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

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

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

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

11. Trinity Sunday

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

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

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

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

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

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

12. Corpus Christi. The Forty Hours’ Prayer. The Festival of the Sacred Heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

B. Christmas and the Christmas Season

1. Christmas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But if, it is objected, the date of Christ’s birth is also given in the Depositio Martyrum, let us examine this document more closely. As the title indicates, it contains only the days of the death and burial of Roman martyrs and other martyrs venerated in Rome in the earliest ages, e.g. Cyprian, Perpetua, Felicitas. To these there are added two exceptions: VIII. Kal. Jan. (the birth of Christ at Bethlehem) and VIII. Kal. Mart. (the feast of St Peter’s Chair). Neither of these belong in any sense to a Depositio Martyrum, and on this account, De Rossi wished to change the title of the document to Feriale Ecclesiæ Romanæ. But in this he was mistaken. The MSS. have the title Depositio Martyrum alone, and to change it would be arbitrary. The two days mentioned above, the 25th December and the 22nd February, must rather be struck out as later additions which do not belong to the document.

That such entries do not appear in the Calendar is explained, in my opinion, by the fact that soon afterwards succeeding emperors forbade the games of the circus and energetically suppressed heathen customs. When this had been done, the Calendar would no longer be of any practical use, and so it would not be worth while to make alterations in it. The other chronological pieces, however, had a permanent value, and it naturally occurred to those who used them later on to adapt them to the altered circumstances of the time.

We must now examine more minutely the notice of Christ’s birth given us in this document. It runs as follows: I p. Chr. Cæsare et Paulo sat. XIII. Hoc cons. Dns. ihs. XPC natus est VIII. Kal. Jan. de ven. luna XV.[308] Which means, Christ was born during the consulship of C. Cæsar Augustus and L. Æmilius Paulus (754 U.C.), on the 25th December, which was a Friday, on the fifteenth day of the new moon.

This notice gives rise to several questions. First of all the Epact is not correct, as according to our tables it ought to be 11.[309] But this need not detain us, as two or three peculiarities of this kind are to be met with in this list of the consuls. The error concerning the day of the week is more important. To expose this error we need only give the dominical letters for the years in question:—

The compiler of this chronology might have set down the birth of Christ in either 754 or 753 U.C. 754 is a possible year, although the 25th December 753 is more probable, yet in either case the day of the week would be wrong. In 752, the 25th December fell on Thursday, but since 753 was a leap year, the dominical letter advances two places, and Friday is passed over. At the same time, there has been a fairly constant tradition that the 25th of December fell on a Wednesday in the year of Christ’s birth. In any case, the notice that the 25th December fell, in this year, on a Friday is based on a mistaken reckoning. This notice, then, does not represent a tradition, but is merely the result of a calculation which unfortunately is incorrect. Consequently the whole interpolation is undeserving of credit. We now pass on to a second point.

While all writers before 354 fix the year of Christ’s birth by the year of the Emperor’s reign, here, for the first time, it is fixed by the year of the consuls. This is a marked departure from the original usage. The forty-first or forty-second year of Augustus correctly converted into a consular year would have run: Augusto XIII. et Silvano conss. or Lentulo et Messalino, which would also be the year 751 or 752 U.C., according as the year of the emperor is taken as “effektiv” or not, i.e. according as one places Christ’s birth in the first or second half of the year.[310]

Moreover, when the chronographer dates the year of Christ’s birth in the consulship of “Cæsar and Paulus” (754 U.C.), he anticipates the Dionysian era some two hundred years before Dionysius, and, further, when, in accordance with a very ancient tradition, he places the year of Christ’s death in the consulship of the “duo gemini” (29 A.D.), he thus only allows twenty-eight and a quarter years for Christ’s earthly life, while St Luke (iii. 23) speaks of Him as having wellnigh thirty full years. Whoever he may have been who inserted this notice under the consulship of Cæsar and Paulus in the chronology, he certainly made a mistake. He also stands alone in placing Christ’s birth in the year 754 U.C., for the writers and annalists who wrote at a later date, such as Sulpicius Severus, Orosius, Prosper, Hydatius, and even Cassiodorus, give other dates.

