Chapter II: The Saints’ Days (5)

With regard to the spread of these two festivals throughout the Church, we must call attention to a remarkable fact; the day of the discovery of the Holy Cross by Helena (14th September) naturally existed as a festival from the first in Jerusalem, from whence it soon spread throughout the entire eastern half of the Church, but in the West, although the discovery of the cross was already well known in the fourth century, the festival in honour of the event was not adopted, at least not at once.

It was just the opposite with regard to the recovery of the cross by Heraclius; the grief at the news of its loss was equalled by the joy which the whole Christian world felt at its recovery. While in the East people remained content with the already existing feast, in the West the day of the recovery of the cross was kept as a solemn commemoration, and was placed in the calendars and martyrologies at an early date; we find it mentioned by the name “Day of the Holy Cross” (_dies sanctæ crucis_) in the lectionary of Silos, which belongs to about 650—probably the earliest mention of the festival. The ancient Gallic liturgies published by Mabillon, both the lectionary and sacramentary, contain the Festival of the Holy Cross in spring, but call it “The Finding of the Cross” (_Inventio Sanctæ Crucis_).[734] None of these service-books mention the feast of the 14th September. The _Gregorianum_ has both feasts, so has the _Gelasianum_, at all events in Thomasi’s edition, but the second is a later addition.[735]

The way in which the _Martyrologium Hieronymianum_ treats these feasts is worthy of notice. The Weissenburg Codex, written about 750, has both days; the Echternach Codex, which represents the oldest form of the text, has neither, and the Bern Codex, the latest of the three recensions, has only one, _i.e._ the 3rd May, which, in common with all Latin authorities, it calls the Finding of the Cross.[736] The authentic text of Bede has only the 3rd May, so too has the sacramentary of Padua, belonging to the first half of the ninth century.[737]

These notices might easily be increased, but they are sufficient to show how that in the West, when it was known that the Holy Cross had been recovered from the Saracens, the feast of the 3rd May was, in the seventh century, immediately introduced, but the feast of the 14th September only became known in the eighth century, and won its way to acceptance slowly and partially. In many churches it was received quite late, as for example in Milan in 1035.[738]