John Beleth, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Paris, towards the close of the twelfth century argued much in the same way as St Bernard. And in the following century, and towards its close, such a leading authority as Durandus, bishop of Mende, in his Rationale says that there were some who would celebrate this festival, but that he could not approve of it, because St Mary was conceived in original sin, though she was sanctified in the womb.
As regards the Church of Rome (properly so called), Innocent III in the beginning of the thirteenth century declares in one of his sermons (Serm. II de Joan. Bapt.) that no other conception than that of the Lord Jesus was celebrated in the Church. Nevertheless the celebration of the day spread both in France, and, more particularly, in England. The Council of Oxford (A.D. 1222) approved of the feast, but distinguished it from the other feasts of the Virgin by leaving it to be observed or not at discretion. In the province of Canterbury the day was made of obligation by Archbishop Simon Mepeham (A.D. 1328-33).
In 1263 the Franciscans resolved to celebrate the festival publicly in their churches. But even the Franciscans were not agreed among themselves as to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Alvarus Pelagius, the Spanish Theologian, Great Penitentiary of Pope John XXII, in his de Planctu Ecclesiae (1332) declares that ‘the new and fantastic opinion should be cancelled by the faithful.’
As is well known, the Dominicans took a strong and even violent part against the doctrine. The greatest doctor of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, had clearly pronounced that St Mary was not sanctified till the infusion of her anima rationalis. But with regard to the feast of the Conception he states that inasmuch as the Roman Church, though not celebrating the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, tolerates the practice of certain Churches which do celebrate it, the celebration of the feast is not to be wholly reprobated; and he adds that we must not infer from the observance of the day that St Mary was holy in her conception, but because we are ignorant as to the time when she was sanctified, the feast of her sanctification rather than of her conception is celebrated on the day of her conception[84]. Accordingly in Dominican Kalendars we find the day marked as Sanctificatio Mariae.
The Council of Bâle (1439) adopted a constitution applicable to the whole Church that the feast should be observed according to the ancient and laudable custom on Dec. 8, and that it should be known under the title of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, forbidding the use of the name Sanctification, as having a less extended use. The Roman See, not recognising this Council, did not take action till A.D. 1477, when Sixtus IV, who had been a Franciscan, published an ordinance (and it is the very first decree of any Pope on the subject) granting large indulgences to all the faithful who celebrated, or assisted at, the Mass and Office of the Conception on the festival or throughout its octave. In 1483 the same Pope pronounced excommunication on any preachers who asserted that St Mary was conceived in original sin or that those who observed the festival sinned[85]. Clement VIII (1592-1605) raised the festival to the rank of a greater double. The later history of the festival can be pursued in Baillet, and in recent writers dealing with Pius IX.
For minor festivals of the Virgin, such as ‘St Mary at Snows,’ the Visitation of St Mary, the Espousals (Desponsatio), the Most Holy Name of Mary, the Seven Sorrows, the Rosary of St Mary, Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel, the Expectation of the Delivery (partûs), and others, the reader may consult Baillet, the Catholic Dictionary, etc.
II. The Orthodox Church of the East.
A reference to the classification of Feasts in the Eastern Church[86] will show that among the twelve principal Feasts are found (1) The Evangelismos of the Theotokos, March 25, corresponding to the Western feast of the Annunciation; (2) the Repose of the Theotokos, Aug. 15; (3) the Nativity of the Theotokos, Sept. 8; and (4) the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, Nov. 21, corresponding to the Presentation of the Virgin in the West.
To these have to be added the following feasts of lesser dignity: (5) Hypapante (the Meeting of St Mary with Simeon and Anna in the Temple), Feb. 2, corresponding to the Western Purification. This is a day of obligation: but (as has been already remarked) it is perhaps to be regarded rather as a festival of the Lord than of St Mary. (6) The Deposition of the precious Vestment of the Theotokos in the Church of Blachernae at Constantinople, July 2: (7) the Deposition of the precious Zone of the Theotokos at Constantinople, Aug. 31: (8) the Conception of St Anna (i.e. her conception of St Mary), Dec. 9, a day of obligation: (9) the Synaxis of the Theotokos and Joseph, her spouse, Dec. 26, a day of obligation. This day is also called the Synaxis of the Theotokos fleeing into Egypt. The Greeks consider that the visit of the Magi was exactly one year after the birth of Christ, and that the flight into Egypt was on the day following that visit.
CHAPTER VI
FESTIVALS OF THE APOSTLES, THE EVANGELISTS,
AND OF OTHER PERSONS NAMED
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. OCTAVES AND
VIGILS
In the Greek Church there has continued to the present day a Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles on the day following St Peter and St Paul (June 29); and in the West we find a commemoration of all the Apostles, connected with the festival of St Peter and St Paul, in the Leonine Sacramentary[87]. There is a Natale Omnium Apostolorum with a vigil in the Gelasian Sacramentary. This festival may have preceded all separate commemorations. It would seem to have been observed close to the date of St Peter and St Paul.
