At an earlier period, the ceremonies were simpler, and even restricted to psalmody, for Innocent I., says,[157] that in his time, generally speaking, Mass was not celebrated on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. This is still the custom among the Greeks and Russians. Their Good Friday service consists of the singing of psalms and the veneration of a representation of our Lord on the Cross, similar to our adoratio crucis. At the evening service, that is, a painted, not carved, representation of the dead Christ is brought in and venerated.[158] These expressions must be taken quite literally, in the sense that on Good Friday not even the missa præsanctificatorum was celebrated, nor the now usual Mass on the morning of Holy Saturday. For the Gelasian sacramentary gives no Mass for either of these days but only the various prayers, so too the old Gallic missal,[159] and the same must be understood when we hear of the Churches in parts of Spain not being opened on Good Friday. Sermons, however, were preached on Good Friday, for we possess several of Leo I., and Gregory the Great preached on this day. It is difficult to say what was the custom as to Holy Communion. In France, the people seem to have communicated, but not in Rome or in Germany; at least Rabanus Maurus is silent on the point.[160]
According to the evidence afforded by the ancient service-books, it may be conjectured that the adoption of the missa præsanctificatorum, as well as the striking insertion of the Greek passages in the Reproaches, is due to Greek influence. That alterations were made at a considerably later date in these parts of the rite will be noticed elsewhere.
With regard to the service-books of the Roman Church in particular, we find a rubric in the Gelasian sacramentary, directing that the Holy Cross be placed on the altar, and then that the priests and attendant clerics take their position at the altar in silence and begin the solemn intercessions for the whole Church, for all estates of men, etc.; the intercessions being prefaced by the summons to kneel (flectamus genua). The genuflection seems at that time to have been made also before the prayer for the Jews, for the rubric directs the deacon to proceed “ut supra.”[161] The prayers are the well-known Good Friday prayers. There is no mention at this point of the Adoratio Crucis, but at the conclusion of the intercessions, the sacred Species, in both kinds, which had been consecrated the previous day were brought from the sacrarium by the deacons and placed on the altar. The priest consumed them, having first adored and kissed the Cross. Whereupon all present adored the Cross and communicated. It must not be forgotten, in this connection, that the Gelasian sacramentary does not represent the Roman rite in its purity, but embellished with numerous Gallican additions, which probably owe their origin to Alcuin or his contemporaries. The same is true of the edition of the Gregorian sacramentary employed in France.
In this last we find the general intercessions recurring twice in Holy Week, on Wednesday and again on Good Friday,[162] but they are not placed at the beginning of the liturgy, as they are in the Gelasian sacramentary. After the bishop has taken his seat, the tract, Domine audivi, a lection from the Scriptures, and then another tract followed in succession. The Passion according to St John came next, and then the prayers in question. At their conclusion the altar was stripped. The solemn adoration of the Cross before the altar by clergy and people took place at the time of vespers, and, during it, the antiphon, Ecce lignum crucis, was sung. The missa præsanctificatorum proceeded in essentially the same manner as at present, except that the elevation is not expressly mentioned. The altar remained bare from the afternoon of Maundy Thursday until Good Friday morning. The Gregorian sacramentary in its original form knew nothing of these rites. It proscribed nothing more for Good Friday than the nine prayers still in use and a blessing of the catechumens.
A full description of the whole ritual for Holy Week is to be found in the first of the ancient Roman Ordos edited by Mabillon, which gives both the psalmody and the special ceremonies. Mabillon attributes this ordo to the ninth century.[163] According to it, the psalmody began at midnight. As on the previous day, the candles were gradually extinguished, and the sad character of the service was indicated by the low tone taken for the prayers and by the omission of the Gloria Patri. The consecrated Host was brought back from the place where it had been reserved the day before, and the missa præsanctificatorum commenced. This consisted of preface, Our Father, the prayer Libera me, the pax, and communion of the people. This last is omitted from the existing Roman rite. The adoration of the Cross preceded the Mass, as at present. In monasteries a procession took place within the cloister. The ceremonies of the Mass here described agree in all essential points with the Frankish edition of the Gregorian sacramentary, as, for instance, in the recitation of the orationes sollemnes on both Wednesday and Good Friday. Thus the earlier liturgical services for Good Friday were replaced in the ninth century by an elaborate ritual, which agrees in all important respects with that in use at the present day.[164]
This too is a day of mourning, as appears also from the fact that, in the Eastern Church, it is numbered among the fast days, although originally in the East no Saturday was kept as a fast. But the sadness of the day is already modified by the approach of the Resurrection, and the Alleluia, which has not been heard since Septuagesima, is sung again at the Mass.[165]
The solemnity begins, as on the preceding days, with the night office, at which the lights are again extinguished. This custom is very ancient, but the use of the triangle with the lumen Christi is of later introduction.[166]
Mediæval writers begin their description of the other ceremonies with the blessing of the fire, which, even then, was performed early in the morning. Concerning the origin of this rite, it has been held that it took place not only on Holy Saturday, but every evening at Vespers.[167] Still the evidence for this is not sufficiently strong, and, on the other hand, this rite harmonises in an especial way with Holy Saturday as the appointed date for the administration of baptism, for which a favourite name was illumination (illuminatio, φωτισμός). The name illuminandi was common also for those about to be baptised.
