianum_ gives on the same day the dedication of the basilica of St Michael without the addition “in via Salaria.”[704] It is probable that another church of St Michael is meant here whose dedication took place on the 29th and not the 30th September. The day of this church’s dedication has continued to our own time to be kept as the Festival of St Michael the Archangel.

In the city itself there was also a church erected in honour of St Michael, the date and founder of which are both unknown. Among the ecclesiastical buildings of Pope Symmachus (498-514) in the city of Rome, the _Liber Pontificalis_ says that he enlarged and beautified the basilica of St Michael.[705] A church of St Michael was also built by a pope of the name of Boniface near the Circus Flaminius,[706] and, in the ninth century, the Church of St Michael _in Sassia_ was also erected.

The Churches of the West accepted the Roman date, the 29th September, for the Feast of St Michael,[707] and in the Middle Ages it ranked as a holy day of obligation, especially in England, where King Ethelred in 1014 provided it should be observed with a vigil and a preparatory fast of three days.[708] In Germany the Council of Mainz (813) in its thirty-sixth canon established it as a festival; and the imperial banner, to be carried in battle, bore the figure of St Michael. In France the feast was established by the sixty-first canon of the diocesan Synod of Tours in 858. In Constantinople the feast was observed on the 8th November; it is marked in the menology as the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael, while in the _Basilianum_ the same day is called only a Synaxis of the Archangel. In the later Coptic Calendar of Calcasendi, St Michael occurs no less than six times (7th April, 6th June, 5th August, 9th September, 8th November, and 8th December). In the Syrian lectionary he is set down in the 6th September.

In the course of the sixth century a second Festival of St Michael began to be celebrated in the West, in consequence of an apparition near Sipontum on Monte Gargano which took place on the 8th May; the year, unfortunately, is not known, but the Bollandists place it in the interval between 520 and 530. Since Monte Gargano, like Chonæ in the East, became a famous Western place of pilgrimage, this local festival gradually came to be observed in other places in the West. The calendars and martyrologies frequently confuse it with the feast of the 29th September, as, for example, the two oldest recensions of the _Hieronymianum_, those of Metz and Weissenburg; and similar mistakes occur in other calendars.[709]

Gabriel and Raphael have no special commemoration either in the _Hieronymianum_ or in other ancient martyrologies and calendars of the Latin Church, neither do they appear in the Greek menologies; it is only in the tenth and eleventh centuries that in a few instances we find them commemorated on special days.[710] Although Gabriel appears in the most ancient Coptic Calendar, it is doubtful whether the day chosen for his commemoration, the 18th December, is not in the first instance a commemoration of the Annunciation, and only secondarily and accidently a feast of the Archangel. In the same way, his name appears in the Syrian lectionary on the 26th March, the day after our Lady’s Annunciation.

A special festival in honour of the Guardian Angels was first celebrated in the sixteenth century in Spain on the 1st March,[711] and afterwards in France on the first free day after Michaelmas. Pope Paul V. permitted the whole Church to celebrate the Feast of the Guardian Angels (27th September 1608), and, at the request of the Emperor Ferdinand II., prescribed its observance throughout the imperial dominions. Clement IX. in 1667 placed the feast on the first Sunday in September, and provided it with an octave. Clement X. in 1670 made it a _festum duplex_ of general obligation, and gave it a fixed place in the calendar on the 2nd October; the older date, however, still remains in Germany and in a part of Switzerland.[712] Leo XIII. raised it to a duplex majus.

14. _The Two Festivals in Honour of the Holy Cross_

(_3rd May and 14th September_)

The discovery of the true cross is ascribed to St Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. Helena was born about 246 at Drepanum in Bithynia, of humble origin, having served as maid in an inn (stabularia) where Constantine Chlorus made her acquaintance about 273. From their union sprang the future Emperor Constantine, born on 27th February 274 at Naïssus, now Nisch in Servia. When Constantine Chlorus was raised to the rank of Cæsar on 1st March 292, he, like his colleague, had to separate from his wife (whether Helena or another is disputed), in order to form a more influential alliance, with Theodora, daughter of Maximianus Hercules, by whom he had three sons.

But in 306, when Constantine after his father’s death became the emperor’s colleague and Cæsar, he raised his mother to a position of honour and brought her to the court. When, in 311, he professed Christianity, Helena also followed his example, and at the age of sixty-four or sixty-five became a Christian. The misfortunes of her son’s family life disturbed her last years, and she was especially grieved at the death of her grandson Crispus, whom Constantine caused to be murdered in 326, at the instigation of his stepmother Fausta.[713] As a pious Christian she found consolation in the performance of good works, to which she devoted herself. She died in 326, and her body was buried at Rome in the Via Lavicana, but two years later it was taken to Constantinople.[714] In her honour Constantine changed the name of her birthplace to Helenopolis, and bestowed upon her the title of Augusta; on medals she is called Flavia Julia Helena.