With certain notable exceptions, feasts of the New Testament Saints came but slowly into the cycle of Christian solemnities. With some exceptions, more or less doubtful, there is no reason to think that the days of the deaths of the Apostles were known to those who gave them places in the Kalendars. It is highly probable in some cases, and not improbable in others, that the dates assigned for the festivals really mark some deposition or translation of the supposed relics of those commemorated, or the dedication of some church named in their honour. Considerations of the space at our disposal demand that the subject should be only lightly touched; but references are given to easily accessible works. And we deal only with the more notable festivals, or festivals of early appearance.
St Peter and St Paul (June 29). There is no question that at an early date this festival was celebrated at Rome. The belief was entertained by several ancient writers that these two Saints suffered death upon the same day of the month, but in different years.
We have seen already (p. 33 f.) that in the East at an early date there was a commemoration of St Peter in close connexion with the commemoration of the Lord’s Nativity. But at Rome in the earliest Western Kalendar (the Bucherian) we find two festivals that deserve consideration: (1) Natale Petri de Cathedra at Feb. 22; and (2) Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Os[t]iense, at June 29, to which are added the words, Tusco et Basso Coss. To deal first with the latter entry; as the consulate of Tuscus and Bassus marks A.D. 258, it has been not unnaturally conjectured that the record marks the date of some translation of the Apostles’ relics. But that conjecture does not absolutely exclude the supposition that the day chosen for the translation was the day which was believed to have been the day of their martyrdom. The translation, as Bishop Pearson[88] long ago supposed, was the removal, perhaps with a view to safety, of the remains to a place at the third milestone on the Appian Way, called ‘Ad Catacumbas,’ during the heat of the persecution under Valerian.
The observance of a commemoration of St Paul on June 30 (still so marked in the Roman Kalendar), has been accounted for by the fact that the bishop of Rome celebrating mass first at the tomb of St Peter, and afterwards on the same day having to go a long distance to the tomb of St Paul, there to celebrate again, it was arranged to observe the festival of St Paul on the day after June 29, with a view to avoiding the fatigue and inconvenience of the two functions on the one day.
Cathedra Petri. The entry cited above from the Bucherian Kalendar, Natale Petri de cathedra, ‘the Festival of Peter of the Chair,’ looks very like the record of the dedication of a church, where perhaps a seated statue of the Apostle was placed[89]. We are at once reminded of the large seated figure of Hippolytus discovered in 1551 on the Via Tiburtina. Or, as De Rossi supposes, the festival may have had to do with the actual wooden chair (as was supposed) which St Peter had used, and of which we hear in the time of Gregory the Great. But, whatever may have been the origin of the festival, it came at a later time to be regarded as marking the date of the beginning of St Peter’s episcopate; and there is some evidence that the festival was made much of as a Christian set off against the popular pagan solemnity of Cara cognatio on Feb. 22, when the dead members of each family were commemorated.
Duchesne asserts, with something of undue confidence, that this was without doubt the ground for the selection of the date Feb. 22 for the Christian festival; but without committing ourselves to the acceptance of Duchesne’s view, we may say that it may well have been a reason why efforts were made to draw off the faithful, by means of the Christian solemnity, from the temptation to join in rites incompatible with their profession. The festival was unknown in the East, and, what is more remarkable, equally unknown in the Church of North Africa; but it appeared early in Gaul, and, as has been conjectured, with a view to prevent the festival falling, as would occasionally happen, in Lent, the date was pushed back to Jan. 18. At Rome it continued to be observed on Feb. 22.
It would seem to have been due to the anxiety of the early mediaeval Kalendar-makers and Martyrologists to comprehend in their lists everything in the way of church solemnities recorded in any Kalendar that we have the invention of St Peter’s Chair at Antioch. They found some Kalendars marking Cathedra Petri at Jan. 18, and others at Feb. 22. Might not, they would argue, these double dates be accounted for by the old accounts that St Peter had exercised an episcopate at Antioch before he came to Rome?
Venerable Bede does not mark any Festival of St Peter’s Chair at Jan. 18, but at Feb. 22 writes ‘Apud Antiochiam Cathedra S. Petri.’ But in the Martyrology, known as Gellonense (circ. 800), and in Usuard’s Martyrology we find at Jan. 18, ‘Cathedrae S. Petri Apostoli quâ Romae primo sedit,’ and at Feb. 22 ‘Cathedrae S. Petri Apostoli quâ sedit apud Antiochiam’ (Gellonense), ‘Apud Antiochiam Cathedrae S. Petri’ (Usuard). There continued to be a variety of use in different dioceses as to the day on which ‘St Peter’s Chair’ was celebrated; and it was not till as late as 1558 that Pope Paul IV settled the question by ordering that the feast of the Roman Chair should be observed on Jan. 18, while Gregory XIII restored Feb. 22 as the feast of the Chair at Antioch. This is not the place to discuss whether there was, properly speaking, any episcopate of St Peter at Antioch. It is significant that the churches of Greece and the East knew nothing of the feast of St Peter’s Chair at Antioch[90].
