Chapter IV: Other Commemorations of Events in the Lord’s Life. Pentecost

The commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was in the nature of things a natural and inevitable outcome of the religious beliefs and feelings of the infant Church. The fixing of days for the commemoration of other events in the life of our Lord came with thought and reflection; they belong to the period of constructiveness, and we have no evidence to show that their appearance was very early. Tertullian is silent about other days than Sunday (the Lord’s Day), the Pasch (including the Passion and the Resurrection), and Pentecost[54]; and Origen particularises the Lord’s Day, the Parasceve (perhaps in the sense of the weekly Friday ‘station’), the Pasch, and Pentecost, as being days specially observed by Christians[55].

=The Circumcision= is obviously dependent on whatever was regarded as the date of the Nativity, and is the result of reflection and ecclesiastical constructiveness. It is eight days after the Nativity on Jan. 1, with all Christendom, save the Armenians, who celebrating the Nativity (together with other Epiphanies of the Lord) on Jan. 6, naturally observe Jan. 13 as the day of the Circumcision. The day is not noted in the Bucherian Kalendar, nor in the Carthaginian. Baillet[56] comes to the conclusion that it appears first as appointed for general observance as a festival, about the middle of the seventh century, and in Spain, where servile work was forbidden on this day. But it would appear from the Canons of the Fourth Council of Toledo that the day was then observed with penitential features (canon 11). From the Sermons of Augustine we learn that in his time Jan. 1 was observed by Christians as a solemn fast, in protest against the licentious revelry and excesses of the pagans at this time of the year[57]. And as late as the Second Council of Tours (A.D. 567) it is enjoined that, while all other days between the Nativity and the Epiphany are to be treated (in regard to use of food) as festivals, an exception is to be made for the space of three days at the beginning of January, for which time the fathers had appointed litanies to be made ‘ad calcandam Gentilium consuetudinem.’ But it should be remarked that the canon (17) dealing with the subject has special reference to fasts to be observed by monks. It is therefore not impossible that the fast had by this time ceased to be observed by the general body of the faithful, but, in a spirit of conservatism, was regarded as proper to be maintained in the monasteries. The canon is interesting for another reason; it affords perhaps the earliest example of the use of the term ‘Circumcision’ as applied to this day, which appears in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries simply as _Octava Domini_, _i.e._ the octave of the Nativity. In the Gelasian Sacramentary there is no emphasis in the service on the Circumcision, while the prayer called _Ad populum_ distinctly points to a prohibition against partaking of the _convivium diabolicum_ of the pagans. And a mass immediately following that for the Octave, entitled _Ad prohibendum ab idolis_, points in the same direction. The Gregorian Sacramentary shows no reference to the Circumcision in the prayers of the mass[58].

Even in the early part of the seventh century Isidore of Seville condemns the indecent gaieties indulged in on this day, and recalls the ancient injunction that the day should be observed as a fast[59]. The fourth Council of Toledo (canon 11) represents as the practice of Spain and Gaul the omission of the singing of _Alleluia_ on the Kalends of January, _propter errorem gentilium_.

In the later Western service-books the thought of the Circumcision is given greater prominence, and intermingles with the thoughts suggested by the Octave. The feast of the Circumcision appears in the Greek Church in the eighth century[60].

=Commemoration of Passiontide; Holy Week= (the ‘Great Week,’ as it is styled in the East). The commemoration of the death of the Saviour is the primitive and essential element: other days were given places as the result of reflection, and of the desire to reproduce liturgically in a mimetic way the events of the Lord’s history during the last paschal week. We possess the early testimony of Tertullian for the _dies Paschae_, for so he names the day. He tells us that it was a public and general fast, and that the kiss of peace was omitted from the services of the Church[61]. But for Palm Sunday, _Coena Domini_, and the Great Sabbath we have no evidence till much later. It is from Palestine that we get the earliest notice of the rites of Palm Sunday. In her account of the ceremonies at Jerusalem ‘Silvia’ describes the procession of palm-bearers on the Sunday of the Great Week. The feast of Palms is also mentioned in the life of Euthymius, abbot in Palestine, who died at a very advanced age in A.D. 473. But in the West the carrying of palms does not appear earlier than the ninth century. The commemoration (_Natalis Calicis_) of the institution of the Eucharist on the night before the Lord suffered probably had its rise about the same time as Palm Sunday; and a certain mimetic character was given to the rites of the Thursday by delaying the celebration of the Liturgy till the evening. This was further enhanced in the Church of Carthage (A.D. 397), which in view of the original institution of the Eucharist having been after supper, made an express synodical declaration that the rule of fasting communion was binding ‘excepto uno die anniversario, quo coena domini celebratur[62].’ And St Augustine expressly affirms that the practice of the Church did not condemn communion after the evening meal on the Thursday in Holy Week[63]. The name _Dies Mandati_ (which has probably given us our _Maundy Thursday_) is not very ancient. In mediaeval times the particular mandate of the Lord was taken to be the feet-washing, before or during which were sung the words ‘Mandatum novum do vobis[64].’

At Rome, as late as the time of St Leo, in regard to the days specially observed in Holy Week, the only distinction from ordinary weeks seems to have been the commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist on Thursday. The adoration of the Cross on Good Friday (which we find at Jerusalem in the days of ‘Silvia’) and the mass of the pre-sanctified were later additions, and are regarded by Duchesne as having been introduced into the West in the seventh or eighth century[65]. The observances of the Saturday were those of the vigil of Easter.

