1. The origins of the Cultus of the Saints and the Grounds on which it Rests
The ecclesiastical year recalls to the memory of the faithful all that God has done for the salvation of mankind, especially through the mysteries of the new Covenant, i.e. the life and passion of Jesus Christ, and she re-enacts them, as it were, before their eyes within the compass of each recurring year. To this the Sundays and festivals, especially those from Advent to Pentecost, are devoted. They form an organic whole, constituted in accordance with one definite idea, consisting of the three great festivals Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, each in itself the centre of a special season. The foundations and heart of the whole festal system of the Church were given by a higher Hand, and only the development—the much less important part of the whole—is to be attributed to the thoughts and contrivances of men.
It now remains for us to consider the second division of the Christian festival system—the Saints’ Days. These are distinguished from the feasts of our Lord both by their institution and by their treatment, their distribution throughout the year, their development and their diffusion throughout Christendom.[447]
From the foundation of the Church, there has been no controversy over the holiness and worshipfulness of those who laid down their life for the Christian faith. The New Testament itself did not omit to hand on to posterity the memory of those whose death fell within the apostolic period, such as the Holy Innocents, St James the Great, and before all others the first martyr St Stephen. The seer of the Apocalypse saw the martyrs of Jesus beneath the altar of God, Who did not forget them (Apoc. xvii. 6; vi. 9-11).
Neither did the Church forget them. From its foundation each Christian congregation was at pains to preserve the memory of the martyrs belonging to it. Thus, for example, Pionius and his companions celebrated the “true day” of St Polycarp’s death (natale genuinum) at Smyrna in 250, during which festival they were themselves seized and condemned to death.[448] Among the larger congregations, where the number of martyrs rapidly increased, special means were taken at an early date to preserve their memory. This was necessary in large communities if the memory of these heroes of the Faith was not to pass away. It is true that for the Church of Rome alone, do we possess definite information as to her mode of proceeding in this respect, but there is no room for doubt that smaller communities followed on the same lines, and for some indeed we have clear evidence that they did so. In many instances, the reverence which continued to be paid to the tomb of such an individual was sufficient to keep his memory alive. Those who suffered a shameful death as law-breakers in the opinion of the civil power nevertheless received honourable burial. According to Roman ideas earthly Justice was satisfied by the death of the guilty person, the body was given to the relations and friends to be duly buried.[449] Only when there was risk of a tumult was this permission withheld, which happened very rarely in the Roman Empire before the reign of Diocletian—or, where it was a question of high treason.
Not only the relations and friends were careful to preserve the memory of the martyrs, but, as we have already said, the congregation to which they had belonged. While the former erected chapels over the tombs of the martyrs, and preserved the information relating to them, the community on its part marked down in its registers their names and the days on which they suffered. In large communities the Bishops took steps for drawing up authoritative reports concerning the martyrs belonging to their flocks. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Clement I. is said to have divided Rome into seven regions, with a Christian notary appointed over each whose business it was carefully to investigate matters of this nature belonging to his region.[450] The size of the city of Rome rendered this necessary. Augustus had divided Rome for civil purposes into fourteen regions, but Clement, for the purpose he had in view, formed one region out of every two. Pope Fabian again adopted similar measures, and enjoined upon the seven sub-deacons the duty of seeing that the seven notaries made a complete collection of the acts of the martyrs. He thus doubled the number of persons employed in this matter, and placed the subdeacons over the notaries.[451] His predecessor Anteros (235-236) collected the gesta martyrum, and carefully preserved the Acts of the martyrs, as we learn from a somewhat obscure notice in the Liber Pontificalis.[452] This is again referred to in the same work, where it is stated that Pope Caius appointed the regions of the city to the deacons during the Diocletian persecution.
St Cyprian adopted the same plan at Carthage during the persecutions under Decius and Valerian. He ordered the priests and deacons of Carthage not only to interest themselves in every way on behalf of the faith of those in prison, but also to take thought for the bodies of those who died in bonds, even when they died without having undergone torture, and also to keep a record of the name and date of death of each one, in order that his memory might be celebrated along with the memorials of the martyrs.[453] The order to take down the date could be easily obeyed everywhere, since in every city, Calendars engraved on marble tablets were set up for public use.[454]
We have an authoritative document of this kind in the detailed account given by the communities of Lyons and Vienne, of the martyrdoms which took place there under Marcus Aurelius. Owing to its having been sent to Asia Minor, Eusebius was able to utilise it and incorporate the chief parts of it into his history of the Church.
The same thing happened more or less everywhere; the names of the martyrs belonging to the community were entered in the Calendars of the Church, and their memory was celebrated annually on the anniversary of their death. These were the so-called martyres recogniti, i.e. those who were recognised as martyrs by the community. Each large community, especially the patriarchal Churches, thus possessed their calendar of saints, which became more and more full of names in process of time. Authentic fragments of such calendars are contained in the Roman Depositio Martyrum, which, along with the Depositio Episcoporum, was compiled not later than the episcopate of Liberius (352-354). Fuller, because less ancient, is the Calendar of Carthage, dating from the end of the fifth century or from the beginning of the sixth, printed by Mabillon in his Analecta Vetera,[455] and of which he treats in iii. 398, of this work.