St Peter ‘ad vincula,’ ‘St Peter’s Chains.’ The Eastern Church celebrates the festival of St Peter’s Chain on Jan. 16; the Latin Church celebrates the corresponding festival on Aug. 1. Both festivals not improbably had their origins in the dedication of churches, where what were supposed to be a chain or chains which had bound Peter were preserved. The plural, ‘chains,’ in the Roman name is significant, and will be understood by reference to the 4th and 5th Lections for the feast in the Roman Breviary. The feast does not appear in Western Kalendars till the eighth century.
The seventeenth century building, S. Pietro in Vincoli, on the Esquiline, occupies the site of the church of the Apostles, reconstructed at the expense of the imperial family between A.D. 432 and A.D. 440, where the precious relics were deposited.
In connexion with this feast attention should be called to the fact that in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology at Aug. 1, we find no reference to the chains, but there is the particularly interesting entry: ‘At Rome, dedication of the first church both constructed and consecrated by blessed Peter the Apostle[91].’
St Andrew (Nov. 30). The Martyrologies agree in giving Nov. 30 as the day of the martyrdom. The festival appeared early at Rome, and was given a place of high dignity[92]. In fact there is authority for the feast being kept at Rome in early times with no less solemnity than St Peter’s Day. It will be remembered that in the prayer Libera nos in the Canon of the Mass Andrew is named together with Peter and Paul. The Sacramentary of St Leo has four sets of ‘propers’ for masses on this festival. It is a day of much importance in the Greek Church, as St Andrew, the Protoclete, is reckoned the apostle of Greece. St Andrew is the patron of the Russian Church[93]. Relics of St Andrew, said to have been brought by a monk named Regulus from Patras to Scotland, gave the name of St Andrew to the place in Fife previously known as Kilrymont; and St Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland. In the Aberdeen Breviary his day is a ‘greater double.’
Bishop Wordsworth remarks that St Andrew’s Day ‘is perhaps the only festival of an Apostle claiming to be really on the anniversary of his death.’ Nov. 30 is given as the day of his martyrdom in the apocryphal Acta Andreae, describing his death at Patras[94].
St James the Great (July 25), the son of Zebedee, does not appear very early. The day is not noticed in either the Leonine or the Gelasian Sacramentary, and made its way to general acceptance but slowly. In the canons of the Council of Oxford (A.D. 1222) it does not appear among the chief festivals for general observance in England, although in England it was certainly a festum chori long before that date.
It would seem (Acts xii. 2, 3) that the death of James took place about the time of the Paschal commemoration; the Coptic Kalendar marks St James’s day on April 12, and the Syrian lectionary of Antioch on April 30, on which day also the Greek Church keeps a festival of St James, using for the Epistle Acts xii. 1, etc. The placing of the festival in the West so far from Easter as July 25, suggests that the latter date was connected with some translation of relics, or such like.
As we have already seen (p. 16) the ancient Syriac Kalendar edited originally by Wright, commemorates James together with his brother John on Dec. 27.
St John, Apostle and Evangelist. The principal festival on Dec. 27 is found in the fourth century in the East, where he was conjoined with James. Traces of this conjunction are to be found in the West. It is interesting to find in the Gothic Missal, printed by Muratori, a mass for the Natale of the Apostles James and John placed between St Stephen and Holy Innocents. And in the Hieronymian Martyrology we find at Dec. 27 ‘the ordination to the episcopate of St James, the Lord’s brother [a confusion], and the assumption of St John, the Evangelist, at Ephesus.’
The Greek Church commemorates the metastasis, or migration of John, on Sept. 26, and an important festival in honour of the holy dust (called manna) from his tomb at Ephesus on May 8.
St John before the Latin gate (May 6). The story of the caldron of boiling oil is as old as Tertullian (de Praescript. c. 36). But of the festival there is no notice before the closing years of the eighth century. The day of the month probably marks the date of the dedication of a church near the Latin gate[95]. It is characteristically a Western festival. In the Roman rite it was, about the thirteenth century, a semi-double: it was made a double by Pius V (1566-1572), and a greater double by Clement VIII (1592-1605).
St Matthew (Sept. 21): in the Greek, Russian, Syrian and Armenian Churches, Nov. 16: in the Egyptian and Ethiopic Kalendars of Ludolf, Oct. 9. The festival of Sept. 21 is certainly late in appearing. It is wanting in the Leonine, Gelasian, and Gallican Sacramentaries, and in Muratori’s edition of the Gregorian. It is found, however, generally in the martyrologies, which fact, of course, does not necessarily imply that there was any liturgical observance of the day[96].
St Luke (Oct. 18); and on the same day generally in the East. The day perhaps marks a translation of relics in the East, as is stated in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology. St Luke does not appear in the older Sacramentaries; but in some manuscripts of the Gregorian we find a proper preface for St Luke on v Kal. Nov. (Oct. 28).
St Mark (April 25): on the same day in the East. The day is of late appearance, not perhaps before the ninth century. The great processional litanies on April 25 appear at Rome long before St Mark’s name was attached to the day. In their origin these litanies were distinctively Roman.