To the same association of ideas, the Paschal candle certainly owes its origin. It is not yet clear where we are to look for the origin of this custom. In Spain, there is evidence to show that the blessing of a candle or lamp (lucerna) on Easter night was common. The fourth synod of Toledo (633), in its ninth canon, recommends the adoption of this practice to the churches of Galicia. The Paschal candle is a symbol of Christ, and is blessed through the chanting of the præconium paschale or Exsultet, a grand song of triumph, said to have been composed by St Augustine. This candle, placed in its own candlestick near the altar, is lit at High Mass throughout Eastertide. Two prefaces for its blessing are found in the writings of Bishop Ennodius of Pavia († 521), and mediæval liturgical writers generally attribute the blessing of the Paschal candle to Pope Zosimus.[168]
At an earlier period, the special ceremonies of Holy Saturday commenced in the afternoon, the forenoon being devoted to decorating the church and preparing for the festival.[169] These ceremonies are, the blessing of the Paschal candle, the lections from the Old Testament, and the blessing of the baptismal font, all of which are only preparatory to the solemn administration of baptism. As has been said, these ceremonies only commenced towards evening and continued into the night, which was observed as a vigil (pervigilium paschale). When they were concluded, the neophytes were baptised, and then, also in the night, followed the Mass of the day. To this the newly baptised, along with the people and clergy, proceeded in a solemn procession from the baptistery, when there was one, to the principal church. The Emperor Constantine allowed the streets and squares of the capital to be illuminated on this night. He himself as a catechumen passed the night in prayer in his private chapel, and hallowed the Easter festival by the bestowal of rich alms. The Mass is entitled in the service-books, in vigilia paschæ. Since it came after midnight, the Alleluia could be sung at it. This arrangement as regards the time of the Mass still held good in the eleventh century, for Rupert of Deutz (De div. Off., 7, 11) still speaks of it as being the established practice, and only later on were the above-mentioned ceremonies and the Mass transferred to the afternoon of Saturday, the Alleluia thus coming before its time. Upon this followed the psalmody of Easter, which had to be made as short as possible on account of the length of these ceremonies. Sermons also were usually short at Easter, for the same reason.[170]
In the early centuries, the Roman rite was much simpler. The festival commenced with the recitation of the creed by the candidates for baptism and a prayer by the Pope over them. Then followed the other preparations for baptism, the renunciations, four lessons from the Old Testament, the singing of Psalm xli., two prayers, the blessing of the baptismal water, the baptism itself, and the confirmation of the baptised. The Mass concluded the function.[171]
We must now see what special features the other liturgical documents contained. In the missale Gallicanum,[172] we find, after the prayers for each of the hours, the Exsultet, and the blessing of the Paschal candle, then the general intercessions for all estates of Christian men, concluding with intercessions for the neophytes and competentes. Upon this follows the baptismal rite (opus ad baptizandum), viz., the exorcisms, the blessing of the baptismal water, the washing of the feet, and the baptism itself. Then come the prayers for the Mass. The rite in the Missale Gothico-Gallicanum is exactly the same.[173]
The Gelasian sacramentary prescribes the following rite for Holy Saturday: Early in the morning, the exorcisms shall be made over the catechumens, and, after they have made their solemn renunciations, they shall repeat the creed (redditio symboli). About the eighth hour, the clergy shall assemble in the sacrarium, commence the litanies there, and proceed to the altar; at the Agnus Dei, the Paschal candle is to be lighted and blessed, but without the chanting of the Exsultet. Then the lections from the Old Testament are read, each with a prayer, and after them takes place the blessing of the font and the baptism of the neophytes.
According to the edition of the Gregorian sacramentary used in France, the clergy and people assemble in the church about the eighth hour, i.e. about 2 P.M., according to present reckoning. Two candles were then lit, which were held by notaries, one on the right, the other on the left of the altar; while a lector from the pulpit read the Old Testament lections, each of which concluded with a prayer. Thereupon the clergy and the bishop proceeded in procession, the notaries with the candles leading the way, to the baptistery, where the baptismal water was blessed. After the blessing of the water, which was the same as that now in use, the baptism followed, at which it is to be observed a distinction is made between children and those who are grown up. The former were confirmed also immediately after baptism, the ritual and significance of confirmation being here clearly shown.[174] After the baptism, the litanies are sung in the church by singers, who then intoned the Gloria in Excelsis. The Mass of the day brought the function to a close.
Just as the Church marked the anniversary of the dedication of a church and of ordination by a special festival, so was the anniversary of their baptism a day of joy and thanksgiving for the baptised. It was also a day for renewing their baptismal vows, and for serious self-examination. The Church provided for this inasmuch as she was accustomed to celebrate this anniversary, and appointed a special Mass for it. It was called the pascha annotina.[175] A festival of this nature had a raison d’être only so long as it was customary to baptise people when they were grown up. When it became general to baptise little children immediately after their birth, this festival fell out of use. The pascha annotina, however, appears in the Homilarium compiled by Paul the Deacon by command of Charlemagne, about 785-90, and in the Sacramentary of Essen, composed between 850 and 874.
If one wishes to form a correct idea of the festival of Easter, one must always bear in mind its close connection with the solemn administration of baptism. The preliminary ceremonies began on Saturday afternoon and lasted throughout the night. When the number to be baptised was very large, the administration of baptism and the Easter festival could be combined. This connection was lost at only quite a late date, in days when all remembrance of the grounds for it had died out, and people had no longer any idea of the catechumenate. The chief and most striking ceremonies were then transferred to the forenoon, and it is much to be regretted that, in those centuries, no creative force was forthcoming to form something in keeping with the altered conditions of the time. Owing to the alteration in the hour, many of the ceremonies are rendered meaningless.
The interval thus produced was occupied by the festival commemoration of the Resurrection, and by a great procession. The latter can easily be traced back to the solemn procession of the catechumens and clergy from the baptistery to the cathedral, which took place in primitive times after baptism. It was probably ignorance of this custom which led later writers to trace the origin of this procession to the words of Christ to His disciples: “I will go before you into Galilee” (St Matt. xxvi. 32; xxviii. 16),[176] directing them to go to Galilee after His resurrection.