In the third century, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocæsarea in Pontus, was no less zealous than St Cyprian in collecting information concerning the martyrs. He travelled throughout the whole district, inspiring the people everywhere with zeal for the celebration of the memory of those who had suffered for the faith.[456] And thus in all the greater cities, catalogues of the local martyrs were compiled, as Sozomen testifies for two neighbouring towns, Gaza and Constantia. Each of these two towns, he says, had their own bishop and clergy, and also their own festivals of martyrs and catalogues of the priests who had presided over them.[457]
At a much later date, Maximus of Turin gives us some interesting evidence concerning these attempts of the different communities: “As we must celebrate the general commemoration of all the holy martyrs, so, my brethren, ought we to celebrate with special devotion the feasts of those who shed their blood in our own locality. For while all the saints, wherever they may be, assist us all, yet those who suffered for us intercede for us in a special manner. For the martyr suffers not for himself alone, but also for his fellow-citizens. By his sufferings, he obtains for himself a reward in heaven, and gives a good example to his fellow-citizens. He gains rest for himself and salvation for them.”[458]
The official cultus of the saints was at first confined to the martyrs. The earliest example of the public worship of saints, not martyrs, dates from the time of Pope Symmachus, under whom, about A.D. 500, a church was built and dedicated to Pope Silvester and Martin of Tours, in Rome, the basilica Silvestri et Martini.[459]
Our information concerning the martyrs is derived from three sources[460]:—
1. The Acta, i.e. the report of the trial taken down by the notary of the proconsul or procurator (notarius, commentariensis, and exceptor), containing the accusation, the examination, the depositions of the witnesses, the description of the tortures employed and the judgment given. Even in the time of Cicero the evidence of the witnesses was taken down in writing, and during the Empire full reports of both civil and criminal actions were taken and preserved. A proclamation of the Emperor Severus in 194, enjoins that these acta be preserved, and be produced when required for ascertaining the truth. Copies were given for payment to people interested or concerned in the trial. Some of these reports of the trials of the martyrs have come down to us in their original form, and afford the most valuable materials which we possess for the history of early Christian times. The best known are the Acta Proconsularia S. Cypriani, along with the acts of Pionius, Maximilian, and Marcellus, etc.
2. Passiones, i.e. an account of the imprisonment, trial, and execution of the martyrs drawn up by Christian eye-witnesses at the time or immediately afterwards. They are worthy of all credit, for among the Romans legal proceedings took place as a rule in public. It was only under the later emperors that this publicity was so far curtailed that the proceedings were conducted in the basilicas or buildings set apart for that purpose. The earliest and best-known examples of these Passions are the letter of the church of Lyons to the churches of Asia Minor, the Passio S. Perpetuæ et Felicitatis, the Martyrium Polycarpi, etc.
3. Legends, i.e. narratives based upon documents of the nature described above, and worked up by later writers, either for the purpose of edification or from the point of view of a historian. This class of writings is very large, beginning with the account of the martyrdom of St Ignatius. The writings, however, differ endlessly as to their value, according to the knowledge and authority possessed by the writers, and according to their nearness to the date of the events described. There were many martyrs whose sufferings were recorded in no acta or passiones, but were imprinted upon the memory of men, and became part of the traditions handed down in the community, until they were finally committed to writing. The later this took place, the worse for the authenticity. For it was then that anachronisms, alterations in titles, changes in the persons, and other similar historical errors could more easily creep into the narrative, as we know, in fact, they have done in many instances. The historical sense was unfortunately lacking to the Franks and Byzantines, as well as all idea of sound criticism.
A false kind of patriotism and national pride often goes along with credulity, so that we find here and there in literature of this kind even downright fabrications. After the introduction of printing, by which literature became more widely diffused and comparative criticism was rendered possible, it at once became evident among Catholics that error was mixed with truth, and that a sifting of the one from the other was necessary, and, in many cases, quite possible. In this province of criticism, those who have most distinguished themselves for judgment and insight are Launoi, Henschen, the Bollandists, Tillemont, Baillet, Ruinart, and in more modern times, Franchi di Cavalieri and others who have avoided extremes in either direction.
The matter from these writings incorporated in the service books possesses the same historical value as the source from which it is drawn. For, as Bäumer justly remarks, “it was not the intention of the Church, or of the compilers and authors of the service books, to claim historical authority for their statements. And so the Popes themselves have directed many emendations to be made in the legends in the Breviary, although many others still remain to be effected.”[461] The legends, by their incorporation into the Breviary, gain no higher degree of credibility than that which the person who incorporated them is able to confer upon them from a purely natural standpoint. This must be emphasised and maintained, for since the time of Bishop Aurelian of Arles,[462] the reading of the histories of the martyrs made its way more and more into the psalmody in the West, and became an essential part of the Breviary.
The honour of having cultivated for the first time the province of hagiography as a whole and not merely in a few particulars, belongs, as far as we know, to the historian Eusebius. Before he completed his history of the Church, he planned a collection of the Acts of the Martyrs (συλλοωὴ τῶν μαρτυρίων), which he quotes in his history (v. 1, 6). Unfortunately this compilation has been lost, although it was probably used by Gregory of Tours.[463] He gives further information in his work on the martyrs of Palestine which took place in his own lifetime during the Diocletian persecution, between 303 and 310. This book seems to have been composed after the completion of his History of the Church.[464] Had we similar writings of the same period relating to other provinces of the Church, we should be better informed concerning those extraordinary events.
The method adopted was plainly that each local community worked for itself alone without troubling itself about what happened elsewhere. The worship of the martyrs was also at first limited to particular localities. Certainly there was no lack of interest in what took place in other districts, as is shown by the letter from the churches of Lyons and Vienne to the Christians of Asia Minor, but liturgical and ecclesiastical worship was paid to the martyrs of the place alone. For example, the Calendar of the Roman Church contained those martyrs alone who belonged to the Roman community; in the same way the Alexandrian Calendar contained only those belonging to Egypt, the Antiochene Calendar only those of Syria, and so on. This state of things continued until the ninth century. A striking proof of this is the fact that Ignatius of Antioch, although he suffered death in Rome, finds no place in either the Gelasianum or the Gregorianum, while at Antioch he was venerated as a saint from the beginning. A remarkable exception is the veneration which St Perpetua, St Felicitas, and St Cyprian enjoyed in Rome. In this case the relationship between the mother and the daughter church must be taken into account, for Christianity had spread to Carthage from Rome. From what has been said, it follows that information concerning the manner of a martyr’s death and the exact day on which he suffered, derived from local sources, is trustworthy in the highest degree, but it is forthcoming in a few cases only.
As it was the day of the martyr’s death which was kept and marked in the calendar, it must be observed that this day was sometimes called the martyr’s birthday, natalis, natalitium, and sometimes also dies depositionis. Owing to the burial taking place on the day of death, as was the custom among the ancients, dies obitus and dies depositionis could be used as synonymous terms.[465]
Among the Romans burial followed as soon as the death was certified. Nearly every one belonged to a burial society, which undertook the preparations for the funeral. In addition to these, there were only the preparations in the house to be thought of, and these—the washing and clothing of the corpse—could be quickly performed. Hence the burial could take place in a very short time. The Jews also buried their dead immediately after death, as the story of Ananias and Saphira shows.
