Chapter I: The Church’s Year (3)

In the Middle Ages, the commencement and beginning of Lent was marked in a way visible to all by hanging a curtain between the nave of the church and the choir on Ash Wednesday, or, according to Durandus, on the First Sunday in Lent. This was called the Lenten Veil, or, in common parlance, the “Hunger-veil.” It remained hanging until Good Friday, but in many places was drawn aside on Sundays, obviously because Sundays were not fast days. The veil was usually quite plain, but sometimes it was adorned with pictorial representations from sacred history. It is first referred to in writings of the ninth century, but was in use much earlier. In some places in Westphalia and Hanover it exists to the present day. These Lenten-veils are still to be frequently seen in museums and church lumber-rooms, where not infrequently they are erroneously mistaken for carpets. They were practical in their object—the ordinary man who had no calendar was put in remembrance by them that it was the season of Lent. Allegorical interpretations were naturally not lacking, and are to be found in Rupert of Deutz.[233] A similar custom also exists in Russia, where, on the first Sunday in Lent, the altar curtains are drawn together and so remain until Palm Sunday.

During the first six centuries, it was taken for granted that saints’ days must not be observed during Lent. The Trullan synod introduced the first exception to this rule in favour of the Annunciation. In the West, this rule was soon entirely set aside, but, on the other hand, in token of sorrow, the Allelujah ceases during the entire Lent, a custom of which the Greek Church knows nothing. The Lenten prayers have a particularly earnest tone, and Lent from quite an early date appears richly provided from a liturgical point of view, each week-day having its own special Mass. In old days in Rome, there was a procession every day, for the Pope and clergy proceeded from the papal palace in solemn array to some church in the city where a halt (_statio_) was made, and Mass was sung.

8. _The Transfiguration_

In the existing calendar, the Transfiguration of our Lord is commemorated by a special festival, the _festum Transfigurationis_, which, as it is kept on a fixed date, is excluded from the proper sequence of the ecclesiastical year and treated in the same manner as the saints’ days. From quite an early date, this festival had been celebrated in divers churches, both East and West, on different days. The date now observed, the 6th August, was appointed for the festival by Calixtus III. in 1457, in memory of the victory over the Turks, gained by John Capistran and George Hunyadi, at Belgrade. In the choice of a day, he seems to have been influenced by the Greek calendar, where the festival had already been kept on this day. It appears in the Synaxaria of the Copts in Selden and Mai, in the menology of Constantinople belonging to the eighth century, and, later, in the _Neapolitanum_, and among the orthodox Syrians. In the East it was commonly observed. Sermons on the event are found among those of St Augustine and Leo the Great.[234] The tendency to transfer to another period of the year the commemoration of those events which fell within Lent, is also perceptible in the case of the feast of the Seven Dolours. More will be said on this point in the second part.

9. _The Ascension_

A special festival in commemoration of the return of the Redeemer to heaven does not indeed appear in the earliest lists of Church festivals given by Tertullian and Origen in the third century. Still, the terms in which the earliest witnesses refer to it, prove that this day was kept as a festival in quite early times. The first witness for it is Eusebius, who calls it a high festival in the treatise he composed on the discussions concerning Easter at the first General Council in 325. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates speaks of it as a general festival.[235] With regard to documents of an official character, the church-order contained in the so-called Apostolic Constitutions,[236] gives it the name of The Taking Up [into Heaven] (ἀνάλεψις, St Luke ix. 51, where the form ἁνάλημψις occurs). Numerous sermons among the works of the Fathers afford further evidence for the existence of the feast. Augustine[237] is inclined to attribute the appointment of the festival to an ordinance of the Apostles or to the injunction of a general council. The latter cannot be proved as certain. As soon as persecution ceased, the feast of the Ascension made its way naturally in all parts of the Church, unassisted by any authoritative enactment, for it was impossible that the concluding act of our Saviour’s earthly life should remain unnoticed among festivals and in the Liturgy. This was all the more unlikely, as the spot from which our Lord returned to the Father at once became the object of reverence. The Empress Helena had already ordered a splendid basilica to be built on the Mount of Olives, which, unfortunately, was destroyed by the Saracens, and has never been rebuilt. At the present day, a small unimposing church marks the spot which was a place of pilgrimage as early as the fourth century,[238] and where it is believed one of our Lord’s footprints in still visible.

With regard to the liturgical observance of the day, its chief characteristic until well on in the Middle Ages was a procession. At the time of the Gallic pilgrim’s visit to Jerusalem, this was observed in a striking manner. The people proceeded in solemn procession after the sixth hour (towards 12 o’clock) on Wednesday from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, there to celebrate the Vigil in the church built over the grotto where Christ was born. The next day, divine service, with a sermon, was performed in the accustomed manner, and, in the evening, the procession returned to Jerusalem.[239] The question which naturally presents itself, why the service was not rather held on the Mount of Olives, as it was in the eighth century,[240] remains unanswered. It is to be further observed that the name Ascension (_ascensa_) is not used to designate the festival. The pilgrim simply speaks of the fortieth day (_quadragesima_) after Easter.