She obtained great honour after her death, and in Jerusalem especially her memory was held in veneration by the religious virgins of the locality;[715] St Ambrose calls her a woman of good and holy memory; St Paulinus of Nola had a high idea of her worth, and speaks of her as deserving all veneration, and Theodoret, although imperfectly informed as to the facts of her life, praises her exuberantly.[716] As to her admission among the ranks of the saints, this was effected only at a late date, and in a few instances. We find her name, indeed, in the eighth century in the menology of Constantinople set down along with that of her son on the day of his death (21st May). This shows that the author of the menology was ignorant of the day of her death, and also that no cultus was paid to her immediately after her decease; still, to both the term saint is applied in this document. No trace of her cultus appears in the West before the ninth century. The most ancient MSS. of the _Hieronymianum_ do not contain her name; she is not to be found either in Bede or Ado; Usuardus has placed her in his martyrology under the 18th August,[717] and from him her commemoration passed into the Roman martyrology on the same day, but in the other liturgical books she has no place.[718] When we find “S Helena” in a graffito or in an itinerary, this cannot be regarded as a fact of much importance.[719]

Soon after he became sole emperor, Constantine decided to erect a church over the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. According to Eusebius,[720] the heathen had filled up the place with rubbish, raised the level of the ground, and built a temple to Venus on the site. This was now destroyed, the rubbish removed, and deep under the surface the cave of the Holy Sepulchre was discovered.[721] The emperor’s letter to Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem concerning the building of the church is given in full by Eusebius. The erection of the building was undertaken at once, and Eusebius has given us a full description of it.[722] At this point Eusebius begins to speak of Helena, and relates how she came to the East and visited the holy places, and on this occasion she gave rich presents to the churches which her son had built both in Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives.[723] Whereupon Eusebius relates the death of Helena, but of her discovery of the Holy Cross he says not one word; it is only in his Commentary on the Psalms (lxxxvii. 11; cviii. 29) that certain mysterious expressions are found which may refer to it.[724] This silence is all the more remarkable since Jerusalem belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Cæsarea, and Eusebius must in any case have known of the event.

Later historians and writers, beginning with Socrates and Sozomen,[725] have a great deal to say upon the subject. According to them, the cross of our Lord, and those also of the two thieves, along with the title written by Pilate, were all found deep under the surface of the ground; but the cross on which our Lord suffered could not be distinguished from the other two. Bishop Macarius solved the difficulty by obtaining a miracle from God, in answer to his prayers; the three crosses were laid, one after another, upon a sick woman, in the belief that she must be cured when touched by our Lord’s cross. And so it happened, as the third cross touched her body, she recovered. This healing of a sick person has become in later writers, as, for example, in Paulinus of Nola,[726] a resurrection from the dead, showing in this, as in other cases, the development of the legend. In addition, the nails of the cross were also found, and these, along with half of the cross, were sent by Helena to her son in Constantinople; the other half was preserved in Jerusalem in a silver shrine in a chapel specially built for its reception.

Socrates, from whom these details are taken, places these events after his account of the Nicene Council; many writers place them in the year after the Council, but this is incorrect, since in that year Helena died; the Alexandrine Chronicle alone, which in such matters is very reliable, gives the day and the year for these events, _i.e._ 14th September 320.[727] Other authorities give a yet earlier date; indeed, a Syrian legend relates that a certain Protonika had discovered the Holy Cross during the reign of Tiberius.[728]

The day of the discovery of the Holy Cross was kept annually at Jerusalem with great ceremony, all the more as the consecration of the church was kept on the same day. The two principal churches in Jerusalem, the one on Golgotha, which bore the title of _Martyrium_ and _Ad Crucem_, and the other, also built by Constantine, and called the _Anastasis_, were both consecrated on the same date, _i.e._ the 14th September.[729] Already in the fourth century numbers of pilgrims came to Jerusalem to celebrate this festival; they came from distant countries, from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and among them several bishops were to be found. The Gallic pilgrim, of whom we have so often spoken, was present at this festival, and has left an interesting description of it, and a later pilgrim, the penitent Mary of Egypt, was converted on the occasion of the festival. We have already related how the Holy Cross was exposed for the veneration of the faithful every year in Jerusalem on Good Friday.

The 14th September was at first only a local festival at Jerusalem and in those other towns which possessed portions of the Holy Cross, such as Constantinople and Apamea; it spread afterwards to other places, and soon became universal in the East. It is called in the East the Exaltation of the Cross (ὕψωσις τοῦ τιμίου καὶ ζωοποιοῦ σταυραῦ, or τῶν ἁγίων ξύλων), from which is taken its Western name, _Exaltatio Crucis_, but the pilgrim Theodosius, who visited the Holy Land about 530, employs the correct term, the Finding of the Cross (inventio crucis).[730] According to the menology of Constantinople, the festival was preceded by a preparation of four days (10th to 13th September). On the three last days of Holy Week the court and all the high officials took part in the public worship of the Holy Cross, as we learn from a writer[731] of the seventh century. The Coptic calendars usually prolong the celebration during three days.

In the seventh century the relic of the Holy Cross was connected with an event of great importance. Chosroes II., King of Persia, began to make war against the Eastern Empire at the time when Heraclius ascended the throne; he captured the cities of Apamea and Edessa, and defeated the Greeks in several engagements; in June 614 his general Salbarus took Jerusalem with great slaughter. He laid waste the churches, and carried off to Persia, with the rest of the booty, the portion of the Holy Cross which was preserved there. The course of the war still remained unfavourable to the Greeks until Heraclius, having made peace with the Bulgarians, himself led the full strength of his army against the Persians in 621. The fortune of war changed, and the Greeks reconquered their lost territory, being aided in this by internal discord among the Persians. Chosroes was deposed and murdered in 628; his successor, Siroes, hastened to make peace with the Greeks, and restored to them the wood of the Holy Cross. At the end of the year Heraclius returned as victor to his capital, and at the beginning of the following year he set out for Syria, taking the Holy Cross with him. He brought it himself from Tiberias to Jerusalem,[732] where he handed it over to the Patriarch Zacharias on the 3rd May, if the traditional date be correct. Tradition further adds that, arrayed in his royal robes, he essayed to carry it upon his shoulders, but at the foot of the hill of Calvary he found himself unable to proceed further until, upon the advice of Zacharias, he laid aside his royal apparel. No festival in commemoration of the event was introduced in the East, although it was in the West.[733]