The Christians of the first centuries followed out all the customs relating to burial usual in their time and country, excluding only those which were specifically heathen and idolatrous. That they buried their dead with the same expedition as the heathen is clear from an incident related by Tertullian.[466] The burial of a woman who seemed to be dead was for some reason delayed. While she lay ready for burial and the priests were reciting the prayers, she raised up both her hands, and, when the prayer for peace was concluded, laid them down again in their former position. It was only in the fourth century that it began to be the custom to delay burial to the third or fourth day after death,[467] but the earlier practice continued still to exist for a considerable period.[468]
As it was already the custom to inter those who died a natural death on the day of their decease, so there was no reason why the burial of the martyrs should be delayed, and thus with them the dies obitus and the dies depositionis were one and the same. Consequently the ancient dates in question, even when given as that of the burial, are always to be understood as referring to the day of the martyr’s death, and, when they form part of the traditions of the community to which the martyr belonged, they are to be received as absolutely reliable.
In the case of the martyrs, the rule of venerating them on the day of their death admitted of no exception, although it might be set aside in the case of those saints who were not martyrs, for certain reasons and in particular instances. Thus, for example, the day of St Chrysostom’s death, the 14th September, was already occupied in the fourth century by the festival of the Invention of the Holy Cross. St Basil died on the 1st January, and St Ambrose on the 4th April, which fell within the Pascal season. During Lent, no festivals of martyrs were to be celebrated on week-days, according to the fifty-first Canon of Laodicea, but only on Saturdays and Sundays at most. But this prohibition was by no means general.
Besides the lists of the depositiones, the service-books, the sacramentaries or missals, helped to preserve the memory of the martyrs.
In the earliest service-books of the Roman and also of a few other churches, the Masses in honour of the martyrs were not classed by themselves apart, but were incorporated with the others, and not separated from the course of the ecclesiastical year, or, to use a modern expression, the Proprium de Sanctis and the Proprium de Tempore were still fused together. Only in the Gelasianum are the Natalitia sanctorum separated from the ecclesiastical year and collected together in the second volume. Still later were the catalogues of the saints formed into independent works, the so-called martyrologies. In the East these began to appear at an early date. In this a return was made to the older arrangement, except that now it was not the martyrs of the local churches alone which were taken into consideration, but those of the Church Universal.
It is just this insertion of the saints’ days in the course of the Church’s year which proves that the names of the martyrs and the days of the commemoration were subject to the control of authority; that is to say, the compilations in question have all the weight attaching to public official documents and to reliable sources of information, and, for this reason, they may be used as material in historical works. Valuable information can be gained from a judicious employment of these compositions.
The restriction of festivals to those commemorating saints of a specific locality disappeared only slowly, and at a late date in the West. It disappeared still later, and only to a limited extent, among the Easterns, who showed a tendency to fill up their calendars with other things rather than with the feasts of foreign martyrs and saints, as, for example, the commemorations of Councils, Old Testament personages, and even the four beasts of the Apocalypse were pressed into the service. In the West the entrance of the Franks and Anglo-Saxons into the Roman Church gave the first impulse to an extension of the martyrologies and calendars in the direction of universalism or universal Catholicity. Both these nations, having no Christian antiquity of their own, adopted along with the ritual of the Roman Church her calendar of saints as well. Soon, however, they added to this the names of their own particular saints, and so prepared the way for more universal ideas; while, on the contrary, the Roman Church did not include in her calendar the saints and martyrs of the Franks and Anglo-Saxons. Only at the revision of the service-books in the sixteenth century did she so far yield as to act in some degree upon the principle of Catholicity in this matter. The subsequent increase and development of the festivals of the saints in the Calendar of the Catholic Church had a disturbing effect upon the ecclesiastical year and daily office. Ordinary Sundays have lost their position and have given place to the commemoration of saints, and green vestments only rarely make their appearance. The first step towards the general observance of the cultus of particular saints throughout the Church, and the admission of other than merely local saints to a place in the devotions of each community, may have been effected by the Litanies which came into use in France. The oldest form of a Litany of the Saints is contained in the prayer-book of Charles the Bald.[469]
The saintly personages of the Old Testament have really the same right to veneration as those of the New, being justified through faith in the future Messias, many of them were martyrs, and all attained to the Beatific Vision after our Lord’s resurrection. They are on this account called blessed by St Paul in Heb. xi. 4-39. The synagogue paid no worship to saints, but honoured the memory of the prophets so far as to erect monuments over their graves (St Matt. xxiii. 29). Accordingly there was nothing to prevent the same cultus being paid to them as to the saints of the New Testament, yet nevertheless it remained exceptional. Eastern calendars contain the names of many Old Testament worthies, Western calendars only a few, and the Roman Church commemorates none with the exception of the Machabees. But even the Eastern Churches have appointed no days in their honour, and so this part of the worship of the saints lies without the scope of this work.[470]
2. The Festivals of St John the Baptist and St Stephen the Proto-Martyr
In saying that in antiquity the worship of the martyrs was confined to the localities to which they belonged, it must be borne in mind that this rule admitted of two exceptions from the first. St John the Baptist and St Stephen the Proto-martyr, were honoured throughout the whole Christian Church from the beginning; their commemoration was universally celebrated, and even the former was regarded as a martyr in the ecclesiastical sense of the word.
The Baptist had at once been designated by his father in a moment of prophetic inspiration as a prophet and the Forerunner of the Lord, and later on he received from our Lord Himself the recognition of his remarkable sanctity (St Matt. xi. 11). Accordingly it causes no surprise to find proof of his worship and his festivals at a very early date. The latter already appear in the sermons of St Augustine as solemnitates, and as fixed on definite dates. Indeed, in course of time a regular little cycle of festivals of the Baptist came into existence. The date of his birth, for instance, was fixed by that of our Lord, as falling six months before Christmas; nine months earlier came the date of his conception,[471] and, in addition to these, the day of his death was celebrated on the 29th August, under the title of Passio or Decollatio.