Elsewhere in the East, it was customary to observe the Festival of the Ascension outside the city, as, for example, in Constantinople and Antioch. In the latter place, the people went to the small town of Romanesia, where Chrysostom delivered his sermon on the feast.[241] In the Middle Ages, processions were wont to take place on this day in Gaul and Germany, and this custom shows how deeply people were moved by the desire to imitate as far as possible, in the introduction of liturgical practices, the actions of our Lord. In this case, the determinating factor was that our Lord had led the Apostles out of the city to the Mount of Olives.[242]

Another custom peculiar to this festival is that, after the reading of the Gospel at the High Mass, the Paschal candle, which up till then has been burnt at all High Masses, is extinguished and put aside. In earlier times, the event of the day was represented by hanging up a figure of our Lord, which was made to disappear through an opening in the roof. The festival has an octave since the fifteenth century, and, in consequence, the following Sunday, formerly called simply _Dominica post Ascensionem_, is now called _Dominica infra Octavam_. The Mass of the feast forms one of the rare exceptions where the event commemorated is described in the Epistle, Acts i. 1-11. The Gospel for the day is taken from St Mark xvi. 14-20, where, in verse 19, the Ascension is briefly alluded to. As a matter of fact, verses 10-20 are wanting in the oldest Alexandrian MSS. Still they are in other respects well supported, and must be regarded as genuine.[243]

The introduction of the festival of the Ascension was rendered all the easier since Scripture distinctly specifies the day on which the event took place.[244]

10. _Whitsunday_

Whitsunday is of equal rank with the two other chief festivals, but has no special season either preceding or following it, and is unattended by any lesser festivals depending upon it. Whitsunday is the close of the whole period which began with Easter, called in the early centuries _Quinquagesima_, because it extended over fifty days. This entire period is festal in character, and therefore so long as it lasted people in ancient days prayed standing upright, and no fasting was practised.[245] The ascetics did not observe a single fast during this time,[246] and it seems that even the day before Whitsunday was not a fast in the earliest ages, any more than it is now among the Greeks. A number of ascetics were of opinion that this period of joy should last only forty days, because our Lord appeared to His disciples for only forty days, and that the following ten days, as far as fasting, prayer, and kneeling were concerned, should be like the rest of the year—an opinion which Cassian, among others (Coll. 20, 21), strongly opposed.[247] This divergence of opinion, which was rather widespread, seems to have resulted in Whitsunday being passed over and ignored. So, for example, it is entirely omitted from the oldest Gallican Sacramentaries, the series of festivals ending with the Ascension.[248] In the later service-books, it appears simply under the name _Quinquagesima_.

Pentecost meant originally the entire period from Easter to Whitsunday, and this terminology had been already in use among the Jews, and is employed by St Luke in Acts ii. 1 (_cum complerentur dies pentecostes_). The Greek word Pentecost was gladly adopted by the Latins in early times, and more especially, later on, since the Latin term _quinquagesima_ might easily be confused with the Sunday of the same name.

Whitsunday, of course, commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and disciples. This happened fifty days after the Resurrection, on an ancient Jewish festival called in the Pentateuch the Feast of Weeks,[249] because it was celebrated exactly seven weeks after the Passover. As it fell on the fiftieth day after the Passover, it was also called Pentecost, even in pre-Christian times.[250]

The Jewish Pentecost was originally only a festival of thanksgiving for harvest, and, although the Law was given on Mount Sinai and the Mosaic Church came into existence on the same day, yet the feast was not devoted to the commemoration of this event. This purpose was served by the festival of the Simchah Thorah in October, which owed its institution to the Rabbis. On the other hand, the fact that the descent of the Holy Ghost implied the foundation of the Christian Church, afforded the Fathers a parallel which they were not slow to make the most of.[251] The Feast of Weeks was to the Jews only the conclusion of the harvest, in thanksgiving for which, bread, made from the newly gathered wheat, was presented to Jehovah as a sacrifice.

The festival of Whitsunday reaches back to the commencement of the Church, although there is no evidence for it, as there is in the case of Easter, it being uncertain whether the passage, 1 Cor. xvi. 8, refers to the Jewish or to the Christian Pentecost. This is not astonishing, for, on the one hand the feast, originally of only one day’s duration, fell on a Sunday, and, on the other, it is so closely bound up with Easter that the one entails the other. That the festival of Whitsunday belongs to Apostolic times is stated in the seventh of the fragments attributed to Irenæus, but these are admitted to be interpolated. In Tertullian, the festival, along with Easter, appears as already well established, so that it must have been in existence for some time. As at Easter, prayer was made standing, and it was the second and last date for the solemn baptism of catechumens.[252] Tertullian, moreover, in accordance with the usage already in use, gives the name of Pentecost, not merely to the day of the festival, but to the whole period from Easter to Whitsunday—a use of the term which appears here and there at a later date,[253] and points out the period as a time of joy.[254] The last day, however, was clearly held in Tertullian’s time to be a festival in an especial sense.[255] Origen and the Canons of Hippolytus make references in passing to the festival of Whitsunday.[256] The Apostolic Constitutions say Whitsunday is to be regarded as a high festival, because on it the Lord Jesus sent down the Holy Ghost.