St Philip and St James (May 1). This was the day of the dedication of a church at Rome in their honour in the second half of the sixth century. The word natale is applied at a later time to the day; which may have been in error, or, as can be proved by many examples, the word natale came to be used loosely as equivalent to festival or commemoration. In the Greek Church St James, ‘the brother of God,’ is commemorated on Oct. 23, and St Philip, ‘one of the twelve,’ on Nov. 14. The Greeks celebrate Philip, the deacon, on Oct. 11, and he appears in Usuard’s Martyrology at June 6.
Why Philip and James should be associated we know not. The deposition of relics of both at the time of the dedication of the church at Rome may perhaps account for the conjunction of the names.
St Simon and St Jude (Oct. 28). Legend associates these two Apostles as having together laboured for thirteen years in Persia, and as there dying martyrs’ deaths. In the Sacramentaries they do not appear till they are found in a late form of the Gregorian. In the East the commemoration of these Apostles is divided and a day assigned to each. In the Greek Church Simon Zelotes appears at May 10, and Judas (Thaddaeus) at June 19.
St Thomas, Apostle and Martyr (Dec. 21); his Translation is marked at July 3 in the West. In the Greek Church St Thomas is commemorated on Oct. 6, a day also observed by the Syrians, who add a translation on July 3. In the fourth century there was a magnificent basilica of St Thomas at Edessa, and to this church the remains of the Apostle were translated (from India according to the legend) before the close of the century. St Thomas (at Dec. 21) is not found in the Leonine, and only in some texts of the Gregorian Sacramentary. He appears, however, in the Gelasian.
St Bartholomew (Aug. 24); and at Rome on Aug. 25. The Latin churches generally, including that of mediaeval England, observed Aug. 24. The Greek Church commemorates Bartholomew together with Barnabas on June 11, and a translation of the relics of Bartholomew on Aug. 25. In the West the introduction of the feast was late. There is no trace of it in the early forms of the great Sacramentaries[97].
St John the Baptist, the Nativity (June 24); so too in the Greek Church. The date was doubtless assigned on the strength of the inference drawn from the Gospels, that the birth of the baptist preceded that of the Saviour by six months. It appeared early, and was a recognised day in the time of St Augustine[98]. It has its masses in the Sacramentaries from the Leonine downwards.
The Decollation of St John the Baptist (generally Aug. 29). This festival is also early, but, so far as evidence goes, not so early as the Nativity[99]. It was known in Gaul before it was adopted at Rome. The Greek churches celebrate the day on Aug. 29[100].
The Conversion of St Paul (Jan. 25), was of late introduction. It does not appear in the correct text of Bede’s Martyrology, and in only late texts of the Gregorian Sacramentary. There is reason for believing that the day was first observed to mark the translation of relics of St Paul at Rome, for so it appears in the Hieronymian Martyrology, and the period of transition seems to be marked in the Martyrology of Rabanus Maurus (ninth century), where we find at Jan. 25, ‘Translation and Conversion of St Paul.’ It is not found in England in the Pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York (A.D. 732-766), but it appears in the Leofric Missal, in the second half of the eleventh century. It is unknown in the Greek Church.
St Mary Magdalene (July 22), who is identified in the West with the woman who was a sinner, and with Mary the sister of Lazarus, is distinguished from each of these in the Greek service-books which also mark her festival on July 22. Among the Easterns she is thought of as ‘the holy myrrh-bearer,’ one of the women who brought the spices to the tomb of the Lord. In various places in the West, though not at Rome, the day was a day of obligation in the middle ages. It appears in some service-books in the tenth and eleventh centuries, but not in missals, secundum consuetudinem Romanae curiae, till the thirteenth[101].
There was a festival of St Mary Magdalene (July 22) in the English Prayer Book of 1549. The collect and gospel (Luke vii. 36 to the end of the chapter) show that no English Reformers identified the Magdalene with the woman who was a sinner. The festival disappears in the Prayer Book of 1552.
St Barnabas, the Apostle (June 11). The Greeks commemorate on this day ‘Bartholomew and Barnabas, Apostles.’ The festival probably marks the supposed finding of the body of Barnabas (having a copy of St Matthew’s Gospel in his hand) in the island of Cyprus in the fifth century. Barnabas is not found at June 11 in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology; nor in the Martyrology known as Gellonense, but it is noted in Bede (though there is some doubt whether the entry is not due to Florus), and in the later Martyrologies.
The Greek Church commemorates (many of them with proper names attached) the seventy disciples of Luke x. 1, called in the service-books ‘apostles.’
Octaves. The word Octave is used sometimes for the eighth day after a festival, sometimes (in later documents) for the space of eight days which follow the festival. It may be regarded as an echo or prolongation of the festival. In the Eastern Church what is known as the Apodosis (see p. 135) in a measure corresponds to the Western Octave. It has not unreasonably been conjectured that they owe their origin to an imitation of the festal practices of the Hebrews (Levit. xxiii. 6; Num. xxviii. 17; Deut. xvi. 3). Octaves were originally few: they appear first in connexion with Easter and Pentecost, and, occasionally, with the Epiphany. In the eighth and ninth centuries Octaves became more numerous. Yet in the Corbie Kalendar (A.D. 826), assuming that the movable feasts of Easter and Pentecost had their Octaves, we find in addition only the Octaves of Christmas, Epiphany, Peter and Paul, Lawrence and Andrew. This falls in well with what is said by Amalarius (about the same date) who, after noticing the Octaves of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost, adds, ‘We are accustomed to celebrate the Octaves of the natalitia of some saints, that is, of those whose festivals are esteemed as more illustrious amongst us’ (De ecclesiasticis officiis, iv. 36). At Rome we find St Agnes having an Octave (Jan. 28) at a date earlier than that with which we have been dealing[102]; and even to-day in the Roman Missal and Breviary there is an interesting survival in the persistence of the old name, Agnetis secundo, and of ‘propers’ for the day. Liturgically, the ancient practice in the West was to insert a simple commemoration on the eighth day of festivals.