The festival of St John’s birth does not appear indeed in the Calendars of Philocalus and Polemius Silvius, although it is found in the most ancient calendar of the African Church, and in the list of festivals drawn up by Perpetuus of Tours. Among the sermons of St Peter Chrysologus and Maximus of Turin there are also to be found many allusions to it. It was numbered, by the Council of Agde in 506, among the chief feasts on which all the faithful must attend divine service in their parish churches and not in private oratories.[472] In the Middle Ages servile work was proscribed on it,[473] and until our own times it continued universally to rank as a high festival, but at the present time it is kept as such in only a few countries, as we have observed on page 35.
The festival of the Baptist’s conception was celebrated, especially in the East, and appears in the Calendars of Calcasendi and of the Syrians, also in the Neapolitan Calendars, and in that of Silos as well as in the Mozarabic Calendar, in the Calendar of Bede, in the Greek calendars, and in both menologies, i.e. that of Constantinople and that of Basil. Its introduction[474] at an early date is due to the circumstance that St John’s conception was announced by the angel, and also to the supposition, which appears as early as St Augustine, that by the meeting of his mother with Mary he was already purified from original sin before his birth.
The 29th August was kept as the commemoration of his death at an early date, both in Africa and in the East. The collection of St Augustine’s sermons contains two sermons for this festival (307 and 308), and it has its place among the festivals in the list of Perpetuus. The same date is given in the Coptic Calendar in Selden, in the Syrian, Neapolitan, and Mozarabic. As regards Rome, it had not yet made its way into the Leonine sacramentary, though it is found in the Gelasianum.
In addition, a so-called synaxis of St John the Baptist is marked in the two Greek menologies. This is an instance of a peculiar custom among the Greeks, according to which, after certain chief feasts of our Lord and our Lady, there is held a second festival, or synaxis, on the following day, in honour of the personages who had taken part in the event commemorated by the feast. Thus with the feast of the 2nd February is coupled that of St Simeon, with that of the Nativity of our Lady, the feast of Joachim and Anna, and here, after Epiphany, the day of Christ’s baptism, we have the feast of St John the Baptist, on the 7th January.[475]
The cultus of St John the Baptist received a great extension throughout the whole Church in the fourth and fifth centuries, owing to the discovery of his relics. The records of the Church contain much information concerning both the discovery and the translation of these relics, though they give rise to insoluble difficulties.
In the first place one must bear in mind how the disciples of St John, on hearing of the death of their teacher in the fortress of Machærus,[476] came and took his body and buried it (St Matt. xiv. 12; St Mark vi. 29). The head doubtless remained at first in the keeping of Herodias, who had accepted it as a present. According to a creditable tradition, Samaria was the place of St John’s burial, as it was outside the limits of Herod’s tetrarchy, and under the jurisdiction of the Roman governor. The remains reposed there until the persecution of Julian in 362, when the pagan rabble violated the tomb and burnt the remains. A portion of them, however, was saved by monks and carried to Alexandria, where Athanasius deposited them provisionally in a church. Later on they were placed in the church erected by the Patriarch Theophilus in honour of the Baptist in the ruins of the destroyed Serapeum. The dedication of this church followed on the 27th May 385 or 386.[477] Tillemont was inclined to regard the 29th August as the day of the translation, which in this case as in others came to be regarded as the ecclesiastical commemoration of the event. Against this, however, is the fact that the more ancient Coptic Calendars know nothing of the 29th August as a feast of the Baptist.[478]
With regard to the saint’s head, there are two different accounts in existence. According to one account, given by Sozomen (7, 21), it is said to have been found in Jerusalem in the possession of monks belonging to the sect of the Macedonians, who carried it to Cilicia, when they were driven out from that city. When the Emperor Valens heard of this, he despatched an official to convey the relic to Constantinople. As they approached Chalcedon, the mules which drew the vehicle in which the messenger travelled with the relic refused to proceed any further, and all efforts to continue the route were unavailing—a circumstance frequently repeated in later legends. Valens and his court regarded this as miraculous and did not venture to bring the relic near the city. Accordingly it remained in a village near Chalcedon in charge of adherents of the Macedonian sect, until the reign of Theodosius, who brought it to Hebdomon, a suburb of Constantinople, where he had a church erected in honour of the Baptist.
The Paschal Chronicle makes mention of this translation in 391, as well as of another under the date 453, without throwing any light on the connection of the one with the other. This second translation, of which Rufinus also speaks (“Hist. Eccl.” 2, 28), is said to have come about in the following manner.
The head is reported to have been brought from Machærus to Jerusalem and there buried. In the time of Constantine it was taken to Emesa and hidden away in a cave. Why this was necessary at that particular period is not stated. Here it was discovered by a priest called Marcellus, the superior of a monastery in those parts. He composed a long and detailed account of the discovery, containing also a history of the previous vicissitudes of the relic.[479] The discovery was made in consequence of many dreams, and a fiery star is said to have guided Marcellus to the spot where the sacred treasure rested in an urn, deeply buried in the earth. Marcellus informed Bishop Uranius of Emesa of his discovery, and the bishop solemnly removed the relic on the 24th February, 452. It was first of all placed in the cathedral, and then soon afterwards in a chapel expressly built to receive it, to which it was conveyed on the 26th September of the same year. Here it rested under the Mohammedan dominion, and in 760 a large church was even built to replace the chapel. We have here a threefold translation of the head of St John the Baptist. It is asserted that a part of it is preserved at Amiens which was brought thither from Constantinople in the thirteenth century. Two of the three days commemorating these translations are marked in the Greek menologies, the 24th February and the 26th September.[480] The story of these translations throws no light upon the choice of 29th August for the beheading of the saint.