The Gallic pilgrim gives a detailed and circumstantial account of the manner in which the feast was observed in Jerusalem.[257] On the night before Whitsunday, the vigil was celebrated in the Church of the Anastasis, at which the bishop, according to the usual custom in Jerusalem on Sundays, read the Gospel of the Resurrection, and the customary psalmody was performed. At dawn, all the people proceeded to the principal church (_Martyrium_), where a sermon was preached and Mass celebrated. About the third hour, when the psalmody was finished, the people accompanied the bishop with singing to Sion. There, the passage from the Acts of the Apostles, describing the descent of the Holy Ghost, was read, and a second Mass was celebrated, after which the psalmody was resumed. Afterwards the archdeacon invited the people to assemble in the “Eleona,” from whence a procession was made to the summit of the Mount of Olives. Here psalms and antiphons were sung, the Gospel was read, and the blessing given. After this, the people descended again into the “Eleona,” where Vespers were sung, and then, with the bishop at their head, proceeded in a solemn procession with singing back to the principal church, which was reached towards 8 P.M. At the city gate, the procession was met by torch-bearers who accompanied it to the _Martyrium_. Here, as well as in the Anastasis, to which the people proceeded in turn, and in the Chapel of the Holy Cross, the usual prayers, hymns, and blessings took place, so that the festival did not conclude until midnight.

The Pilgrim makes no mention of rites or preparations connected with the administration of baptism. It seems, then, that in Jerusalem, Whitsunday was not observed as a second or supplementary time for baptism, or may not have been required as such. Nevertheless, this feature appears in the Western liturgies, and had much to do, for instance, in the determining the manner in which the vigil of the feast was observed.

According to the more ancient service-books, the catechumens were to assemble at midday on Saturday. Lections from Scripture, less numerous than on Holy Saturday, were read, and then, after suitable prayers, took place the blessing of the baptismal water, the baptism, and, during the night, the Mass of the vigil.[258] St Augustine shows that, in Africa as well, the people assembled in the afternoon, and that the Mass was celebrated during the night. He thus addresses the newly baptised on Whitsunday: “What you here see before you on the altar, you have already seen during the past night.”[259]

In order to complete the resemblance to Easter, a large candle was, in some churches, blessed and set up during the singing of the _Exsultet_ in a slightly altered form.[260] In monastic churches, in which baptism was not administered, the baptismal ceremonies were omitted, though the special celebration of the vigil still commenced in the afternoon.[261]

As far as the most ancient period is concerned, the so-called Leonine Missal contains a Mass for Whitsunday, and the ceremonies for baptism. The Gelasian Sacramentary also has numerous directions for the administration of baptism on this day, but no form for the blessing of a candle. It seems to imply that the candidates for baptism shall be especially invalids, or such as for some reason or other had been prevented from receiving baptism at Easter, or Energumens, etc. These directions, however, are absent from the Gregorian Sacramentary, and only two lections from the prophets are given. In the present Roman rite, the function takes place in the forenoon; still the prophecies and the blessing of the font remain as survivals of the ancient practice. The litany of the saints is also sung, upon the last Kyrie of which the Mass of the vigil follows immediately without an introit. The office of the day until nones belongs to the Octave of the Ascension.

The Apostolic Constitutions[262] speak of the feast of Pentecost lasting for eight days, but in the West it was not kept with an octave until quite a late date, and the last day was never called _dies octava_, but merely the first Sunday after Pentecost, and the days within the octave were merely called the first or second day after Pentecost, and so on. As appears from Berno of Reichenau,[263] it was a debatable point in his day whether Whitsunday ought to be kept with, or without, a _dies octava_. Berno relied upon the analogy of Easter, the special time for baptisms, which was observed with an octave. Whitsunday was the day on which the Apostles received their baptism of fire, and so it too ought to have an octave. He had other reasons besides which would have no weight at the present time. It is obvious that Whitsunday had at first no octave, which can be inferred also from the whole scheme of the Church’s feasts. Whitsunday was merely the fiftieth day after Easter, the end of the period called Pentecost, and so in itself brought the season to a conclusion.

The Mass for Whitsunday had a sequence which was repeated daily during the week. Formerly the law-courts did not sit during the entire week, and even servile work was forbidden as well.[264] A Council of Constance, in 1094, limited this to the first three days of the week. With us, at the present time, only the second day is observed _in foro_, but not even this is observed any longer in Rome.

In earlier times it was customary in many places to scatter roses from the roof of the church to recall the miracle of Pentecost. Hence in Sicily, Whitsunday is called _pascha rosatum_. The Italian name, _pasqua rossa_, however, comes from the colour of the vestments. In many districts of France it was usual to blow trombones or trumpets during divine service in memory of the sound of the “mighty wind” which accompanied the Holy Spirit’s descent.

11. _Trinity Sunday_

It was not until a late date that the first Sunday after Pentecost was raised to a higher rank, for in the Gregorian Sacramentary it has no special name, while in the Gelasian Sacramentary, and in the appendixes to the Gregorian,[265] it is called merely the Sunday after the octave of Pentecost, or the Sunday after Pentecost. In the Latin Church, it is now a festival devoted to the honour of the Most Holy Trinity.

Concerning the introduction of this new feast into the Church’s year, we learn from the Micrologus that, the Sunday after Pentecost being a _dominica vacans_ without any special office of its own, many used on this day the office of the Trinity drawn up by Bishop Stephen of Liège (903-20). When Pope Alexander II. († 1073) was questioned on the point, he replied that it was not the Roman custom to set apart any particular day in honour of the Holy Trinity, since the Trinity was honoured every day by the _Gloria Patri_ in the psalmody. It is to be noted, continues the Micrologus,[266] that Alcuin, at the request of the Saint Boniface, composed a Mass in honour of the Holy Trinity.