The Easter ceremonies varied in different countries and in different dioceses. The earliest mention of them appears in the Ordo Romanus belonging to the thirteenth century which goes by the name of Cardinal James Cajetan.[177] It would lead us too far from our subject to describe them and the other customs formerly observed on Easter Day; besides, such special points of ritual are better dealt with in connection with the liturgy itself. We shall here only mention the blessing of food, especially those kinds of food which, after having been forbidden in Lent, again become lawful, such as flesh meat in particular, eggs, cheese, butter, and other things as well. The original object of this blessing of food was plainly to check the tendency to over-indulgence which might assert itself after a prolonged period of self-denial.[178]
We must now return to the account of the Gallic pilgrim. She speaks of processions to the different churches and to the Mount of Olives as having taken place in Jerusalem not only on Easter Day, but on the other days of the octave as well. She finds no other points to notice in which the customs at Jerusalem differed from those observed at her own home. On the Saturday and Sunday after Easter, the narrative of St Thomas’s unbelief formed the Gospel, as at the present day.[179]
With regard to the Easter octave, the two first days rank as festivals of the first class. On Monday, the supper at Emmaus is commemorated, the Gospel being St Luke xxiv. 13-35; on Tuesday, the appearance of our Lord and His apostles, narrated in St Luke xxiv. 36-47; on Wednesday, His appearance by the Sea of Tiberias to Peter and the others, as they were fishing, St John xxi. 1-14; on Thursday, His appearance in the garden to Mary Magdalen, St John xx. 11-18; on Friday, His appearance on the mountain in Galilee, St Matt. xxviii. 16-20; on Saturday, the Gospel contains the account of the first appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalen immediately after His resurrection, St John xx. 1-9.
The following Sunday forms the conclusion of the Easter octave, and, accordingly, was formerly called simply octava paschæ, or pascha clausum, later it was called White Sunday, dominica in albis, scil. deponendis, because the neophytes wore their white baptismal garments until this day. When Easter ceased to be the day for baptisms, it was appointed, as being in harmony with White Sunday, that children should receive their first communion, and renew their baptismal vows. Rabanus Maurus[180] further observes that in his time confirmation was given on White Sunday. The prayers during the Easter octave contain references to the two great sources of festal gladness, the resurrection of our Lord and the increase in the number of the faithful. The prayers for the third, fifth, and sixth ferias are specially concerned with the latter, while the Gospels throughout are occupied with the appearances of our Lord after His resurrection to His disciples. The Epistles, however, are either for the most part taken from the Acts, or describe that spiritual renewal of mankind which follows upon the work of redemption. The prayers for the whole octave, with the exception of two on Monday, are the same at the present day as those in the Gregorian sacramentary.[181] For the following Sundays, until Whitsunday, they only occasionally agree with the prayers of this sacramentary, being taken bodily, with two unimportant exceptions, from the Gelasian. The Sundays lead up to the fulfilment of Christ’s redemptive work and His return to the Father. The Gospels from the third to the fifth are accordingly taken from the sixteenth chapter of St John.
Right in the middle of the period anciently called quinquagesima, that is to say on the twenty-fifth day after Easter, or, in other words, on the Wednesday of the fourth week after Easter, the event recorded in St John vii. 1 was formerly commemorated in certain churches. In the midst of the feast of Tabernacles, Christ went up into the Temple and taught (St John vii. 14). On the last day of the feast, He stood in the Temple and cried, referring to the usual libation of the Jews on this day,[182] “If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink” (v. 37). On this day, in the Eastern Churches, the rite of blessing the waters still takes place, which is not to be confused with that which is performed on the 6th January, in honour of the baptism of Jesus in Jordan (missa aquæ). This commemoration is called by the Greeks μεσοπεντεκοστή, festum mediæ pentecostes. The name, as we have already observed, belongs to the oldest ecclesiastical terminology, according to which Pentecost meant not Whitsunday but the whole period from Easter to Whitsunday.[183]
The chief festivals are usually preceded by a time of preparation, consisting in many cases of only a single day, the vigil, but the preparation for Easter extends over nine weeks, and is composed of two parts, Lent, the more immediate preparation, and the three preceding Sundays, as a more distant and merely liturgical preparation.
In Lent, it is the fast which plays the chief part, and presents itself as the essential feature of the whole time of preparation. From it, also, the other developments take their rise.[184]
There are indications that, in the earliest times, Christians fasted on all Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year. This pious custom seems to have been so generally observed that, without having been enjoined by any formal enactment, it had, so to speak, the force of law. It is mentioned in the Didaché, in Hermas, and by Tertullian.[185] The latter calls these fasts “station-fasts,” and mentions that the fast lasted until 3 P.M. The custom had possibly been adopted from the Jews, for the Pharisees and Jewish ascetics in the time of Christ were wont to fast twice a week, on Monday and Thursday.[186]
With regard to the East, Clement of Alexandria mentions[187] Wednesday and Friday as fast days, and, which is especially remarkable, these days were also so observed in the period after Constantine, at least for a great part of the year. The Didascalia enjoins that these days be kept as fasts in the time after Whitsunday. The preceding season, the fifty days between Easter and Whitsunday, was a season of unmixed gladness, and so, according to the Didascalia, in Whitsun Week, these days were not fasts. We are led to the conjecture that this custom fell out of use in proportion as fasting became otherwise regulated, and the fast of forty days before Easter became a general law.
That fasting should form an essential feature in the commemoration of Passion-tide had already been indicated in our Lord’s words (St Matt. ix. 15): “Can the children of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them?” To which question He Himself replied, “The days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast.” The days when the Bridegroom was taken away were held from the first to be those in which He lay in the grave, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. In the earliest times, these days were everywhere kept as fasts, and were observed by all, with exception of the quartodecimans, as obligatory fasts of the strictest kind.[188]
This fact is supported by a remark of St Irenæus, in an official letter addressed to Pope Victor (189-99), on the occasion of the second dispute about Easter. It is given, for the most part, by Eusebius in his history of the Church.[189] This is the earliest evidence for the fast before Easter. It shows that the practice had not yet received a fixed and special form. Some, for instance, thought only one day ought to be kept as a fast, Good Friday; others fasted for two days, Good Friday and Holy Saturday—the two days, as Tertullian says, on which the Bridegroom was taken away. Others again fasted for more than two days (unfortunately, it is not said for how many), and others reckoned as their fast day, forty consecutive hours. That is to say, they kept a continuous fast for forty hours night and day, and regarded this as their fast day.[190] Which these forty hours were is easy to say, for our Lord lay in the grave for about forty hours, from the afternoon of Good Friday until Easter morning, or from Good Friday morning to the evening of Saturday.