=The Ascension=: in the Greek Kalendar, and frequently in Greek writers, with a different connotation, ‘the Taking up,’ ‘Assumption’ (ἀνάληψις)[66], was celebrated forty days after Easter, as the actual Ascension took place forty days after the Resurrection; it is obviously a festival of the constructive period. There is no mention of it in the earliest Christian writings; but, without here going into details of evidence, it may be stated that the festival was observed, possibly early in, and certainly before, the close of the fourth century. It is noticed by ‘Silvia’ (though the name Ascensa is not given to it) as a day on which at Bethlehem, where the vigil was kept, the bishop of Jerusalem and the presbyters preached, but it does not appear that the Eucharist was celebrated. There was a procession back to Jerusalem in the evening. Augustine classes the day with the Passion, the Resurrection, and the advent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), as observed ‘anniversaria solemnitate[67].’ In the Sacramentary of Leo many masses _in Ascensa_ (= _Ascensione_) _Domini_ are to be found. Both in the East and in some parts of the West it was customary to celebrate the festival outside the cities,—a practice suggested doubtless by Luke xxiv. 50.

It may be remarked that many old English writers, both before and after the Reformation, use the term ‘Holy Thursday’ for this day.

=The Transfiguration= (Aug. 6 in the Byzantine[68], Ethiopic, and later mediaeval and modern Roman Kalendars: on the 7th Sunday after Pentecost in the Armenian) is of late appearance. If a certain canon (or prose hymn) on the Transfiguration attributed to John of Damascus be really his, it would point to the probable observance of the day in the eighth century in the East. In the West the festival appears much later; but the evidence indicates its having had a partial and local observance long before it was enjoined by Pope Calixtus III for the Church generally in A.D. 1457. This Pope appointed an office for the day, which was afterwards somewhat altered by Pius V. The action of Calixtus was prompted by thankfulness for a victory over the Turks at Belgrade. Among the Greeks the Transfiguration is a day of great solemnity. It is preceded by a ‘proheortia’ and affects the following eight days. The Armenians observe a preparatory fast for a week[69].

=Pentecost.= This word as commonly employed by early Christian writers signifies the whole period of fifty days after the Resurrection. It is thus that the term is used by Tertullian in a passage (_de Idolat._ 14) where he compares the number of festival days among the pagans with the number of Christian festivals. The same is probably true where he speaks of Pentecost as ‘ordinandis lavacris latissimum spatium’ (_de Baptismo_ 19). During that period fasting, and kneeling at prayer, at least in the public assemblies, were forbidden: and _Alleluia_, which had been silent, was resumed. It seems, however, that once at least Tertullian had in view, in the use of the word, the day on which the period closed[70]. Origen in a similar way uses the word for the whole period, but also seems to distinguish between the general and more restricted signification of the word[71]. Earlier than either of these is the testimony of Irenaeus (if we may accept it as his) cited, as from his lost book _On the Pascha_, by Pseudo-Justin (_Quaest. et Respons. ad Orthodoxos_, 115), where Irenaeus speaks of not kneeling in Pentecost, as that time is of equal dignity with the Lord’s day, ‘Pentecost’ being here used evidently for a season. On the other hand, the compiler, whoever he was, of the _Quaestiones_, in which Irenaeus is quoted, in the same place speaks of not kneeling ‘from the Pascha to Pentecost,’ using the latter term in its restricted sense. In the newly-recovered _Testament of the Lord_[72] Pentecost is used for the fifty days between Easter and our Whitsunday (i. 28, 42; ii. 12). An interesting survival of the old signification of Pentecost is still to be found in the Greek service-books, where the term _Mesopentecoste_ is used for special festal observances mid-way between Easter and Whitsunday, commencing on the Wednesday following the third Sunday after Easter, and lasting for a week.

In the forty-third canon of the Council of Elvira (A.D. 305) we have a clear example of the use of the word Pentecost for the fiftieth day. And after that date the word is widely used in that sense: while the festival itself assumes gradually more and more dignity and importance. ‘Silvia’ describes the elaborate ceremonial observed on this day at Jerusalem towards the close of the fourth century.

There are considerable difficulties attendant on an attempt to assign a precise date to the addition of an octave to this festival; and the festal character of the octave week was affected by the ember days occurring in that week. In the Gelasian Sacramentary, as it has come down to us, we have the ‘propers’ for a mass on the Sunday of the octave of Pentecost. The mass may be described as a mass of the Holy Spirit, praying for protection for the Church from the allurements of the vain and deceitful philosophy of the world; true knowledge of the nature of God was given by the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of wisdom, and knowledge, and understanding, and counsel. The benedictions, which immediately follow, on those who return to the Catholic unity from the Arian and other heresies, suggest that it was in this way that the octave of Pentecost came at a later date to be made a festival in honour of the mystery of the blessed Trinity[73]. The public reception to the Catholic unity of Arian and other heretics would gradually cease to be a feature of the season: but the liturgical colouring of the service would remain, and would have to be accounted for. As a matter of fact, however, the establishment of a festival of the Trinity with a special office and mass was of late date. It makes its appearance in the Low Countries in the tenth century, and made its way but slowly, and with varying success. Pope Alexander II, who died in A.D. 1073, when consulted on the subject, wrote that according to the Roman rite there was no day set apart to commemorate the Trinity any more than the Unity of the Divine Being, and that every day of the year was truly consecrated to the honour of the Trinity in Unity. It was not till the fourteenth century, under the pontificate of John XXII, that the Roman Church received the feast of the Trinity and attached it to the first Sunday after Pentecost[74].

In England, according to Gervase of Canterbury, Archbishop Thomas Becket instituted the principal feast of the Trinity on the octave of Pentecost[75].