The anonymous compiler of this chronology differs also, both as to contents and form, from those who preceded him. While Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, the pseudo-Cyprian, etc., fix the year of Christ’s birth by a year of the emperor, i.e. the forty-first or forty-second of Augustus, it is given in this document in the form of a consular year, and while the former give 751-752 U.C. as the year, the latter gives 754. All this creates great difficulty in accepting the evidence of the compiler.[311]

We must now deal with the day of the month given in the chronology, the 25th December, which, strictly speaking, alone is of importance in connection with the end we have in view, although it cannot well be separated from the previous question as to the year. It has recently been thought that Hippolytus afforded some very early evidence on this point, owing to a passage in his commentary on Daniel bearing upon the subject. However, this hope has proved deceptive,[312] since the passage in Hippolytus proves to be the addition of a much later hand; we are thus left with the chronology of 354 as the earliest evidence for placing the birth of Christ on the 25th December.

The result of our investigation of this compilation, made up of historical, chronological, and other materials, proves that the compiler, in collecting his materials in 354, added to the lists of consuls, which naturally he did not draw up himself, the notice that Christ was born under these particular consuls on the 25th December, because it was at that time the generally accepted date. It could only be widely accepted, when the festival of Christ’s birth had already been celebrated on this day, not recently but during a considerable period. It is very improbable that it had just been introduced by any one person in particular, such as the Bishop of Rome, for the first years of the reign of Liberius were very troubled and ill suited for the introduction of so important an innovation. Moreover, history shows that a thing like this cannot be done all at once by a stroke of the pen, or at the will of an individual, even though he be the Bishop of Rome, but is rather the outcome of a long period of preparation.

The compiler clearly bears witness that Christmas existed already in Rome in 354, but not that it had then been only recently introduced there, still less that Christ was actually born on the 25th December. This statement is unsupported by evidence prior to 354, for the passage in Hippolytus is an interpolation, the Depositio Martyrum and the Depositio Episcoporum have been worked over by the hand of the same compiler, who may have made additions to them to the same effect without prejudice to their original contents.

Nevertheless attempts were made to maintain the 25th December on other grounds. As we have seen, Chrysostom made an attempt of this kind, and even in recent times there have been people who repeated the attempt, without falling into the mistake of making Zachary a High Priest. They reckoned as follows:—when the angel announced to Zachary his son’s birth, the course of Abia, to which Zachary belonged, was performing the service of the Temple.[313] At the dedication of the Temple under Solomon it was arranged that the twenty-four priestly families mentioned in 1 Paral. xxiv. 7-13 should relieve one another in orderly succession throughout the year, each being responsible for the Temple services for a week. The first course was that of Joiarib, the course of Abia being the eighth. After the return from exile, these courses of priests were re-established, and continued to discharge their functions as before, so soon as the new Temple had been dedicated.[314] According to the assertion of Josephus,[315] this arrangement survived to his own time, and was consequently in existence at the commencement of the Christian era.

Since the dedication of both Temples took place in autumn, it has been calculated that the course of Abia must have been on duty in the year of the Lord’s birth on the day of Atonement, which fell at that season. This was arrived at by calculating both forwards and backwards from the destruction of Jerusalem. But in the former case, beginning with the restoration of the Temple, the calculation is thrown into confusion by the fact that twice during the existence of the second Temple the regular performance of divine service was interrupted.[316] In the time of the Machabees, under Antiochus Epiphanes, the interruption lasted for three years. In this case what was to be done? The succession of the courses might be resumed after the interruption as if nothing had happened, or, at the re-establishment of worship, that course might undertake duty whose turn it was to serve at that particular time of the year, or, finally, one might start afresh with the course of Joiarib. In all these cases it would be said that the ancient order had been maintained, but which of the three possibilities just mentioned was actually chosen is not told us.