Irenæus and Tertullian know nothing as yet of the fast of forty days, although in their days it was the universal custom to fast, and that very strictly, on the two last days of Holy Week. About the middle of the third century, a week’s fast was customary in many places—the entire Holy Week being fasted on water and bread and salt, while on the last two days nothing whatever was eaten. The Didascalia describes the fast in the same way, and also the Apostolic Constitutions (5, 15). After this manner, accordingly, the fast was observed in Syria, and Dionysius witnesses to the same practice in Alexandria.[191]
However the words, “The fast shall be broken when a Sunday intervenes,”[192] found on the well-known statue of Hippolytus in Rome, show that already, by the middle of the third century, the fast extended over several weeks. The fast here alluded to must have extended over fourteen days at least. The disputed canons of Hippolytus (the twentieth and twenty-second) receive some confirmation from this passage.
In the fourth century, many witnesses to the fast of forty days are forthcoming, both writers, such as Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, etc., as well as ecclesiastical enactments, e.g., the sixty-ninth of the Apostolic Canons. The Fifth canon of the First Council of Nicæa, in particular, mentions Lent as an observance already established. Nevertheless it clearly was not as yet uniformly observed in all parts of the Church, as the Festal Letters of St Athanasius bear witness.
These letters are in any case the most important evidence for the fast of forty days before Easter. The first of them, for the year 329, is satisfied with appointing “a holy fast of six days” from the Monday to the Saturday in Holy Week;[193] the second, however, for 330, and all the following require a fast of forty days, beginning on the Monday of the sixth complete week before Easter.[194] The Festal Letters give no direct explanation of how, and for what reason, the six days’ fast was changed into a fast of forty days.
However, the covering letter which Athanasius sent along with his eleventh Festal Letter, written from Rome in 339, throws some light upon the process. He writes, namely, to Serapion, first Abbot and then Bishop of Thmuis, that he may announce the fast of forty days to his brethren and impress upon them the necessity of the fast, “lest, when all the world fasts, we only who live in Egypt be derided for not fasting.” This warning is repeated with still greater emphasis: Serapion is to instruct those under him that they must fast forty days,[195] which seems to show that the custom of fasting for forty days was not yet in force in Egypt, though elsewhere it was universally observed, and especially in Rome. At the conclusion of the nineteenth Festal Letter is found a sharp reproof of those who disregarded the fast.[196] This is the forty days’ discipline (ἄσκησις) observed during the six weeks before Easter according to Eusebius.[197]
The Gallic pilgrim, already so often quoted, gives the following minute information concerning the manner in which the fasts were observed in Jerusalem in the fourth century. The preparatory period before Easter lasted eight weeks, not forty days, as in Gaul, and all the days of the week, Saturday and Sunday excepted, were fasted. Holy Saturday was an exception to this rule, being kept as a fast. Thus there were in all forty-one fast days, which were called in Greek ἑορταί; in Latin, feriæ. On Wednesday in Lent, the Psalmody was performed as on Sunday, and the bishop read the appointed Gospel, but the Mass (oblatio) was offered only on Saturday and Sunday. On certain days processions were also made to different churches which lasted until eleven o’clock.
The fare on fast days consisted of water and broth made with flour; fruit and oil and bread were also eaten. The catechumens also fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays. Among the faithful, there were some who ate nothing from their repast on Sunday until the following Saturday, i.e. for five days, and who all the year round took only one meal a day. Others abstained in Lent from all food for two consecutive days, but others fasted by taking nothing to eat all day until the evening.[198] This last recalls the practice described by Irenæus. Here one may observe that the custom of not fasting on the Saturdays in Lent existed also in Milan in the time of St Ambrose.[199] The fast must have commenced on the Monday after Sexagesima Sunday, since it had to extend over forty days.
With this agrees the directions given in the so-called Apostolic Constitutions (5, 13-20). In these, the fast of Holy Week is called distinctively the fast of Easter (νηστεία τοῦ πάσχα), and is distinguished from the fast of Lent.[200] From Monday to Friday in Holy Week, the fast is to be kept on bread, salt, vegetables and water, flesh meat and wine being forbidden. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday, the days when the Bridegroom was taken away, those who are able are to eat nothing whatever until early on Easter Sunday, while the usual fast lasted until 3 P.M., or sunset.[201] On Saturday, people are not to fast, because it is the day on which the Creation was complete, with the exception of the Saturday on which the Lord lay in the earth.[202]
Leo the Great in his sermons teaches us the objects and significance of the fast before Easter. According to him, Lent was appointed in order to prepare souls for a fruitful commemoration of the mystery of Easter. It was to be a time for inner purification and sanctification; a time, first of all, of penance for past sins, and of breaking off sinful habits, a time also for the exercise of all virtues, especially almsgiving, reconciliation, and the laying aside of enmities. It was in correspondence with the spirit of Lent that the Christian emperors pardoned criminals.[203] Fasting was to form only a part of this penance and preparation, though the most essential part, and Leo declares it to be incumbent upon all, not only the clergy, but all the faithful as well.[204] Leo regarded this fast of forty days before Easter as an apostolic institution.[205]
When the duration of the fast became generally fixed at forty days, a reason for this was not far to seek—the length of the fast of Jesus. From the beginning, however, a difference became apparent, according as Holy Week was either included in Lent or regarded as something distinct in itself. The ante-Nicene practice afforded a precedent for this. The latter practice is adopted in particular in the Apostolic Constitutions, and prevailed in a great part of the East. But in the East, Saturday was exempt from fasting, and so the number of fast days was, as a matter of fact, not greater than in the West, where the other practice obtained. Later, it was expressly set forth that Lent should be a quadragesima, not a quinquagesima, as by the first and fourth councils of Orleans in the sixth century.[206] In some quarters, our informant unfortunately does not say where, Thursday was also exempted from fasting.[207]
Originally, it appears, the fast of forty days, quadragesima, was taken to mean the days before Easter as a whole, Sundays included. This gave for a period of six weeks only thirty-six fasting days, and, where Saturday was not kept as a fast day, only thirty. To rectify this, the number of fast days was increased actually to forty, with the result that in the West, the beginning of Lent (caput jejunii) was put back four days; but in the East, where only five days in each week were fasted, it was put back further still. In the West, especially in Rome, this alteration, by which the fast began on the Wednesday before the sixth Sunday before Easter, had not yet been accomplished by the time of Gregory the Great.