From a liturgical point of view, the birth of the Baptist was kept with special distinction at Rome in earlier times. In the Leonine sacramentary it is already provided with a vigil. Other saints’ days indeed were similarly provided, but the vigil of St John was to be kept as a fast, and, moreover, in addition to the two formularies for the Mass of his feast, there are two more specially intended for use in the Baptistery of St John. As early as the fifth century in Rome, three Masses seem to have been celebrated on St John’s Day as on Christmas, one on the vigil after Vespers, one during the night, and the third on the morning of the 24th June—this last being celebrated in the Baptistery. In the Gelasianum we find only two Masses, one for the vigil, and one for the day itself, but in the Gregorianum we find three again to be said at special times, as in the Leoninum.[481] Accordingly, Menard observes that Alcuin[482] also speaks of three Masses on St John’s Day commemorating the three great triumphs—as he calls them—which the Baptist had celebrated in preparing the way for our Lord, in baptizing Him, and in having been a Nazarite from his mother’s womb. The ordo of the Canon Benedict of St Peter’s, belonging to the year 1143, makes no mention of three Masses, though it speaks of two offices.[483] When the Council of Seligenstadt in 1022 (cap. 1) prescribed abstinence for the fourteen days before St John, it was acting without precedent, and was influenced by the desire to make the festival of the forerunner as like to Christmas as possible.
As at Rome, so too in Latin North Africa, the Nativity of the Baptist must have been celebrated with special honour, for we possess no fewer than seven sermons of St Augustine on it, and he distinctly speaks of it as a festival which had come down from his predecessors.[484]
The Proto-martyr St Stephen. The cultus of this saint received also a great impulse from the discovery of his relics at Kaphar-Gamala.[485] This took place on the 5th December, in consequence of a revelation said to have been made to a priest of Jerusalem called Lucianus, in presence of John Bishop of Jerusalem, and of a Spanish priest from Braga, named Avitus, who was then stopping in Jerusalem. Lucianus wrote an account of the event in the form of a letter to all the churches,[486] which Avitus translated into Latin.[487] Whereupon the worship of the first martyr spread, one might say, in every direction. Pilgrims seeking relief from their sufferings visited his churches and chapels, numerous answers to prayer and miracles of healing followed, of which the sermons of St Augustine and his work on the “City of God” afford evidence.[488] Pope Simplicius († 483) erected a basilica in St Stephen’s honour at Rome. The festival of the discovery of his relics was fixed for the 3rd August.
Upon their discovery the relics were first taken to Jerusalem, but portions of them were bestowed upon other places, as, for example, a hand to the city of Constantinople, or rather to the Emperor Theodosius II.,[489] and smaller relics elsewhere. In the year 439 the Empress Eudocia brought the remaining relics to Constantinople and had them placed in the basilica of St Lawrence.[490] Over the tomb a chapel was erected, well known to pilgrims of the sixth century as the grave of St Stephen.[491] St Augustine, in the passages already quoted, speaks of churches erected in St Stephen’s honour in many places.
The worship of St Stephen, however, does not date merely from this period, but was much older, and may even be said to be as old as the Church herself, since St Paul gave him the title of “Martyr of Christ” (Acts xxii. 20). Many churches and chapels were dedicated to him in Constantinople, of which the oldest was built by or under Constantine, if Codinus is rightly informed.[492]
Apart from this, his name is to be found already in the earliest liturgical sources, e.g. the Arian martyrology, belonging to about 360, and in all Calendars ancient and modern excepting the Coptic Calendars, published by Selden and Calcasendi. A remarkable variation is observable with respect to the date, for the most ancient Calendars and also the Roman give it invariably as the 26th December, while the Eastern Calendars give it sometimes on the 27th, e.g. the two menologies of Constantinople and the Syrian lectionary. It cannot now be ascertained whether one of these days was the day of his martyrdom or not; it is not impossible, but it must be observed that the Coptic Calendar given in Mai notices only a discovery of his relics on the 27th December, with which agrees a later tradition of the Egyptian Church.[493] Accordingly the 26th or 27th December may have been observed as only the day of a translation of St Stephen’s relics.
3. Festivals of our Blessed Lady in General
The unique position occupied by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the scheme of salvation called for a corresponding recognition from the Church in the development of her festal system. As a matter of fact the Church has amply discharged this duty, inasmuch as not only the events in our Lady’s life recorded in Scripture have been made the occasion of festivals, but others also not mentioned therein. A considerable period, however, elapsed before this work was accomplished. This circumstance has been explained by reference to the fact that the Church, while paganism was still in power, refrained from publicly honouring the parents of our Lord after the flesh, on account of the myths and genealogies current about the gods. More weight may be given to the circumstance that the facts relating to the life of Jesus and the redemption He accomplished had first to be commemorated by fixed festivals before an extension of the Calendar in other directions could be thought of. Then again, in the early ages, it was felt to be an imperative duty to duly honour the commemorations of the numerous martyrs, and the custom of appointing days for the commemoration of saints not martyrs only came into existence later.
The cultus paid to the Mother of God by the Church existed long before the institution of her feasts, for Constantine is said to have built three churches in her honour in his new capital. According to recent investigations, a Church dedicated to her, Maria Antiqua,[494] is said to have existed in Rome before the erection of the Liberian basilica, generally reckoned as the oldest Church of our Lady in the Eternal City. It is certain that Ephesus had a noteworthy Church of our Lady in 431, in which the third Ecumenical Council held its meetings.
As regards festivals, all the churches of the ancient patriarchates observe many of them, especially the oriental Greeks and the Roman Catholic; the latter, without question, observes the largest number. But the ancient Church of Egypt also distinguished itself by its zeal for the worship of our Lady, and in the Coptic Calendars we find a commemoratio Dominæ Virginis Mariæ on the 21st (corresponding to the 15th in the Julian Calendar) of each month.[495] Formerly every Saturday was generally dedicated to her. The first certain instance of the observance of a festival in honour of the Mother of God, which has so far come to light, is found in the panegyric on St Theodosius, preached by Theodore about the year 500. In this it is stated that a commemoration of the holy Mother of God (θεοτόκου μνήμη) was celebrated annually in the Palestinian monasteries, attended by a concourse of all the monks. Unfortunately neither the date of this festival nor its name is given, although there is good reason for thinking that it was the feast of the 15th August, which had been regarded as the day of our Lady’s death from the earliest times.[496] In Spain, in the time of Bishop Ildephonsus of Toledo († 667), a festival of the Mother of God was also solemnly observed. This prelate made penitential processions (litaniæ) in the three preceding days, and composed a special mass for the feast. Here again the particular name of the feast is unfortunately not given. Still it can only have been the feast of the 15th August.[497]
The number of feasts of our Lady observed at the present time in the Catholic Church is, as we have said, considerable, among them being some which affect the public life of the community and some whose observance is confined to the four walls of the Church. They can also be classified as greater and lesser, or, according to the date of their institution, as earlier or later. Among the greater feasts are the Conception, Birth, Annunciation and Assumption of our Blessed Lady, and Candlemas; among the lesser are the Presentation of our Lady in the Temple, her Espousals, the Visitation, and now the Feast of the Holy Rosary.