The prolongation of a festival for eight days may be found illustrated by the practice of the Church at Jerusalem in the fourth century, as recounted by ‘Silvia’ in her descriptions of the Epiphany, the Pascha, and the feast of the dedication of the churches known as the Martyrium and the Church of the Resurrection.
The great multiplication of Octaves in mediaeval times has been attributed to the influence of the Franciscans, who in the language of Kellner ‘provided an inordinate number of Octaves in their Breviary, and observed each day of the Octave with the rite of a festum duplex[103].’
The somewhat elaborate rules with respect to Octaves and their relation to the observance of other festivals, as enjoined in the modern Roman rite, can be found in such technical works as those of Gavantus and Ferraris. It must suffice here to observe that within the Octaves of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, the Epiphany, and Corpus Christi, Votive and Requiem masses are prohibited.
Vigils. The origin of vigils is obscure. The proper service of each Lord’s Day was preceded in early times by what may be regarded as something like a vigil, a service before the dawn of day; and some think that this view may be deduced from Pliny’s well-known letter to Trajan. But in this there would seem, perhaps, to be a reading into the document of more than its contents warrant. However this may be, we find as early as Tertullian that there were among Christians ‘nocturnae convocationes,’ the solemnities of the Pascha being more particularly referred to[104]. The exact nature and object of these assemblies are not described. Evidence is more full at a later date for vigils of some kind, not only before the Lord’s Day but also before the Sabbath[105]. At the period when ‘Silvia’ visited Jerusalem the faithful seem to have engaged in services before the dawn on every Lord’s Day. And in Gaul in the fifth century, as we gather from Sidonius Apollinaris[106], the vigils were not all night-watches but services before day-break. About a century later than Tertullian, we find the Council of Elvira, near Granada, some time in the first quarter of the fourth century, enacting a canon (35), declaring that women should not spend the night-watches (pervigilent) in cemeteries, ‘because often under the pretext of prayer they secretly commit serious offences (scelera).’ There is no further explanation; and the probable conjecture has been offered that it may have been the practice to have vigils in the cemeteries on the night before the oblation was offered at the tomb of one of the martyrs. That there was in Spain at this date some kind of service in the cemeteries seems not improbable from the fact that the canon immediately preceding that which we have noticed forbids the lighting of wax tapers in cemeteries in the day time.
By the end of the fourth century, there is ample evidence for the observance of nocturnal or early morning vigils before the greater festivals in both East and West. Early in the fifth century Vigilantius protested against the scandals which arose from the nocturnal watchings in the basilicas, and for this, among other assaults upon the current abuses and superstitions of the time, he drew upon himself the violent and coarse invective of Jerome. Yet Jerome himself may be quoted for the fact that there were moral dangers attending these nocturnal vigils, for while advising the lady Laeta to inure her daughter, the younger Paula, to days of vigil and solemn pernoctations, he warns her that she should keep the girl close by her side[107]. To Pope Boniface I (A.D. 418-422) has been attributed the prohibition of nocturnal vigils in the Roman cemeteries.
With regard to the Paschal Vigil, Jerome expresses the opinion that it originated in the belief that Christ would come again in the night of the Pascha[108].
In process of time, the day before the feast (dies profestus) assumed the name of vigil, and was in the West commonly, though not universally, associated with a fast. Mediaeval ritualists, such as Honorius of Autun (who died a little after A.D. 1130), connect the change with the popular abuses of the nocturnal vigils.
There is an interesting letter of Innocent III (about A.D. 1213), laying down the rule in the Roman Church, which still prevails. The vigils of the Apostles are to be observed as fasts, with the exception of St John the Evangelist and St Philip and St James, the former occurring in the season of Christmas, and the latter in that of Easter[109]. Beside the vigils of the Apostles, the vigils of Christmas and the Assumption are fasts de jure, and by custom the vigils of Pentecost, the Nativity of the Baptist, St Lawrence, and All Saints. These rules were often locally modified by papal indults.
CHAPTER VII
SEASONS OF PREPARATION AND PENITENCE
Advent
Advent, as the term is now employed, signifies a season, regarded as preparatory to the Festival of the Nativity of the Lord, including four Sundays and a variable number of days, as affected by the day of the week upon which December 25 falls.