Binterim speaks sarcastically of this reference, because Boniface had died long before the time when Alcuin flourished. The reference is not to be passed over on this account, for the mistake arose merely from a misunderstanding. Alcuin had put together from the missal employed in his Abbey Church a number of Masses—votive Masses, as they would now be called—for each day of the week, to be used under certain conditions, and to these was added, amongst others, a Mass in honour of St Boniface for the monks of Fulda.[267] This explains the misunderstanding in the Micrologus. Alcuin had also arranged a collection of prayers drawn from the Gregorian Sacramentary to form a prayer-book. This, by itself, enables us now to appreciate Alcuin’s share in the matter.[268] It merely means that he recommended the Mass of the Trinity should be said on Sundays, in case a priest had not a complete missal, or through ignorance was unable to use it properly.

The fact is plain. The later Frankish recension of the Gregorian Sacramentary contained for the Sunday after Pentecost a Mass in honour of the Holy Trinity, with the same preface which is still in use.[269] In addition to this, Bishop Stephen of Liège drew up a suitable office, and so all was in readiness for the institution of an especial feast in honour of the Trinity, which, in the natural course of things, was fixed for the first Sunday after Pentecost. The custom of regarding it as a festival became more and more popular in the Netherlands, England, Germany, and France. Several diocesan synods expressed themselves in favour of it, _e.g._, that of Arles in 1260. As we have found in other instances, so here, it was the monasteries which prepared the way for the adoption of the festival. Thus, for example,[270] the Cistercians adopted the festival in 1270, the Cluniacs still earlier. The introduction of the festival into each diocese followed gradually in course of time, and it belongs to local historians to investigate the circumstances in each case.

Although Alexander II. had officially declared the festival to be superfluous,[271] it nevertheless continued to increase in popularity in ever-widening circles. Its adoption did not follow any uniform law, for in several places it was observed on the last Sunday after Pentecost, as in several dioceses of France, until on in the seventeenth century, and here and there we find it kept with an octave. Uniformity was at length attained when the Roman Church under John XXII., in 1334, accepted the festival and ordered it to be generally observed. The Franciscan, John Peckham, Canon of Lyons, and, from 1278 to 1292, Archbishop of Canterbury, composed a new office. The one actually in use dates from the times of Pius V.,[272] and is one of the most beautiful in the breviary, remarkable alike for sublimity of thought, depth, and elegance of form. Although the first Sunday has thus been placed in a rank by itself, the Roman rite still continues the older enumeration of the Sundays from Pentecost. In Germany and elsewhere it was the custom to reckon the Sundays from Trinity, and so each Sunday is one less than the corresponding Sunday according to the Roman enumeration.

The Greeks on this Sunday commemorate All Saints, and on this account call it All Saints’ Sunday (κυριακὴ τῶν ἁγίων πάντων).

12. _Corpus Christi. The Forty Hours’ Prayer. The Festival of the Sacred Heart_

On Maundy Thursday, the consecration of the Holy Oils and other ceremonies overshadow almost entirely the commemoration of the important event which took place on that day—the institution of the Holy Eucharist. It was this fact which suggested the introduction of a festival specially intended to commemorate that event, as is expressly stated in the papal constitution _Transiturus_. The introduction of this feast dates from a comparatively late time, and its adoption is limited to the West, although the Uniat Greeks have also partially accepted it. The earliest trace of a special reference to the Holy Sacrament of the altar in the public worship of the Church is probably the appearance of the name _Natalis Calicis_, in the Calendar of Polemius Silvius, on the 24th March. In order to understand this entry, it must be remembered that anciently the 25th March was often regarded as the day on which Christ died (_vide ante_, p. 57).

Divine Providence made use of a humble nun to further the introduction of this festival. Juliana,[273] born at Retinne, near Liège, in 1193, was received as an orphan into the cloister, and became a nun of the order of St Augustine. She was appointed prioress of the lazar-house of _Mons Cornelii_ (Mont-Cornillon), near Liège, where she passed the greater part of her life. When this institution received another prior who fell out with the authorities of Liège over some matters of administration, Juliana was obliged to leave the lazar-house in 1240. She took up her abode in Liège, with a kindred spirit, the recluse Eve. She returned to Mont-Cornillon after three years, but when fresh disagreements broke out again, on the death of Bishop Robert († 1246), she was compelled to leave Liège altogether. She found a refuge with the Cistercian nuns at Salsinnes in the diocese of Namur. But this convent was destroyed in the wars which then disturbed the country, and Juliana was once more destitute. She ended her life on the 5th April 1258, as a recluse at Fosses, where she had found a refuge, and was buried in the monastery of Villiers, in the diocese of Namur.

Juliana of Retinne had been a zealous worshipper of the Blessed Sacrament from her youth, and, from her sixteenth year, had repeatedly seen a vision of the disc of the full moon from which as it were a part had been broken off. A vision of our Lord enlightened her mind as to the signification thereof. The moon’s disc represented the Church, which still lacked a festival in honour of the Blessed Sacrament, and she was to announce this want to the world and direct all her efforts towards the introduction of such a festival. In 1230, she communicated her secret, on account of which she had much to suffer, for the first time, to John of Lausanne, Canon of St Martin at Liège, and to some other pious and learned men, namely, Guyard, afterwards Bishop of Cambrai, Hugo, afterwards Cardinal Legate, the Archdeacon of Liège, James Pantaleon of Troyes, who became Bishop of Verdun, then Patriarch of Jerusalem, and, finally, Pope.