It is not, however, possible to speak, as many liturgists do, of a Marian ecclesiastical year. For the dates of our Lady’s feasts, viewed in their chronological order, overlap the limits of the year, and being subject to the same principles which regulate saints’ days, fall invariably on fixed days in the Calendar, and so cannot be said to form an integral part of the ecclesiastical year. Nevertheless they form in themselves a cycle of festivals, as is also the case in a lesser degree with regard to St John the Baptist. Two of them, however, have been brought into connection, at least externally, with the ecclesiastical year, i.e. the Annunciation, whose date depends upon Christmas, and the Visitation, whose date is regulated by the births of Christ and St John the Baptist. The former interrupts the course of the Church’s year, and falls within a cycle of feasts with which it has no inner connection. The Conception of our Blessed Lady, the latest in date of her great feasts, depends naturally upon the date of her birth. Finally, nothing can be said touching the grounds which led to the choice of these dates, for no historical evidence for the first institution of these festivals has come down to us. They have been appointed and sanctioned by custom.
We shall first deal with the great festivals of our Lady, the observance of which affected public life. From these we omit Candlemas, originally regarded rather as a festival of our Lord. Three others—the Nativity, Annunciation, and Assumption—can be considered together as far as their institution is concerned, inasmuch as they made their appearance in history at the same period—that is to say, in the seventh century. The reliable evidence for their introduction in Rome is confined to the following; in the later MSS. of the Gregorianum appears a notice which confines the work of Gregory the Great to the first part of the sacramentary. This is the important preface “Hucusque.”[498] In this it is stated the entire preceding part of the book is due to Gregory I., with the exception of what concerns the Nativity and Assumption of our Lady, and a few other matters. From this it follows that the sacramentary used in the time of Gregory I. did not contain these two festivals of the Mother of God.
They had been already introduced, however, by the end of the seventh century. This is clear from the fact that they appear in the Gelesianum, and, secondly, from a statement in the life of Sergius I. (687-701),[499] to the effect that this pope directed that on the Annunciation, Nativity, and Assumption of our Lady, and in the festival which the Greeks call Hypapante, a procession (litania) should go from St Adrian’s to St Mary Major’s. These festivals were at that time already observed in Rome, when Sergius ordered these processions as adjuncts to existing festivals. This comprises all the reliable evidence at our disposal regarding these feasts of our Lady.[500]
All that we can with certainty deduct therefrom is that these three principal feasts of our Lady were introduced in the Roman Church only in the course of the seventh century. The sermons belonging to the same period also support this conclusion. The rich collections of sermons of St Augustine, St Leo the Great, Peter Chrysologus,[501] Fulgentius, and Maximus of Turin, contain no sermons for feasts of the Mother of God. All the chief, and also the majority of the lesser, feasts of our Lady had their origin rather in the East, and only at a comparatively late date made their way into the West. This also explains why none of them have been incorporated, as most of them might easily have been, into the ecclesiastical year. Their adoption by Rome resulted from the political dependence of Italy on Byzantium and from the intimate relations existing between the Apostolic See and the Imperial Court.
4. The Three Ancient Festivals of our Blessed Lady—the Nativity, the Annunciation, the Assumption
(1) THE NATIVITY OF OUR LADY
The spread of this feast seems to have been retarded, for it does not appear in many Calendars which contain the Assumption, i.e. in the Gotho-Gallican, in that of Luxeuil, in the Toledan Calendar of the tenth century, and in the Mozarabic; that it is not to be found in older Calendars goes without saying. On the other hand, it appears along with the Assumption in the Gelasianum and in the Frankish Calendars drawn up under Roman influence in the Carolingian period, the earliest being those of Reims and Bede. It cannot be said to have been generally celebrated in the eighth and ninth centuries, although in many places it makes its appearance much earlier. Some writers have maintained that, on the whole, Fulbert of Chartres († 1028) was the first to introduce it.[502] But this is certainly wrong. Nevertheless he probably exerted himself to spread the observance of the feast in the northern parts of France, since we have two sermons of his preached on the feast, the oldest genuine Latin sermons on this festival, as it seems. In Greek there are two sermons of Andrew of Crete dealing also with the festival.[503] Evidence is wanting to show why the 8th September was chosen for the Nativity of our Lady.
(2) THE ANNUNCIATION
The official title of this feast is now Annuntiatio B. Mariæ Virginis, but formerly other titles were used, i.e. Annuntiatio Angeli ad B.V.M., Annuntiatio Domini,[504] Annuntiatio Christi, or even Conceptio Christi, etc., showing that it was regarded more as a festival of our Lord than of our Lady. That it owes its existence entirely to Christmas, and depends upon the date (25th December) assigned to the birth of Christ, requires no proof. But the reference to Mary is so striking that it could not fail to be regarded as essentially one of her feasts.
It is well known that the custom of the ancient Church was not to celebrate the festivals of martyrs and other saints during Lent, which rule the Spanish Church followed even with regard to this feast. But in Constantinople an exception was made in its favour, which was expressly approved by the fifty-second canon of the Trullan Council. The feast is absent from the ancient Gallican Missal and the Lectionary of Luxeuil, but in Rome, according to the evidence afforded by the Gelasianum and Gregorianum, the feast was observed on the same date as in the East.
The feast of our Lady in Advent (S. Mariæ), noted, without further specification, in the Lectionary of Silos dating from about 650, can be no other than the Annunciation. Soon afterwards, however, the tenth Council of Toledo (656) took occasion to remark upon the difference of date. External influences (traducti homines) had been the cause. The Council decided in favour of the date hitherto observed in Spain, and ordained in its first canon that the feast should be celebrated throughout Spain eight days before Christmas—on the 18th December.