In the East, too, the tendency to make up the full number of fast days to forty was apparent also at an early date. There, owing to Saturday not being a fast day, the beginning of Lent had to be thrown further back than in the West, and Lent began eight weeks before Easter, and since the Saturdays, Holy Saturday excepted, were not fast days, extended actually over forty-one days instead of forty. Abstinence from flesh meat began on the Monday after the eighth Sunday before Easter, corresponding to the Latin dominica sexagesima, which is called the Sunday of Abstinence from Flesh Meat (κυριακὴ ἀπόκρεως). From the following Sunday, called the Sunday for Eating Cheese (κυριακὴ τοῦ τυροφάγου), lacticinia are forbidden. The following Sundays are reckoned as merely the first to the fifth Sundays in Lent, and only the first of them has the additional designation of Orthodox Sunday, in commemoration of the settlement of the Iconoclastic controversy. Later on, the Easterns attached great importance to the question whether Saturday ought or ought not to be kept as a fast day. As early, indeed, as the Apostolic Canons, it is expressly forbidden to fast on Saturday under threat of ecclesiastical penalties.[208] At a later date this difference became one of the points of dispute between the Greeks and Latins.
The assertion of Socrates[209] that in Rome the fast lasted only three weeks is now regarded on all hands as erroneous, all the more so as Socrates adds—also incorrectly—“Saturdays and Sundays excepted.” In Rome, Saturday was always kept as a fast. His statement cannot be accepted against the clear evidence of Leo I. concerning Lent, even although Valesius and Baillet wish to defend it.
That the fast of forty days was not originally observed in all parts of the Church, and only gradually came into force, can probably be explained by the fact that there were already fast days enough. There are, for instance, many indications that the custom of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays all the year through—the period between Easter and Pentecost excepted—was fairly generally observed. Wednesday was kept as a fast, because on that day our Lord had been betrayed to the Jews; Friday, because it was the day of His Passion. At Carthage, where we find reliable evidence for the practice, they were called the fasts of the stations.[210] Even in the East, the custom was apparently general.[211] The Apostolic Constitutions are acquainted with it; the so-called Apostolic Canons prescribe it;[212] the Canons of Hippolytus[213] refer to the fast of the fourth and sixth feria as well as the fast of Lent. As these fasts are never mentioned in the literature of a later date, and altogether disappeared from practice, one is driven to the conclusion that, as the Lenten fast became more widely observed, these others fell out of use. However, the weekly fast-days continued to be observed for a long time together with the Lenten fast, and, among the Greeks, are observed even to the present day.[214] Not only Augustine mentions that, at the end of the fourth century, in Rome, Wednesdays, Fridays, and also Saturdays were fasted, but Innocent I. regarded it as a duty to fast on Saturday all the year round, and Prudentius also alludes to it.[215] In the Syrian Church the three weekly fasts appear to have been obligatory on Bishops and Priests alone.[216]
After the adoption of the fast of forty days, attempts were made, in the West, to further regulate fasting, but these were confined to certain districts and in course of time ceased. For example, Bishop Perpetuus of Tours introduced a special practice into his diocese, which lasted until on in the sixth century, i.e. from Whitsunday to St John, and also from 1st September to St Martin, two fast-days were observed in each week; from then until Christmas, three; from St Hilary’s Day (14th January) until the middle of February two again. The second canon of the fourth council of Orleans (A.D. 541) opposed the attempts of some bishops to extend the fast over fifty, or even sixty days. Amalarius mentions other divergences from the Roman custom, such as keeping three Lents in the year, one before Christmas, the second before Easter, and the third before Whitsunday, and, again, fasting on the days before the Ascension.[217] In Germany, too, there were peculiarities in the discipline observed with regard to fasting during the eighth and ninth centuries.[218]
The essence of fasting consists in abstinence from meat and drink during a specified time. This in itself is not sufficient, for fasting entails moreover that the food taken after the lapse of this time be of a plainer kind, i.e. abstinence from the better sorts of food and drink, which is now called abstinence in the strict sense. The prohibition of certain meats in the Old Testament must be regarded as of a disciplinary nature, and not as a merely dietary regulation.
In ecclesiastical antiquity, along with abstinence from the usual daily meals, we find certain viands also forbidden—flesh and wine. To this period belong the xerophagiæ spoken of by Tertullian,[219] at which people abstained not only from flesh and wine but from liquid food and fruit as well. These, however, seem to have gone beyond the abstinence then usual throughout the Church. The Montanists held these xerophagiæ twice a year for fourteen days.[220]
Among Catholics also abstinence was pushed to great lengths. The canons of Hippolytus[221] prescribe for Holy Week only bread and salt. The Apostolic Constitutions will only permit bread, vegetables, salt and water, in Lent, flesh and wine being forbidden; and, on the last two days of Holy Week, nothing whatsoever is to be eaten.[222] The ascetics, whose acquaintance the Gallic pilgrim made in Jerusalem, never touched bread in Lent, but lived on flour and water.[223] Only a few could keep so strict a fast, and generally speaking people were satisfied with abstaining from flesh and wine. But this lasted throughout the entire Lent, and Chrysostom[224] tells us that in Antioch no flesh was eaten during the whole of Lent. Abstinence from milk and eggs (the so-called lacticinia) was also the general rule.