Since in those days bishops exercised the right of appointing feasts in their own dioceses, it was of the utmost importance that Robert de Thorete, Bishop of Liège since 1240, was in favour of the introduction of this festival. He gave a sympathetic hearing to the proposals of those in favour of the feast, called a diocesan synod in 1246, which decided in favour of its introduction,[274] and proscribed for his clergy the recitation of an office composed by Canon John, but died on the 16th October 1246, without having formally instituted the festival. It was kept, however, as agreed upon, by the canons of St Martin’s in the following year, and later on it was approved by the Papal Legates, Cardinals Hugo and Peter Capocci.

When James Pantaleon ascended the papal throne in 1261 as Urban IV., he received from the Bishop of Liège a letter concerning the festival, written at the request of the recluse Eve, who took an active part in the introduction of the new feast. To this he wrote a favourable reply.

The general adoption of the feast of Corpus Christi seemed now assured. Urban’s personal predilections in its favour were further increased by the incident of the Bohemian priest at Bolsena in 1262, and, shortly before his death, on the 8th September 1264, he addressed a bull[275] to all bishops and prelates in which he directed a festival in honour of the Blessed Sacrament should be held throughout Christendom, on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and granted indulgences to all who observed it. He commissioned moreover St Thomas Aquinas to compose a special office, which speedily replaced the former one.[276] Owing to the death of Urban, which followed closely on the promulgation of this bull, the affair proceeded no further, and the spread of the festival came to a standstill. The transference of the papal residence to Avignon caused a further delay. Still in Liège the matter was not dropped, and the diocesan synod of 1287 is the first which definitely ordered that this festival should be observed.[277]

At length, after a long silence, Pope Clement V., Bertrand de Got, took up the matter once more, and by his influence the Œcumenical Council, which he had assembled at Vienne in 1311, authorised the festival and enjoined its observance throughout Christendom. For this end, he renewed the constitution of Urban IV. in his own bull _Si Dominum_. Neither in this document, nor in the constitution of Urban, is there any mention of a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, but only of a Mass and the office. The procession was a later addition which, like the festival itself, gradually spread throughout different dioceses and countries. It was not, however, altogether a novelty, for already in the eleventh century, the Benedictines in England carried the Blessed Sacrament on Palm Sunday in procession outside the church.[278]

The Corpus Christi procession, more recent than the introduction of the feast itself, was at first a much simpler affair than it is at present. As early as the twelfth century, it was by no means unusual to carry the Blessed Sacrament hidden from sight in a chalice or pyx round the church, and a procession of this kind is specially provided for in the ritual for Holy Week.[279] The _Ordinarium_ of the Church of Rouen contains directions for the performance of such a procession, but unfortunately the date of this document is uncertain.[280] According to this, the Blessed Sacrament was carried round the church by two priests in white chasubles, accompanied by four choristers carrying censers. Two other clerics carried torches, and the remainder, vested in copes, sung various versicles and responses. The shrine in which the Blessed Sacrament was carried was placed in the middle of the choir, and the Sacrament was censed by a priest accompanied by a deacon, while the singers remained kneeling. They sang, _Ave, verum corpus natum, etc._, which the choir repeated still kneeling, and then added other hymns. When this was concluded, the archbishop was to give the blessing and commence the Mass.

The date at which the Corpus Christi procession was introduced varies very much in different dioceses and countries. In Cologne, it was held, for the first time, even earlier than 1279, in the monastery of St Gereon, when red vestments were worn.[281] In 1308, it was ordered for the parish churches of the archdiocese. The direction of John XXII. was certainly in most cases the reason of the feast becoming general throughout the universal Church. The procession took place for the first time in Worms in 1315, in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1319. In Strassburg, Bishop John I., on 22nd July 1318, ordered the adoption of the festival, and the recitation of the office. The first official appearance of the festival and procession in Treves was at the synod held under Archbishop Baldwin in 1338; in Utrecht in 1347, in Prague in 1355. On the other hand, it was introduced at Würtzburg as early as 1298, before the Council of Vienne, as appears from the statutes of the synod for that year. At Augsburg, already in 1305, a lady of rank, Katharina Ibsung, left all her property to the cathedral for the due performance of the Corpus Christi procession, and it would appear that the procession had taken place at Augsburg as a usual thing before this.[282] In the fifteenth century the Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV.[283] encouraged the spread of the procession by granting indulgences to those who took part—the latter especially in his bull _Excellentissimus_, of the 26th May 1433. In the fourteenth century, the four stations were added at which the opening passages of the four Gospels were sung, and in the sixteenth century these were finally authorised.[284] The _Liber Ordinarius_ of the Monastery of Essen, belonging to the second half of the fourteenth century, affords us some information concerning this change in particular. It speaks of two processions—one composed of the canons and without stations, which passed out of the church and then returned; the second of the congregation, which had four stations, at each of which the beginning of St John’s Gospel was read and benediction given.[285]