As no evidence has been adduced for an established celebration of the Feast of the Nativity before the fourth century, so it is obvious that we cannot expect to find the appointment of a season of preparation before that date. As a matter of fact, it would seem that the earliest distinct notice of such a season, prescribed for general use, belongs to the latter part of the sixth century; and that the practice originated in Gaul. In a small council held at Tours about A.D. 567 there is vaguely indicated a fast for monks in December, to be kept every day ‘usque ad natale domini’ (can. 17). A few years later, in the south of Gaul, we find what seems a canon of general application, but less exacting in regard to the number of days on which the fast was to be observed. In the ninth canon of the Council of Mâcon (A.D. 581) it is enjoined that from the festival of St Martin (Nov. 11) the second, fourth and sixth days of the week should be fasting days, that the sacrifices should be celebrated in the quadragesimal order, and that on these days the canons (probably meaning the canons of this synod) should be read, so that no one could plead that he erred through ignorance. We have here something that at once reminds us of the pre-paschal season, as observed in some Churches. The season came to be known as Quadragesima S. Martini. But the length of this season (as was also true of Lent) seems to have varied much. The six Sundays which it covered, as we may infer from the canon of Mâcon referred to above, we find indicated probably by the six missae of Sundays of Advent in the Ambrosian and Mozarabic rites. Yet the oldest Gallican Sacramentary records only three Sundays, and the Gothic-Gallican only two[110].
In England, as we learn from Bede, forty days of fasting ‘ante natale domini’ were observed by Cuthbert († 687) and by Ecbert († 729). In both cases, however, it should be remarked, the observance seems mentioned as an indication of exceptional piety[111].
At the close of the sixth century Rome, under Gregory the Great, adopted the rule of the four Sundays in Advent; and in the following century this rule became prevalent (though not universal) in the West.
In the Greek Church the general observance of forty days’ penitential preparation for Christmas does not appear to have been established before the thirteenth century. In the Greek Church of to-day the forty days’ preparation begins on Nov. 15. It is sometimes called the Fast of St Philip, doubtless because the festival of St Philip was celebrated on Nov. 14. On Wednesdays and Fridays the fast is rigorous; but on other days, wine, oil, and fish are allowed.
The practice of the Armenians is peculiar: they observe a fast for the week preceding the Nativity, and for one week commencing fifty days before the Nativity. The conjecture has been offered that these two weeks are a survival of a fast that had originally lasted for the whole of fifty days.
In Churches of the Roman Communion at the present day, the practice as to fasting varies. In Great Britain and Ireland Wednesdays and Fridays are expected to be observed; but in many parts of the continent of Europe there is no distinction between weeks in Advent and ordinary weeks.
On December 16 in the West it was the practice to sing as an antiphon to the Magnificat the first of a series of seven antiphons, each beginning with ‘O’; thus, ‘O Sapientia’ (Dec. 16), ‘O Adonai’ (17), ‘O Radix Jesse’ (18), etc. In the Kalendar of the Book of Common Prayer the words ‘O Sapientia’ appear at Dec. 16. This is not, strictly speaking, a survival of mediaeval times; for it was first introduced into the English Prayer Book Kalendar in A.D. 1604.
The rule of the English Book of Common Prayer (1662) for determining Advent runs thus: ‘Advent Sunday is always the nearest Sunday to the Feast of St Andrew, whether before or after.’ As thus expressed, the rule does not seem to contemplate the case of Advent Sunday falling on St Andrew’s Day. It was a mistake not to add the additional words which were in the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637, namely, ‘or that Sunday which falleth upon any day from the twenty-seventh of November to the third of December inclusively.’ The word ‘or’ does not imply that the second part of the rule is an equivalent of the first; but it gives a rule to meet a case not contemplated in the first part.
The Fast preceding Easter (Lent)
That a fast preliminary to the Pascha was observed in the early Church is beyond question. Irenaeus, in his letter to Victor, bishop of Rome[112], states that at the time there were several differences as to the length of the fast; but in no case was a prolonged series of days prescribed. ‘Some,’ he says, ‘think they ought to fast one day; others, two; others more than two; others reckon together forty hours both of the day and the night as the day [of fasting][113].’ And Irenaeus adds that these differences existed long before (πολὺ πρότερον) the time when he wrote. The words about the forty hours may perhaps be illustrated by passages of Tertullian[114], where he speaks of persons fasting in the days ‘when the bridegroom was taken away,’ or, in other words, the time during which the Lord was under the power of death, i.e. certain hours of the day of the Crucifixion, the twenty-four hours of Saturday, and certain hours of the early part of Easter Day. We shall not delay to discuss the questions connected with the exact time of commencing and of closing the forty hours.
About the middle of the third century at Alexandria the whole week before Easter was observed as a time of fasting by some; but there were those who fasted only on four days; others contented themselves with three or even two; while there were some (evidently exceptional persons) who did not fast even one day[115]. It is plain that as yet no fixed rule was enforced.
In the fourth century we meet with the term τεσσαρακοστή, or Quadragesima. In the fifth canon of the Council of Nicaea it is ordered that one of the two annual provincial Synods should be held before ‘the tessarakoste.’ The sense of the term is assumed to be known, and is not explained. But it must not be inferred that the word necessarily signifies here forty days, or that forty days were assigned to fasting.