But in the East the other date was already so widely observed that it was even employed as a fixed indication of time, as, for example, when the Alexandrian Paschal Chronicle states in 624 that Heraclius and his forces started for the East on the day of Mary’s Annunciation.[505] This, along with other indications, shows that in the East the festival had been earlier adopted and was widely spread. A circumstance of special importance is that the schismatic Armenians, whose ecclesiastical year in other respects is very primitive in character, observe this feast. They keep it, however, on the 7th April. This is due to the fact that they have not adopted Christmas, and still celebrate the birth of Christ in the ancient manner on the 6th January. Counting back nine months from this date one arrives at the 7th April. The Armenians certainly celebrated this festival before their separation from the Church. It was known and loved in the East as early as the fifth century, as the sermons of Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople († 446), and of Peter Chrysologus of Ravenna († 450), prove.[506]
Both methods of dating the festival existed side by side for a long period. The majority was in favour of the 25th March, but the other date was not without supporters, especially in Upper Italy, for according to the Milanese rite the Annuntiatio falls in Advent, and, indeed, on the fourth Sunday. In southern France the difference in date gave rise to sundry differences and disputes which terminated in a victory for the Roman usage. Certain Spanish monks, who came to Cluny under Abbot Odilo, desired to celebrate the festival after their own fashion, which was at first allowed them. In the eleventh century several Councils occupied themselves with the question, and decided, obviously out of regard for Rome, for the 25th March.[507]
A further consideration of the question shows that an agreement was arrived at by both parties. The Spaniards, in their Missale Mixtum, celebrated the feast twice—on the 18th December and the 25th March—with the same Mass,[508] and in Rome, in eighteenth century,[509] the feast of the Expectatio Partus B.M.V., was placed on the 18th December, the Gospel for the Mass being that of the Annunciation.
The sermons of Proclus already referred to give rise to an important observation. This preacher in other passages of his works enumerates the festivals celebrated in his time and in his diocese, among which, strange to say, the Annunciation does not appear.[510] Since there are not only two sermons of his composed for this feast, but the day itself is clearly marked out as a festival, this contradiction can only be explained by the fact that in the fifth century the Annunciation was kept simply as a festival inside the Church, but had not yet won its way to public recognition.
If the conception of the ecclesiastical year taken in Section I. of this chapter be assumed as correct, the Annunciation is most suitably observed in Advent, where it was correctly placed in the ancient Spanish liturgy. But owing to the fact that the Eastern Church did not sufficiently carry out the idea which underlay the ecclesiastical year, the feasts of our Lady were not incorporated therein, but were treated as ordinary saints’ days by being tied down to fixed dates. And so it comes to pass that with us the Annunciation, instead of coming in Advent, falls in Lent, and from time to time even in Holy Week, where it is singularly out of place. In North America, when this feast falls on one of the three last days of Holy Week or in Easter Week, it is now transferred, which on the whole may be regarded as a desirable arrangement.
(3) THE DEATH AND ASSUMPTION OF OUR LADY
In all probability this is the earliest of our Lady’s feasts. From the beginning, there was a general sentiment in the Church which led to the days on which the martyrs suffered being kept as solemn commemorations. The same thing took place at a later date with regard to the other classes of saints—confessors, virgins, etc.—and so Christian sentiment was soon directed towards the question of our Blessed Lady’s death. It is highly probable, if not certain, that the feast of our Lady, mentioned above as having been celebrated by the monks in Palestine, was that which we are now considering. Both in the East and in Rome the 15th August was kept as the day of our Lady’s death, while we find another date observed in Gaul.
As regards the references to the decease of the Holy Virgin found in patristic literature, we find Epiphanius alluding to it, but in such general terms as to show he knew nothing about it for certain.[511] Then we have a letter of the so-called Areopagite Dionysius containing the essential points of the tradition for the death and burial of the Holy Virgin, which we find later on in St John Damascene. The date of this letter depends upon the view taken of the author and date of the pseudo-Dionysian writings. The garden of Gethsemani is named as the place of burial.[512] The same tradition appears in the apocryphal Apocalypse on the “transitus” of Mary, where the year of her death is given as the third after our Lord’s resurrection,[513] while other authorities give it as the twelfth.
The chief authority, however, for the event is St John Damascene. Relying on the history of an otherwise unknown Euthymius, he describes the circumstances in detail. According to this informant, Pulcheria, wife of the Emperor Marcian (450-457), had erected a Church in honour of the Holy Virgin in the suburb of Constantinople called Blachernæ, to which she wished to translate the earthly remains of our Lady. With this end in view, she addressed herself to Bishop Juvenal of Jerusalem during the sitting of the Council of Chalcedon, but he informed the Emperor and Empress that the body of the Mother of God was not to be found in Jerusalem. She had indeed been buried there in the Garden of Gethsemani in the presence of all the Apostles; Thomas alone was absent, and only arrived on the third day after the burial; in order that he too might venerate the body of the Mother of God, the tomb was opened, but nothing was found save the linen grave-clothes, which gave forth a fragrant perfume. Whereupon the Apostles concluded that our Lord had taken up into heaven the body which had borne Him. In his panegyric on the Holy Virgin, Modestus, Patriarch of Jerusalem († 634), states that already in the seventh century there was a special festival in Jerusalem to celebrate her decease (κοίμησις). In addition, we have sermons dealing with this event by Andrew of Crete († 720 circ.) and Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople († 733).[514] The bodily assumption of Mary into heaven was already known in the West in the sixth century, and is alluded to in Gregory of Tours.[515]
The Emperor Maurice is said to have appointed the festival of our Lady’s death (κοίμησις τῆς παναγίου καί θεομητέρος), and fixed it on the 15th August. Although this information is given by an historian of a much later date,[516] it must not be altogether set aside. Maurice may well have given official recognition to the festival, and by so doing settled the question of the day on which it was to be kept. The festival itself was, however, much older, for not only the heretical sects, which separated from the Church in the fifth century, such as the Monophysites and Nestorians, preserved this festival at the time of their separation, but most ancient national Churches, such as the Armenian and Ethiopian, have it in their Calendars. Accordingly the 15th August must have already been generally regarded in the Church as the day of our Lady’s death before the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, although not mentioned by historians of that time.