Even if it were told us, the reckoning would still be without solid foundation. For each course of priests served in turn twice a year, leaving however eighteen days, or in a leap-year twenty-nine, still to be accounted for. The difficulty is not lessened by the fact that during the week of the Passover, several courses were on duty in the Temple at once. Granted that the course of Abia was on service in spring and again in autumn, St Luke unfortunately does not inform us at what season of the year the angel appeared to Zachary, or even if this event happened during the Passover, when the course of Abia might quite possibly have been on duty as well.

We are no better off if we begin our reckoning from the destruction of Jerusalem, when the course of Joiarib is said to have been on duty,[317] for again we do not know in what season of the year the angel appeared. If we take the autumn as certain, then we assume what must be proved. Even if the difficulties are fewer in this method of proceeding, on account of the shortness of the period, it still remains a question whether, when the services of the Temple came to an end in A.D. 70, they ceased on the 8th Gorpiæos, when the citadel of Jerusalem was taken, or on the 10th Lous, the day of the destruction of the Temple itself.[318] It is impossible by these means to prove that the 25th December is really the day of Our Lord’s birth.[319]

It follows from this that there is no sort of existing proof that the Redeemer was actually born on this day. We may add, moreover, that even when this opinion had met with acceptance from many, and in times when Christmas had become one of the popular festivals, there were not wanting some here and there who expressed doubt on the question. This is the case in an ancient sermon on Christmas included among the spurious writings of St Jerome: “Whether our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized to-day, or whether He was born, has given rise to different opinions in the world, and according to the different traditions different views are maintained.”[320] Although this sermon is incorrectly attributed to St Jerome, it nevertheless certainly belongs to his time, for it refers to the gilded temples of Rome (aurata capitolia).

What then was the amount of knowledge possessed by antiquity concerning the true day of Christ’s birth? It may not be out of place to attempt to answer this question. There are only a few passages in which the oldest writers in the Church refer to the matter, but from these it is easy to see that, even in the earliest times, nothing was known for certain, and that those who were interested in the question did not agree among themselves. This was the case, for example, in Alexandria in the second century. A party existed there who regarded the 25th of the Egyptian month Pachon (i.e. 20th May) as the day of our Lord’s birth. The Basilidians of Alexandria, however, observed it on the 15th Tybi (i.e. 10th January), and passed the preceding night in devotional readings. The majority celebrated Christ’s birth on the 11th Tybi (i.e. 6th January).[321]

In a treatise of the third century formerly attributed to St Cyprian, which deals with kindred subjects, a very different view appears. The anonymous writer of this treatise (De Pascha Computus), which was composed in A.D. 243, inclines to the view that the 28th March was the true day of Christ’s birth,[322] and, contemporary with this, Hippolytus sets it down on the 25th of the same month, provided this is the correct interpretation of the inscription on his statue. In the fourth and fifth centuries, the view became prevalent that Christ was born on the 25th December, and St Augustine uses expressions which seem to imply he was of this opinion.[323]

The four gospels contain nothing in support of any of these dates. Their authors attached no importance to this point, although their aim in writing was to give information concerning our Lord’s life, and, even if the date was known to them, we must allow for the difficulty of fixing dates of past events in accordance with Jewish modes of reckoning time. However, it is possible that our Lord was born at the beginning of winter. The census which took place at the time of His birth, rendered it necessary that the inhabitants of Judæa should be enrolled each in his own city. On this account, the Roman authorities would see that the census was made at a season when agricultural work had ceased, such as the late autumn or early winter. There can have been no ecclesiastical tradition concerning the date of the Nativity, since in the earliest times it was commemorated by no special festival. The Epiphany, which commemorated several events, took the place of such a festival.

These are the difficulties which stand in the way of accepting the 25th December as the actual date of the Nativity, and they must be taken into account by any one who desires to form a judgment for himself on this matter. The other questions relating to the same point are more easily disposed of.