The classical authority for the variations of later usages is the passage of Socrates[116], where he describes many differences of practice in his own day (c. A.D. 440) and the varieties in the length of the fast in different countries. At Rome, he says, there was a fast of three weeks, excepting Saturdays and Sundays; at Alexandria and in Achaia and Illyricum a fast of six weeks; in other places the fast began seven weeks before Easter, but was limited to fifteen days, with an interval between each five days[117]. Not long after his time there were two prevailing usages—that of the Churches which deducted from the fasting days Sundays and Saturdays (always excepting the Saturday in Holy Week), and that of the Churches which deducted only the Sundays. The former was the prevailing usage in the East; the latter, in the West. The seven weeks in the East, with thirteen days deducted (seven Sundays and six Saturdays), and the six weeks of the West, with only six days deducted, agree precisely in each having only thirty-six fasting days.
At the time of the Peregrinatio Silviae (about the end of the fourth century), if we may trust the writer, at Jerusalem eight weeks of fasting preceded Easter, which, deducting eight Sundays and seven Saturdays, gave, as she expressly says, forty-one days of fasting. This is highly exceptional, if not unique. At any rate, the practice did not long continue.
The number 36 is nearly the tenth of 365—the number of the days of the year; and this thought struck the fancy of more than one writer. We were bound, they urged, to offer to God the holy tithe, not only of our increase, but of our time. And in the fifth century John Cassian presses this point, and attempts to bring the length of the fast to correspond more closely with the tithe of the year by observing that the fast was prolonged for some hours, ‘usque in gallorum cantum,’ on Easter morning[118].
At a later period the thought of the fasts of Moses and Elijah, and more particularly of the Lord’s fast of forty days in the wilderness, seems to have suggested that the fast of the faithful should correspond in length. The addition of four days—the Wednesday and three following days immediately preceding the first Sunday in Lent—has been frequently attributed to Gregory the Great. But the writings of Gregory testify to his knowing only thirty-six fasting days. And it is now generally acknowledged that no support for the supposition can be based on the language of the collects for Feria IV and Feria VI in the week begun on Quinquagesima, which speak of the beginning of the fast, and are to be found in the Gregorian Sacramentary[119]. The Sacramentary, as we now possess it, abounds in additions later than the time of Gregory.
It is impossible to say precisely when, or by whom, the additional four days were introduced. Approximately we may assign this change to about the beginning of the eighth century, and to Rome. It did not obtain everywhere. It was not till near the close of the eleventh century that the Scottish Church, at the persuasion of the Saxon princess, Queen Margaret of Scotland, fell into line with most of the other Western Churches, by accepting the four fasting days in the week before the first Sunday in Lent[120]. The Mozarabic Liturgy adopted it only at the instance of Cardinal Ximenes about the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Church of Milan still preserves, among its interesting survivals, the commencement of the rigorous Lenten Fast on the Monday after the first Sunday. But in 1563 St Charles Borromeo, then archbishop of Milan, succeeded, against vigorous local protests, in making the first Sunday in Lent a day of abstinence.
The term caput jejunii was applied sometimes to the Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday, and frequently in service-books to the period of the four days preceding the first Sunday in Lent. Thus, these days are designated ‘Feria IV, Feria V, Feria VI, et Sabbatum, in capite jejunii.’ The distribution of ashes on the Wednesday in the Western Church is a much modified survival and relic of the ancient penitential discipline.
In the Orthodox Church of the East at the present day ‘the great and holy Tessarakoste’ contains, as in the West, six Sundays. But the Lenten offices commence at Vespers on the Sunday (known as Tyrinis, or Tyrophagus) preceding the first Sunday in Lent. In the week preceding this Sunday (corresponding to the Western Quinquagesima) the faithful give up the use of flesh meat, and confine themselves to cheese (τυρός) and other lacticinia. And it may be observed, in passing, that in the Greek Church there are other examples of the week being named from the Sunday which follows it. Thus, ‘the week of Palms’ is the week followed by Palm Sunday[121]. The Sunday (our Sexagesima) preceding Tyrinis is called Apocreos (Dominica carnisprivii). It is the last day upon which flesh may be eaten. After the Sunday ‘Tyrinis’ a more rigorous fast is prescribed; but Sundays and Saturdays (except the Saturday in Holy week) are exempted, so that there are only thirty-six days of rigid fasting; five days in each of the first six weeks, and six days in the last week[122].
The word quadragesima is the source of the Italian quaresima, and the French carême (in old French, quaresme); while our English word, Lent, is simply indicative of the season of the year when the fast occurs, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon Lencten, the spring-time.