We have unfortunately no information concerning the introduction of this festival in Rome. All we know is that it was celebrated there along with our Lady’s Nativity and Annunciation under Sergius I., at the end of the seventh century. About 847 Leo IV. ordained that it should be celebrated with a vigil and octave in the basilica of St Lawrence without the Walls. In the Gothico-Gallican missal of the seventh or eighth century, edited by Mabillon,[517] the festival is placed on the 18th January,[518] and not on the 15th August, as is also the case in the Lectionary of Luxeuil of the seventh century. This circumstance points to the conclusion that, independently of Byzantine influence, it was observed already at an earlier date in other parts of the Church as well, and came into existence spontaneously, so to speak.
It is also noteworthy that the feast appears already with the title Assumptio in the canons of Bishop Sonnatius of Rheims, composed sometime about the year 630.[519] In the canons ascribed to St Boniface some amount of vacillation is observable. By the thirty-sixth canon of the Council of Mainz, in 813, it is appointed as a feast for the whole Frankish Empire, while the earlier Council of 809 had decided nothing concerning its adoption.
Among the Latins the festival did not at first bear the name Assumptio, but was called Domitio or Pausatio, corresponding to the Greek title. This name left the particular object of the feast uncertain—whether it commemorated merely the decease or the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven. It was probably due to this that in the ninth century doubts as to the latter were here and there expressed.[520]
Unlike both Easterns and Westerns, the Copts have placed the death and bodily resurrection of the Mother of God on the 16th January (21st Tybi). We find it so in the Synaxarium of the ninth century in Mai, and in that of Michael of Atriba; while the older Calendar of saints belonging to the seventh century given by Seldenius has a “Planctus Dominæ Mariæ” on this day, which may well mean the same thing.[521]
In not a few German and Sclavonic dioceses a blessing of the fruits of the field takes place on the 15th August. This is of ancient Germanic origin, but has been adopted into the Roman ritual. It seems to have arisen from some popular custom connected with harvest.[522]
5. Institution and Spread of the Festival of the Immaculate Conception
The two dogmatic definitions formulated during the pontificate of Pius IX. had this in common that they came as a surprise to many, although they only set at rest questions which had been ventilated for centuries. This is especially the case with regard to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, for the discussion of the question had been prolonged during a thousand years. Bound up with the discussion was the contention whether the festival in question ought or ought not to be celebrated; and these two things, the theoretical treatment of the doctrine, and the fortunes of the festival, were most intimately connected with one another, and found at one and the same moment their final solution. Indeed, the festival has a longer history than the doctrinal controversy. For the observation that Church festivals required a long time from their inception—which is for the most part to be looked for in monasteries—until they obtained general approbation and acceptance from the ecclesiastical authorities, applies to many festivals; but none has had so long and changeful a history as the festival of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. It has now, for the last fifty years, been celebrated as a festival of obligation throughout the Catholic Church, and has even been adopted in those countries which formerly set themselves most strongly against the increase of ecclesiastical holy days.
Our object is to give a comprehensive and detailed history of the vicissitudes of this festival, while leaving aside the history of the doctrine. Naturally they cannot be kept entirely distinct, still the latter shall only be touched upon in so far as is necessary for the elucidation of the history of the feast.[523] Passaglia and his collaborator Clemens Schrader, S.J., in their well known work, “De Immaculato Deiparæ Conceptu” (Rome, 1854 and 1855, 3 vols. 4to.), have given us a rich and noteworthy collection of materials for this purpose. We must do justice to the immense learning expended upon this work both in its dogmatic and historical sections, but the historical explanations can no longer be regarded as satisfactory. On the one hand, subsequent investigations have brought fresh facts to light which give a new turn to the history; and, on the other, Passaglia was deficient in the critical faculty, and merely in order to marshal as many proofs as possible, he made use of several which cannot stand close investigation, and must be set aside if the whole question is not to be misrepresented.
For the correct understanding and examination of the sources of evidence, it must first be observed that anciently both among the Greeks and the Latins the term conceptio (σύλληψις) was taken in the active sense, while we are accustomed to take it in the passive sense. Conceptio Mariæ Virg. signified then the conception of Christ by Mary, while the (passive) conception of Mary was called the Conceptio S. Annæ.
Thus it follows that the festival of “the Conception of Mary” and the festival of “the Immaculate Conception” are not the same thing. Originally only a festum Conceptionis B.M.V. was celebrated, and only in course of centuries has a festum Immaculatæ Conceptionis been evolved therefrom. This must not be regarded as a mere question of terms which might be employed interchangeably. Passaglia has not sufficiently emphasised this distinction, and consequently his presentation of the facts creates the impression that there was already in the fifth century a festival of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which is altogether erroneous. The simple statement of the facts will make this clear, and show that in the course of centuries the feast originally celebrated as the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was changed into a feast of the Immaculate Conception. This change came about in proportion as the matter was made clearer by dogmatic discussion, and as the doctrine of Mary’s exemption from original sin gained adherents in the schools. Even when this doctrine had found general acceptance in the West, and had authoritatively received the support both of conciliar decrees and of papal dogmatic decisions, the ancient title of the feast still remained in use for a long time. If we consult the service-books printed before 1854, we find in them indeed on the 8th December the festum conceptionis, but the word immaculata is nowhere found in the office for the feast. An orderly representation of the historical facts concerned will show how this was brought about.
Evidence shows that the feast of our Lady’s Conception arose in the Eastern Church, and had gained civil recognition in the Byzantine Empire at a time, when in the West, ecclesiastical circles were still debating whether or not its celebration ought to be permitted. In a constitution entitled, “Concerning the days of the year which are whole holidays and half holidays,” the Emperor Manuel Comnenus in 1166 recognised it as a public festival on which servile work was forbidden. Now it is a known fact that the civil authorities are slow to give recognition to ecclesiastical festivals, and accordingly festivals have often been celebrated by the Church for a long period before they received the recognition of the State. So it was in this case. The Calendar of the Church of Constantinople in which the feast of the 9th December is marked as the “festival of the Conception of St Anne, the mother of the Theotocos,” is a century and a half older than this constitution. It bears the name of the Emperor Basil, meaning the second of this name surnamed Porphyriogenitus (976-1025), and, accordingly, it follows that even then the festival had received some lesser degree of recognition from the State.[524]