Whether the accepted date is correct or not, we find it definitely set down by the chronographer of 354, who directly states that Christ was born on the 25th December (natus est octavo Kalendas Januarias), while it follows indirectly from his words that this day was solemnly observed as the day of His nativity. The Calendar ends with the year 354, and accordingly Christmas was observed then in the same way as at present. The year 354 brings us within the pontificate of Liberius, and it is just in his pontificate that we find further authentic evidence concerning the feast.

During his pontificate Liberius gave the veil to Marcellina, an elder sister of St Ambrose. This took place on the day of our Lord’s birth (Natalis Salvatoris), and on this occasion Liberius delivered a sermon preserved for us by Ambrose in his De Virginitate. In this work he recalls to his sister’s memory what the Pope had said: “When thou sealedst thy vow of virginity in St Peter’s by changing thy habit on the birth-day of the Redeemer—on what more fitting day could it have taken place than that on which the Virgin (Mary) brought forth her child—and in the presence of many of God’s hand-maidens who strove for thy companionship, he (Liberius) said, ‘Thou hast desired excellent espousals, my daughter. Thou seest what a crowd of people have come together to celebrate the birth-day of thy Bridegroom, and that no one goes away from hence unnourished. He it is who, when invited to the marriage, changed water into wine. He will vouchsafe the true secrets of virginity to thee, who until now hast been subject to the beggarly elements of nature. He it is who, with five loaves and two fishes, satisfied four thousand men in the wilderness.[324] He could have satisfied more had more been there. Finally, He has invited still more to thine espousals, not to give them barley-bread, but a Body from heaven.’”[325]

Liberius here represents taking the vows of religion under the familiar figure of a marriage. The marriage feast always forms part of every marriage, and accordingly it was the duty of the Bridegroom whom Marcellina had chosen to provide one. He had changed water into wine and fed thousands with a few loaves, but now He feeds a still greater number with His mystical Body in the Holy Eucharist. This is the thought running through the Pope’s address.

St Ambrose does not inform us of the year in which the ceremony took place at which Liberius spoke the above words. Liberius had been elected bishop of Rome (17th May 352) in troublous times under the Emperor Constantius, a strong Arian. As he refused to communicate with the Eusebius and protected St Athanasius, he was banished to Berœa at the end of 355, where he was compelled to remain until 357. The Archdeacon Felix, relying on the Emperor’s support, allowed himself to be consecrated bishop in his stead, but found no following in Rome. On this account, Constantius consented to the recall of the lawful bishop, and Liberius resided in Rome for the remainder of his pontificate, and died there in 366.

It is more probable that Marcellina’s clothing with the religious habit took place during the latter part of this pontificate. For according to the received opinion, St Ambrose was born about the year 340,[326] and thus in 353 he would have been only thirteen years old, and although his sister was older, yet in 353 she would not have been twenty-five, the canonical age for taking the veil.[327] Still it is not impossible that the ceremony and the address of Liberius took place between 352 and 354, and at any rate this much is certain that it took place on the 25th December and not on the Epiphany (6th January), according to the view formerly held.[328] There is no evidence that the Epiphany was observed in Rome, as it had been in the East, as the day of Christ’s birth, and Liberius in this address does not say that the commemoration of the miracles of the loaves and of the changing water into wine was being celebrated precisely on the day of Marcellina’s taking the veil, i.e. on the day of the Saviour’s birth (Natalis Salvatoris). These things were alluded to only because of their connection with the train of thought followed by Liberius in his address.

Nothing can be gathered from the words of Liberius as to when Christmas was first observed in Rome on the 25th December. In any case, it did not come into existence suddenly, but would require time, and, like other festivals, a considerable period would have to elapse before it became general and gained official recognition. Contemporary evidence on this point is wanting; one ancient witness, unfortunately not altogether reliable, speaks of Julius I. and not Liberius as the originator of Christmas.