The Forty Hours’ Prayer, with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, owes its introduction to the Capuchin Joseph Plantanida of Fermo. In 1556-57 he urged the senate of Milan to take steps for observing this devotion in all churches of Milan in turn, on account of the war with France which was then threatening, and also with reference to the plague which twelve years earlier had devastated the city. The custom of spending forty hours in prayer for some special intention had arisen earlier than this, for a priest of Grenoble, called Antony, for example, had established a confraternity in Milan in 1527, the members of which met four times a year for forty hours’ adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which, however, was not exposed.[286]

At the conclusion of the octave of Corpus Christi comes the comparatively modern festival of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As it is thus in point of time closely connected with Corpus Christi, so also it resembles it in many points. In the first place, it is essentially appointed for the glorification of the Incarnation and the Person of the Incarnate, and, secondly, its origin has many points in common with that of Corpus Christi. Its introduction is connected with the visions of the Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-90), which she saw in the Convent of the Visitation at Paray-le-Monial, during the years 1673-75. The cultus of the Sacred Heart seems to have existed earlier as a form of private devotion. In support of it certain passages are appealed to in the writings of saints of earlier times, which contain its fundamental principles. Among others, St Gertrude, and the Carthusian James of Landsberg, are quoted. The Blessed Margaret Mary had much to suffer in her attempts to establish the cultus, but finally it was introduced for the first time in 1686 at Paray-le-Monial, or, according to others, in the Convent of the Visitation at Moulins in 1674. The public cultus was introduced by Charles François de Loménie, Bishop of Coutances, who, in consequence of Margaret Mary’s revelations, consecrated a chapel in honour of the Sacred Heart in his seminary in 1688, and erected a confraternity under the same title. He was followed by Peter de Grammont, Bishop of Besançon, who, in 1692, ordered a special Mass with the title _Cordis Jesu_, to be printed in the missal for his diocese, for the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi. The Bishop of Langres adopted this Mass in his diocese, and finally the Archbishop of Lyons, Primate of Gaul, at the end of 1718 ordered the feast to be kept by the churches under his jurisdiction. The authoritative recognition of the feast was given by Clement XIII. in 1765.[287]

B. CHRISTMAS AND THE CHRISTMAS SEASON

1. _Christmas_

Christmas, or the feast of our Lord’s birth (_Nativitas Domini_, τὰ γένεθλια, γέννησις Χριστοῦ), has this in common with Easter that it also is the centre of other festivals which group themselves around it, but it differs from Easter inasmuch as it is an immovable feast, and so falls on a fixed day of the month. The whole Church, and all the sects, agree in observing the 25th December as this date. As it has cost us already some trouble to show how the determination of Easter was arrived at, so the questions which arise in regard to the date of Christmas are by no means few. The answer to these questions entails a special and critical investigation into several points of history, which, though it may not prove interesting to everyone, will nevertheless be full of information to those who undertake to study it.

Formerly it was taken for granted that Christ had actually been born on this day, and, accordingly, the learned were of opinion that the Church had observed it from the beginning as the day of His birth. Even at the present day, it will be difficult for many to give up this idea. But there is no Christmas among the Christian feasts enumerated by Tertullian, Origen, and the recently published _Testament of Jesus Christ_. On the contrary, there is clear proof that even in the fourth and fifth centuries it was unknown in some parts of the Church, where its introduction, at a much later period, can be proved historically. To this evidence we shall now turn our attention, beginning with Egypt.

At the beginning of the fifth century the learned monk, John Cassian, betook himself to Egypt to study the observances of the monasteries there, and later on, between 418 and 427, he wrote down the result of his observations in his Collations. He informs us that the bishops of those parts at that time regarded the Epiphany as our Lord’s birth-day, and that there was no separate festival in honour of the latter. He calls this the “ancient custom.”[288]

This old custom, although generally observed at that time in Egypt, had soon to give place to a new one. For under Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, Bishop Paul of Emesa, while on a visit to him, preached on the festival of our Lord’s nativity, and the date on which this happened was the 29th Chijak, or 25th December, in the year 432. Christmas, then, had been introduced into Egypt before this time, that is to say, between 418 and 432,[289] and from then onwards it was firmly established, as the existing Calendars of subsequent date show.

The learned Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis lived in Cyprus at the end of the fourth century. In his answer to the Alogoi he gives the chronology of our Lord’s life, according to which the 6th January is the day of our Lord’s birth, and the 8th November the day of His baptism in Jordan. For him the Epiphany was plainly the festival of Christ’s nativity.[290]

The old custom was still in force in Jerusalem about 385. Our Lord’s birth was celebrated there with great rejoicings, not on the 25th December, but on the 6th January. For according to the evidence of the Pilgrim from Bordeaux, the festival on which the gospel was read, giving the account of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and His meeting with Simeon and Anna—Candlemas Day—was celebrated forty days after the Epiphany and not forty days after Christmas.[291] Epiphany must then have been the festival of the Nativity. In another passage, where the same pilgrim has reason to name the chief festivals of the year, she mentions as such only Epiphany and Easter.[292] And so at that time there was no special festival of Christmas observed in Jerusalem.