Thus abstinence from flesh meat (i.e. abstinence in the strict sense) was combined with the diminution of the quantity of food taken. It was also voluntarily practised by itself, without being accompanied by fasting (jejunium a carne et sanguine), by pious persons and ascetics, and was prescribed as a duty on certain days in monasteries and other religious communities, as, for instance, among the Canons of Chrodegang.
Throughout the early ages, abstinence was merely a pious custom. It was not until a later date that it was enjoined by law, as, for instance, by the fifty-sixth Trullan Canon, the Decree of Nicholas I. for the Bulgarians, the fourth and eighth councils of Toledo, the seventh canon of the council of Quedlinburg (1085), and the decretal of Gratian.[225] The custom of abstinence was then recognised and prescribed by ecclesiastical law for the whole of Lent, for all Fridays and Saturdays throughout the year, for the Ember Day, and a number of vigils.[226] No authentic document of antiquity is forthcoming to show that abstinence by itself, without an accompanying fast, had been prescribed by the Church.[227]
The division of this season of preparation into two parts, with special names for the Sundays, does not appear in the sermons of Augustine or Leo the Great. But in the ancient Gallic sacramentary—the missale Gothico-Gallicanum—five Masses, entitled simply missa jejunii or in quadragesima, are found assigned to the five Sundays before Palm Sunday. The names sexagesima and quinquagesima appear already in the canons of the fourth council of Orleans (541), but, as generally recognised titles for the Sundays before Easter, they begin to appear in service-books dating from the eighth century and onwards. The Gregorian Sacramentary is familiar with the names for the Sundays from Septuagesima to Quinquagesima, and then numbers five Sundays in Quadragesima until Palm Sunday.
In the ancient Spanish Mozarabic Sacramentary, the names Septuagesima, etc., do not yet appear, but the Sundays after Epiphany are numbered from one to eight, although the entire number was not always required, according as Easter fell early or late. After them follows the Dominica ante diem Cineris, then the five Sundays in Lent, and, finally, the Dominica in Ramis Palmarum.
The recently published Lectionary of Silos, belonging to the ancient rite of Toledo and compiled about 650, represents a much simpler form of the Church’s year. It enumerates neither the Sundays after Epiphany nor those after Pentecost, but merely those in Lent, and then is satisfied with twenty-four Masses for the remaining Sundays of the year.
A trace of the original length of Lent—six weeks, or forty-two days—exists still in the present missal, inasmuch as the secreta for the First Sunday in Lent runs: Sacrificium quadragesimalis initii solemniter immolamus.[228] Sundays, as we know, were never kept as fasts, and so the Western Church in reality kept only thirty-six fast days, a proof that the word quadragesima originally merely denoted the number of days over which the period of preparation extended. Since, however, our Lord had fasted forty days, the Church felt moved to keep to this number exactly, and so added the four missing days to the beginning of Lent. This alternation was first accomplished at the end of the seventh or beginning of the eighth century, and appears for the first time in the so-called Gelasian sacramentary,[229] while Gregory I.[230] himself still counted the days actually fasted as thirty-six. The three preceding Sundays were now included in the season of preparation and received the names of Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima. The actual commencement of the fast fell on the Wednesday before Quadragesima, which appears in the Gregorian Sacramentary with a Mass of its own, but without its present name of Ash Wednesday (Feria IV. Cinerum).
This name comes from the sprinkling of ashes. Sprinkling ashes upon the heads of penitents, in token of sorrow, formed part of the ancient ceremonies connected with ecclesiastical penance. Since public penance usually began and ended with Lent, this custom was associated with this particular day. It soon became a general custom no longer restricted to penitents, although the Council of Benevento (1091) prescribes it principally for clerics. The ashes were prepared from the palms of the previous Palm Sunday. At the present time they are blessed in addition.
It is to be observed further that Lent is not devoted to consideration of Christ’s sufferings. This occupies the mind during Holy Week. The aim of Lent is not to move the faithful to dwell upon the passion of Christ, but only to prepare them for keeping Easter worthily through fasting, penance, and abstinence. The liturgical prayers in Lent contain no reference to the Redeemer’s sufferings, but speak of fasting and mortification alone. It is the same with the Epistles and Gospels. On Palm Sunday for the first time, our thoughts are directed to the Passion in the collect for the day, while in the prayers for the so-called Passion Sunday it is not mentioned.
Those weeks of Lent had an exceptional character in which, in the sixth and following centuries, the scrutinies took place, i.e. the services designed for the examination of candidates in preparation for baptism. These began on the Wednesday of the third week in Lent, and lasted until Holy Saturday. Originally seven, they were reduced in course of time to three, owing to the adoption of the Gelasian sacramentary. Accordingly, the Masses for the third, fourth, and fifth Sunday and for the Saturday before Passion Sunday speak of baptism and not of the Passion.[231] In the present Roman Missal scarcely a trace of this is to be found.[232]
The prayers of the Masses both for Sundays and week-days, for by far the greater part, are still identical with those of the Gregorian Sacramentary, while the lections from Scripture are in some instances much older. The Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent, which narrates the fast of Jesus and His temptation by the devil, was read on this day already in the time of Leo the Great. The Gospel for the second Sunday treats of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the Gospels for the two following Sundays, the healing of the dumb man, and the casting out of the devil, and the miracle of the loaves. The Gospel for Passion Sunday contains the account of our Lord’s encounter with the Jews and their attempt to stone Him.
In the Middle Ages, the commencement and beginning of Lent was marked in a way visible to all by hanging a curtain between the nave of the church and the choir on Ash Wednesday, or, according to Durandus, on the First Sunday in Lent. This was called the Lenten Veil, or, in common parlance, the “Hunger-veil.” It remained hanging until Good Friday, but in many places was drawn aside on Sundays, obviously because Sundays were not fast days. The veil was usually quite plain, but sometimes it was adorned with pictorial representations from sacred history. It is first referred to in writings of the ninth century, but was in use much earlier. In some places in Westphalia and Hanover it exists to the present day. These Lenten-veils are still to be frequently seen in museums and church lumber-rooms, where not infrequently they are erroneously mistaken for carpets. They were practical in their object—the ordinary man who had no calendar was put in remembrance by them that it was the season of Lent. Allegorical interpretations were naturally not lacking, and are to be found in Rupert of Deutz.[233] A similar custom also exists in Russia, where, on the first Sunday in Lent, the altar curtains are drawn together and so remain until Palm Sunday.