We must now conclude by giving the view we have arrived at. In Rome a distinctive custom had arisen of celebrating Christ’s nativity on the 25th December, while in other quarters it was celebrated on the 6th January. How this was brought about must remain a matter for conjecture. It has been thought that in some places heathen festivals of various kinds were kept in the month of December; in particular, the Kikellia[329] was kept at Alexandria on the 25th December, in Bostra and Pella, a festival of local observance,[330] and in Rome, the Saturnalia began on the 17th December and lasted until the 23rd.[331] It is only natural that the winter solstice should give rise to a festival, and find its place marked in the Calendar of Feasts. Indeed, in the Roman Calendar of much later date—that of Philocalus—the 25th December is marked as the birth-day of the unconquerable Sun-God (Natalis Solis Invicti).

Since on the 21st December the sun reaches its lowest point, and then begins once more to rise higher in the heavens, man, in his simplicity, marked the day on which this change in the sun became perceptible as the new birth or birth-day of the sun, the invincible Sun-God. What was more natural for the Christians of that age than to connect this obvious natural event with the thought of the nativity of Him who is the Light of the World! Even if the Holy Scriptures had not suggested this idea, it must have presented itself to the Christian mind. The comparison of Christ with the sun, and of His work with the victory of light over darkness, frequently appears in the writings of the Fathers. St Cyprian[332] spoke of Christ as the true sun (sol verus). St Ambrose[333] says precisely, “He is our new sun” (Hic sol novus noster). Similar figures are employed by Gregory of Nazianzus, Zeno of Verona, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, etc.[334]

Every child knows that Simeon addressed the new-born Messias as “a light to the revelation of the Gentiles,” and, since the Messias is also called by the Prophets the light in the darkness and the Sun of Justice, it is easy to see how such expressions passed into the Church’s liturgy for this festival.[335] It was natural for the Romans to set down the birth-day of this new Sun on the day marked of old time in their Calendar as a Natalis Solis, and observed as a festival by all the heathen inhabitants of Rome.[336] The choice of the day cannot be due to the desire to supplant the heathen festival, for it was not a festival of any special importance. But the similarity between the natural fact (the solstice) and the revolution in the spiritual sphere (Christ’s nativity), was sufficient to suggest the idea. It was not necessary to wait for the time of Constantine in order to hit upon this idea.

We must now return once more to the usages of the Church of Jerusalem and the festival observed there. The 6th January, indeed, was called in Jerusalem Epiphany, nevertheless the nativity of Christ formed an especially prominent feature of the commemoration.

A detailed description of the function is given in Silvia’s diary. Unfortunately the beginning is missing,[337] and the account opens with the return of the great procession which took place annually from Jerusalem to Bethlehem the evening before the feast. The next morning, the procession returned to Jerusalem and proceeded to the Church of the Anastasis, which was richly decorated. The monks remained all night in the church at Bethlehem, which, all through the octave, remained in festal array.[338] A procession to Bethlehem, on the Epiphany would have no meaning, if the baptism of Christ was the only event commemorated at that feast, for this, of course, took place in the Jordan. In Jerusalem, as in the other Eastern Churches, no special Christmas festival had been as yet instituted, still at the commencement of the fifth century there were some who regarded the Epiphany as the day of Christ’s nativity in the flesh, although, as St Jerome says,[339] the Son of God did not reveal Himself in flesh but rather concealed Himself. Indeed, if we are to believe Cosmas Indicopleustes, who lived in the middle of the sixth century, the nativity of Christ was commemorated at Jerusalem, and there only on the Epiphany—“a superstitious fancy,” as he calls it.[340]

On the other hand, it has been stated that Bishop Juvenal (425-458), who obtained for the Church of Jerusalem patriarchal rank, introduced the feast of Christ’s birth.[341]

Perhaps it was specially difficult to establish this festival in Jerusalem on the 25th December because another festival was already observed there on that day—the commemoration of David and the Apostle St James.[342] Their commemoration, along with that of St Joseph, is kept both by the Greek Church and the Church of Jerusalem on the Sunday before Christmas.[343]