Among the witnesses for the old custom, we find Ephrem Syrus, who informs us that, in his time, the church of Mesopotamia commemorated the Incarnation of the Son of God on the thirteenth day after the winter solstice, in the month when the light begins to increase, _i.e._ on the 6th January.[293]

It is a well-known fact that the festival of the 25th December, as Christ’s birth-day, was entirely unknown to the ancient churches of Armenia and Mesopotamia, and remained so partially until on in the fourteenth century.[294] In the most of the great churches of the East, on the contrary, this feast was introduced during the last decades of the fourth century, in others somewhat later. Most interesting particulars concerning the introduction of Christmas in various localities are extant, and, since they refer to its _introduction_, we are safe in concluding, from the historical evidence before us, that these churches had not celebrated Christmas until then. This is the case with regard to Constantinople.

The second capital of the empire had long been a stronghold of Arianism, so that the orthodox had dwindled down to a mere handful, and no longer possessed a church of their own in the city. During this period Christmas was certainly not celebrated in Constantinople. Not till after the death of Valens, and the elevation of Theodosius the Great to the empire (19th January 379), did the Catholics breathe freely once more. They received as bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, formerly Bishop of Sasima, but then living in retirement at Seleucia in Isauria. He began his labours as a stranger and sojourner in a small private chapel which he called the Anastasia. Here, on the 25th December 379 or 380, Christmas was celebrated for the first time in Constantinople, as he himself informs us, and on this occasion he delivered his thirty-eighth homily.[295] Thus one of the first acts of the restorer of Catholicism in the capital was the introduction of the new festival. In the above homily indeed he says nothing about its being celebrated for the first time, but in the following homily (c. 14), when speaking of the previous Christmas, he calls himself its originator (ἔξαρχος). Gregory’s activity in the capital was unfortunately of short duration. Soon after the meeting of the second General Council, in 381, he was compelled through the intrigues of his opponents to retire from his post.

It would not be impossible, and certainly would not be surprising, if Gregory’s expulsion also imperilled his new institution, and that the festival of Christ’s Nativity would have to be re-introduced. At any rate, a late and not very reliable writer, though one not to be passed over in this connection, speaks of the emperor Honorius as having been the means of introducing the feast of Christmas at Constantinople. On the occasion of a visit to Constantinople he persuaded his mother and his brother Arcadius to celebrate the feast of Christmas, and in the Roman manner.[296] This must have taken place after the year 395.

In Cappadocia the separation of the two feasts, Epiphany and Christmas, had been effected in 380, at least as far as Nyssa was concerned. For Gregory of Nyssa, in his funeral oration on Basil, speaks of the festival of Christ’s birth as well established.[297] He says the same in his two sermons for the feast of St Stephen.

With regard to the circumstances connected with the introduction of the festival at Antioch, we are fully informed by St Chrysostom in a sermon he preached there on the 20th December 386.[298]

The festival had been known in Antioch for about ten years already, and a certain party there among the faithful were in the habit of celebrating it publicly, but its official introduction was first effected by Bishop Flavian, who was seconded in this by St John Chrysostom, recently ordained priest in the February of the same year. Chrysostom began his priestly activity with a course of sermons against the thorough-going Arians—the Anomæans. These discourses treat of the nature of God, His incomprehensibility, and triune personality, but the preacher had to interrupt the course from time to time in order to deal with other matters affecting the faithful themselves, such as their superstitious respect for, and imitation of, the Jews and their customs. Some went so far as to regard oaths taken in the synagogue as more sacred and binding than those taken in the church. Many Christians observed the Jewish festivals as well as their own. On this account Chrysostom departed from his first subject and directed his first four sermons against the Jews. Then his eloquence was directed to the task of winning over the faithful of Antioch to the observance of Christmas.

It was on the festival of the Antiochene martyr Philogonius that he announced to his hearers that on the following 25th December Christmas would be celebrated for the first time in the Church of Antioch. The day had been observed in the West from the beginning (ἄνωθεν), but only during the last ten years had the knowledge of it penetrated to Antioch. For his own part, he had for a long time made his prayer in secret that the festival should be kept also in Antioch. He had found many, especially of the lower orders, in favour of it, but many, on the other hand, were opposed, and so the introduction of the festival had been delayed.

The efforts of the great preacher were crowned with success. A very large number of the faithful were present in the church when the new festival was celebrated. The sermon which Chrysostom delivered on the occasion has happily come down to us.[299] In the introduction he says he wished to speak to them himself concerning the festival over which there had been so much controversy in Antioch. Some considered it a mere innovation, but others knew that it was observed in the West from Thrace to Cadiz. This last assertion was an exaggeration, as the next words of Chrysostom themselves show. He says he proposes to commend the feast to the devotion of his hearers on three grounds: first, because the feast has spread with remarkable rapidity, and has met with so much favour in all directions;[300] secondly, because the time of the census taken in the year of Christ’s birth can be determined by ancient documents preserved in Rome; thirdly, the year of our Lord’s birth can be computed from the time of the angel’s appearance to Zachary in the Temple. Zachary, as High Priest, had entered into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement. The Jewish Day of Atonement fell in September. Six months afterwards the angel came to Mary, and nine months later Christ was born, _i.e._ in December. Chrysostom concludes with an attack upon those who do not believe in the incarnation of the Son of God.