During the first six centuries, it was taken for granted that saints’ days must not be observed during Lent. The Trullan synod introduced the first exception to this rule in favour of the Annunciation. In the West, this rule was soon entirely set aside, but, on the other hand, in token of sorrow, the Allelujah ceases during the entire Lent, a custom of which the Greek Church knows nothing. The Lenten prayers have a particularly earnest tone, and Lent from quite an early date appears richly provided from a liturgical point of view, each week-day having its own special Mass. In old days in Rome, there was a procession every day, for the Pope and clergy proceeded from the papal palace in solemn array to some church in the city where a halt (statio) was made, and Mass was sung.
In the existing calendar, the Transfiguration of our Lord is commemorated by a special festival, the festum Transfigurationis, which, as it is kept on a fixed date, is excluded from the proper sequence of the ecclesiastical year and treated in the same manner as the saints’ days. From quite an early date, this festival had been celebrated in divers churches, both East and West, on different days. The date now observed, the 6th August, was appointed for the festival by Calixtus III. in 1457, in memory of the victory over the Turks, gained by John Capistran and George Hunyadi, at Belgrade. In the choice of a day, he seems to have been influenced by the Greek calendar, where the festival had already been kept on this day. It appears in the Synaxaria of the Copts in Selden and Mai, in the menology of Constantinople belonging to the eighth century, and, later, in the Neapolitanum, and among the orthodox Syrians. In the East it was commonly observed. Sermons on the event are found among those of St Augustine and Leo the Great.[234] The tendency to transfer to another period of the year the commemoration of those events which fell within Lent, is also perceptible in the case of the feast of the Seven Dolours. More will be said on this point in the second part.
A special festival in commemoration of the return of the Redeemer to heaven does not indeed appear in the earliest lists of Church festivals given by Tertullian and Origen in the third century. Still, the terms in which the earliest witnesses refer to it, prove that this day was kept as a festival in quite early times. The first witness for it is Eusebius, who calls it a high festival in the treatise he composed on the discussions concerning Easter at the first General Council in 325. The ecclesiastical historian Socrates speaks of it as a general festival.[235] With regard to documents of an official character, the church-order contained in the so-called Apostolic Constitutions,[236] gives it the name of The Taking Up [into Heaven] (ἀνάλεψις, St Luke ix. 51, where the form ἁνάλημψις occurs). Numerous sermons among the works of the Fathers afford further evidence for the existence of the feast. Augustine[237] is inclined to attribute the appointment of the festival to an ordinance of the Apostles or to the injunction of a general council. The latter cannot be proved as certain. As soon as persecution ceased, the feast of the Ascension made its way naturally in all parts of the Church, unassisted by any authoritative enactment, for it was impossible that the concluding act of our Saviour’s earthly life should remain unnoticed among festivals and in the Liturgy. This was all the more unlikely, as the spot from which our Lord returned to the Father at once became the object of reverence. The Empress Helena had already ordered a splendid basilica to be built on the Mount of Olives, which, unfortunately, was destroyed by the Saracens, and has never been rebuilt. At the present day, a small unimposing church marks the spot which was a place of pilgrimage as early as the fourth century,[238] and where it is believed one of our Lord’s footprints in still visible.
With regard to the liturgical observance of the day, its chief characteristic until well on in the Middle Ages was a procession. At the time of the Gallic pilgrim’s visit to Jerusalem, this was observed in a striking manner. The people proceeded in solemn procession after the sixth hour (towards 12 o’clock) on Wednesday from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, there to celebrate the Vigil in the church built over the grotto where Christ was born. The next day, divine service, with a sermon, was performed in the accustomed manner, and, in the evening, the procession returned to Jerusalem.[239] The question which naturally presents itself, why the service was not rather held on the Mount of Olives, as it was in the eighth century,[240] remains unanswered. It is to be further observed that the name Ascension (ascensa) is not used to designate the festival. The pilgrim simply speaks of the fortieth day (quadragesima) after Easter.
Elsewhere in the East, it was customary to observe the Festival of the Ascension outside the city, as, for example, in Constantinople and Antioch. In the latter place, the people went to the small town of Romanesia, where Chrysostom delivered his sermon on the feast.[241] In the Middle Ages, processions were wont to take place on this day in Gaul and Germany, and this custom shows how deeply people were moved by the desire to imitate as far as possible, in the introduction of liturgical practices, the actions of our Lord. In this case, the determinating factor was that our Lord had led the Apostles out of the city to the Mount of Olives.[242]
Another custom peculiar to this festival is that, after the reading of the Gospel at the High Mass, the Paschal candle, which up till then has been burnt at all High Masses, is extinguished and put aside. In earlier times, the event of the day was represented by hanging up a figure of our Lord, which was made to disappear through an opening in the roof. The festival has an octave since the fifteenth century, and, in consequence, the following Sunday, formerly called simply Dominica post Ascensionem, is now called Dominica infra Octavam. The Mass of the feast forms one of the rare exceptions where the event commemorated is described in the Epistle, Acts i. 1-11. The Gospel for the day is taken from St Mark xvi. 14-20, where, in verse 19, the Ascension is briefly alluded to. As a matter of fact, verses 10-20 are wanting in the oldest Alexandrian MSS. Still they are in other respects well supported, and must be regarded as genuine.[243]
The introduction of the festival of the Ascension was rendered all the easier since Scripture distinctly specifies the day on which the event took place.[244]
Whitsunday is of equal rank with the two other chief festivals, but has no special season either preceding or following it, and is unattended by any lesser festivals depending upon it. Whitsunday is the close of the whole period which began with Easter, called in the early centuries Quinquagesima, because it extended over fifty days. This entire period is festal in character, and therefore so long as it lasted people in ancient days prayed standing upright, and no fasting was practised.[245] The ascetics did not observe a single fast during this time,[246] and it seems that even the day before Whitsunday was not a fast in the earliest ages, any more than it is now among the Greeks. A number of ascetics were of opinion that this period of joy should last only forty days, because our Lord appeared to His disciples for only forty days, and that the following ten days, as far as fasting, prayer, and kneeling were concerned, should be like the rest of the year—an opinion which Cassian, among others (Coll. 20, 21), strongly opposed.[247] This divergence of opinion, which was rather widespread, seems to have resulted in Whitsunday being passed over and ignored. So, for example, it is entirely omitted from the oldest Gallican Sacramentaries, the series of festivals ending with the Ascension.[248] In the later service-books, it appears simply under the name Quinquagesima.