Other Special Times of Fasting
I. Western Church—The three fasts called ‘Quadragesima’; Rogation Days; the Four Seasons.
In addition to Advent, which, as we have seen, is sometimes spoken of as the quadragesima of St Martin, and Lent (quadragesima ante Pascha)[123], we find in the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries in writers of Germany, France, Britain, and Ireland references to a third quadragesima which is styled sometimes the quadragesima after Pentecost, and sometimes the quadragesima before St John the Baptist. In the Paenitentiale of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury († A.D. 690), it is declared that ‘there are three fasts established by law (jejunia legitima) for the people generally (per populum)[124], forty days and nights before Pascha, when we pay the tithes of the year, and forty before the Nativity of the Lord, and forty after Pentecost[125].’ The remarkable collection of canons of the ancient Irish Church, which is known as the Hibernensis, is of uncertain date, but is attributed by such eminent authorities as Wasserschleben, Henry Bradshaw, Whitley Stokes, and J. B. Bury, to the end of the seventh or early part of the eighth century. The three penitential seasons called quadragesima are distinctly referred to[126]. In the Capitula of Charlemagne, priests are directed to announce to the people that these three seasons are legitima jejunia. In the canons collected by Burchard, Bishop of Worms (A.D. 1006), the three seasons called quadragesima are referred to, and the third is defined as the forty days before the festival of St John the Baptist. Many interesting questions are suggested by these passages with which we are unable to deal here. It must suffice to say that the quadragesima after Pentecost did not long survive. It disappeared, and has left no mark upon the Church’s year.
Rogation Days. There is a general agreement that the observance of the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before the Ascension as days of special prayer and fasting, owes its origin to Mamertus, bishop of Vienne (about A.D. 470), who appointed litanies or rogations to be said, at a time when the people of his city were in great terror by reason of a severe earthquake and a conflagration consequent thereupon. The shaken walls and the destruction of public buildings, as vividly described by Sidonius Apollinaris, may have suggested practical reasons for the litanies being chanted out of doors. The practice of Rogations soon spread through the whole of Gaul, and in the Council of Orleans (A.D. 511), where thirty-two bishops were present, the three days’ fast, with Rogations, was enjoined upon all their churches. In England, the practice of observing the Rogations had evidently been long established when the Council of Cloveshoe (A.D. 747) enjoined it ‘according to the custom of our predecessors.’ At Rome, in the opinion of Baillet, and recently of Duchesne, the Rogation days were not introduced till about A.D. 800[127].
In the East there is nothing corresponding to the Rogation Days; and the ordinary fast of Wednesday is on the Wednesday before Ascension Day relaxed by a dispensation for oil, wine, and fish; for in the East the dies profestus commonly possesses something of a festal character, anticipatory of the morrow.
In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the term ‘gang-days’ is used more than once for the Rogation days; and in the Laws of Athelstan we find ‘gang-days’ and ‘gang-week.’ The name originated in the walking in procession on these days.
The Fasts of the Four Seasons (jejunia quatuor temporum). The earliest distinct reference to these fasts is to be found in the Sermons of Pope Leo I (A.D. 440-461), who speaks of the spring fast being in Lent, the summer fast ‘in Pentecost,’ the autumn fast in the seventh, and the winter fast in the tenth month. From St Leo we also learn that the fast was on Wednesday and Friday, and that on the Saturday a vigil was observed at St Peter’s[128]. The observance is characteristically Roman, and is found at first only at Rome, and in Churches in immediate dependence on Rome. Duchesne holds that the weeks in which these fasts occurred differed from other weeks mainly in the rigour of the fast, i.e. ‘the substitution of a real fast for the half-fast of the ordinary stations.’ And he adds the suggestion that on the Wednesday of the Four Seasons, if not on the Friday, the Eucharist was from the outset celebrated[129].
In England the Council of Cloveshoe (A.D. 747) enjoins that no one should neglect ‘the fasts of the fourth, seventh, and tenth month.’ The omission of any notice of the Ember days in Lent will be noticed later on.
In the Churches of Gaul we do not find the Ember days established long before the time of Charlemagne.
At first we find no trace of a connexion between the Ember seasons and the holding of ordinations; and, as is observed by Dr Sinker, ‘everything points to the conclusion that the solemnity attaching to the seasons led to their being chosen as fitting times for the rite[130].’
The Sacramentary that is known as St Leo’s exhibits ‘propers’ for masses of the fasts in the fourth, seventh, and tenth months, i.e. June, September and December[131]; and from these we can gather that on ‘the festival of the fasts’ assemblies and processions had been made on the Wednesdays and Fridays, and a vigil (with the Eucharist) held on the Saturdays. In these there is not only no reference to ordinations of the clergy, but also no reference that would suggest the special intention and significance of these days of fasting. The conjecture is not unreasonable that there was the desire to dedicate in penitence the year in its four several parts to the service of God; but neither the history nor the literature of the early Church is decisive in confirming the conjecture.
The practice of the Church at Rome spread gradually, with some varieties as to the particular weeks in which the three days of fasting were observed. For England the notices of the Ember days are earlier than they are for France. At first, at Rome, the spring fast seems to have been in the first week in March, but afterwards always in Lent. And as soon as it came to be observed in Lent it would (as regards the fast) require no special injunction. This may perhaps account for the omission of any mention of the fast of the first month in the canon of the Council of Cloveshoe referred to above. The fixing of the particular days now observed in the West is generally assigned to about the close of the eleventh century; but in England, as late as A.D. 1222, the Council of Oxford still speaks of the fast in the first week in March[132].
In the Eastern Church there is nothing corresponding to the fasts of the Four Seasons.