All this, however, as far as the determination of the date is concerned, rests upon an insecure foundation. Since Zachary was only an ordinary priest, and not the High Priest, his entry into the Holy of Holies cannot therefore be identified with that of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. But this is of little importance, if on independent grounds these calculations could still point to the month of December, though the 25th need not on this account have been the precise day on which our Lord was born.

When we consider the facts, we see that it was no mere accident that Christmas began to be celebrated in the East just at this particular period, and that its introduction was due to the influence of the great men whom we have named.

It was the moment when Catholics began successfully to repel Arianism; it was just those who attacked Arianism with most vigour and success who promoted the spread of the new festival in the East. We must add to this the evidence afforded by secular enactments. Neither the laws of Valentinian II., nor the revisers of the _Codex Theodosianus_ in 438, nor the _Breviarium Alaricianum_ of 506, regard the 25th December as a festival established by law. It was made to appear for the first time as such by Tribonianus in the _Codex Justinianus_.[301] From these additional facts, we gather that Christmas was of later introduction in the Church than Easter or Whitsunday. In such matters secular law generally follows the lead of ecclesiastical law. If Christmas had been celebrated in the Church from the beginning, one can see no reason why it should not have enjoyed equal privileges with Easter and Whitsunday. Still there was a law of the Emperor Arcadius as early as 400 which included Christmas among the days on which at least the games of the circus were forbidden.[302]

Chrysostom, in the sermon referred to above, states plainly that, at the time when the attempt was being made to introduce the festival in the East, it was already celebrated in Rome. Our attention is thus naturally directed to Rome, and it will be interesting to learn how long it had been so observed there. This question we must now consider more fully.

John, Bishop of Nicæa, informs us that the Roman Church had begun under Pope Julius I. (337-352) to celebrate the birth of our Lord on the 25th December.[303] This pope, with the assistance of the writings of Josephus, had ascertained that Christ was born on the 25th December. John of Nicæa then recurs substantially to the reckoning which we have already produced from Chrysostom, according to which the appearance of the angel to Zachary in the Temple happened on the 23rd September and the Annunciation on the 25th March. From these data it followed as a matter of course that the 25th December was the day of Christ’s birth. John had gained this information from an alleged correspondence between Cyril of Jerusalem and Julius, from which he quotes. But this correspondence is certainly not authentic, as will appear from one of the facts quoted from it further on.[304] But the fact that it cannot stand the test of criticism does not prove the spuriousness of the treatise of John of Nicæa in itself, nor the incorrectness of everything else contained in it.

When we turn to the authentic evidence for the practice of the Roman Church on this point, our attention is at once arrested by one document which is quoted under very different names—_Anonymus Cuspiniani_, _Catalogus Bucherianus_, the Calendar of Furius Philocalus, or the Chronographer of 354. These different ways of quoting the same document are apt to lead to confusion. They are due to the fact that from time to time different scholars have published larger or smaller portions of the document, without ever placing it before the public in its entirety. The different portions of which it is composed are of a rather heterogeneous character, and, accordingly, as each student was interested in this or that portion, he published as much of it as concerned his own studies, leaving the remainder unnoticed. In order to form a correct judgment of the evidential value of this document, and the importance of the facts recorded in it, it will be well at this point to describe it more particularly, although to do so may lead us away from our main subject.

Briefly, we have to do with a collection of chronological data belonging to the time of Constantine, in which the unknown compiler collected together from official sources all kinds of chronological and historical notices, such as might be useful for people in official positions. His object was to supply them with a compendium of all that might be of practical assistance to them. John Cuspinianus (1473-1529) was the first to make use of this work, because he recognised that the list of Roman consuls contained in it is the most correct that has come down to us. In his _Commentarius de Consulibus Romanis_, published at Basel after his death, in 1552, a part of the work is printed.[305]

Other students then edited such portions as related to the special studies they had in hand, such as Onuphrius Panvinius, Ægidius Boucher, S.J.,[306] Lambeck, Henschen, Cardinal Noris, Eccard, Preller, and especially Roncalli. Finally, in the transactions of the “Akademie der Wissenschaften” of Saxony for 1850, Mommsen printed almost the whole of it with the exception of the later portions. A collection of the allegorical illustrations of the document, as far as they exist, has also been published,[307] and thus at length this remarkable document has been placed within the reach of all to whom it may be of interest.

The different sections therein contained are partly of ecclesiastical and Christian origin, and partly secular and heathen. Of purely ecclesiastical origin, in addition to the table for calculating Easter, are the _Depositio Episcoporum_, the _Depositio Martyrum_, and the list of popes. The remaining sections fall into two classes: they are either entirely heathen, or they have interpolations of a Christian and ecclesiastical character. This is especially the case with the lists of consuls. Up to 753 U.C. they contain merely the names of the consuls, with notices of the dictators; from 753 U.C. to 55 A.D. four ecclesiastical notices have been interpolated, but none from thence onwards. These four notices relate to the date of Christ’s birth and death, the arrival of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Rome, and their death there. These notices, naturally, did not originally form part of the lists of consuls. Who added them? Philocalus himself or someone else?

Since the list of consuls contains ecclesiastical interpolations, it is all the more remarkable that none have been added to the Calendar. Where else would we more naturally look for them, and where could they have been more easily introduced? Why did not Philocalus set down the birth of Christ here under the 25th December, the _Natalis Invicti_, since he considered it of sufficient importance to be interpolated into the lists of consuls, with which it is out of keeping?