Pentecost meant originally the entire period from Easter to Whitsunday, and this terminology had been already in use among the Jews, and is employed by St Luke in Acts ii. 1 (cum complerentur dies pentecostes). The Greek word Pentecost was gladly adopted by the Latins in early times, and more especially, later on, since the Latin term quinquagesima might easily be confused with the Sunday of the same name.
Whitsunday, of course, commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and disciples. This happened fifty days after the Resurrection, on an ancient Jewish festival called in the Pentateuch the Feast of Weeks,[249] because it was celebrated exactly seven weeks after the Passover. As it fell on the fiftieth day after the Passover, it was also called Pentecost, even in pre-Christian times.[250]
The Jewish Pentecost was originally only a festival of thanksgiving for harvest, and, although the Law was given on Mount Sinai and the Mosaic Church came into existence on the same day, yet the feast was not devoted to the commemoration of this event. This purpose was served by the festival of the Simchah Thorah in October, which owed its institution to the Rabbis. On the other hand, the fact that the descent of the Holy Ghost implied the foundation of the Christian Church, afforded the Fathers a parallel which they were not slow to make the most of.[251] The Feast of Weeks was to the Jews only the conclusion of the harvest, in thanksgiving for which, bread, made from the newly gathered wheat, was presented to Jehovah as a sacrifice.
The festival of Whitsunday reaches back to the commencement of the Church, although there is no evidence for it, as there is in the case of Easter, it being uncertain whether the passage, 1 Cor. xvi. 8, refers to the Jewish or to the Christian Pentecost. This is not astonishing, for, on the one hand the feast, originally of only one day’s duration, fell on a Sunday, and, on the other, it is so closely bound up with Easter that the one entails the other. That the festival of Whitsunday belongs to Apostolic times is stated in the seventh of the fragments attributed to Irenæus, but these are admitted to be interpolated. In Tertullian, the festival, along with Easter, appears as already well established, so that it must have been in existence for some time. As at Easter, prayer was made standing, and it was the second and last date for the solemn baptism of catechumens.[252] Tertullian, moreover, in accordance with the usage already in use, gives the name of Pentecost, not merely to the day of the festival, but to the whole period from Easter to Whitsunday—a use of the term which appears here and there at a later date,[253] and points out the period as a time of joy.[254] The last day, however, was clearly held in Tertullian’s time to be a festival in an especial sense.[255] Origen and the Canons of Hippolytus make references in passing to the festival of Whitsunday.[256] The Apostolic Constitutions say Whitsunday is to be regarded as a high festival, because on it the Lord Jesus sent down the Holy Ghost.
The Gallic pilgrim gives a detailed and circumstantial account of the manner in which the feast was observed in Jerusalem.[257] On the night before Whitsunday, the vigil was celebrated in the Church of the Anastasis, at which the bishop, according to the usual custom in Jerusalem on Sundays, read the Gospel of the Resurrection, and the customary psalmody was performed. At dawn, all the people proceeded to the principal church (Martyrium), where a sermon was preached and Mass celebrated. About the third hour, when the psalmody was finished, the people accompanied the bishop with singing to Sion. There, the passage from the Acts of the Apostles, describing the descent of the Holy Ghost, was read, and a second Mass was celebrated, after which the psalmody was resumed. Afterwards the archdeacon invited the people to assemble in the “Eleona,” from whence a procession was made to the summit of the Mount of Olives. Here psalms and antiphons were sung, the Gospel was read, and the blessing given. After this, the people descended again into the “Eleona,” where Vespers were sung, and then, with the bishop at their head, proceeded in a solemn procession with singing back to the principal church, which was reached towards 8 P.M. At the city gate, the procession was met by torch-bearers who accompanied it to the Martyrium. Here, as well as in the Anastasis, to which the people proceeded in turn, and in the Chapel of the Holy Cross, the usual prayers, hymns, and blessings took place, so that the festival did not conclude until midnight.
The Pilgrim makes no mention of rites or preparations connected with the administration of baptism. It seems, then, that in Jerusalem, Whitsunday was not observed as a second or supplementary time for baptism, or may not have been required as such. Nevertheless, this feature appears in the Western liturgies, and had much to do, for instance, in the determining the manner in which the vigil of the feast was observed.
According to the more ancient service-books, the catechumens were to assemble at midday on Saturday. Lections from Scripture, less numerous than on Holy Saturday, were read, and then, after suitable prayers, took place the blessing of the baptismal water, the baptism, and, during the night, the Mass of the vigil.[258] St Augustine shows that, in Africa as well, the people assembled in the afternoon, and that the Mass was celebrated during the night. He thus addresses the newly baptised on Whitsunday: “What you here see before you on the altar, you have already seen during the past night.”[259]
In order to complete the resemblance to Easter, a large candle was, in some churches, blessed and set up during the singing of the Exsultet in a slightly altered form.[260] In monastic churches, in which baptism was not administered, the baptismal ceremonies were omitted, though the special celebration of the vigil still commenced in the afternoon.[261]