Part 44

The idea of having particular days of the week consecrated in memory of special incidents in the work of redemption had even in the previous period found expression (§ 37), but it now passed into the background all the more as the church began to apply itself to the construction in the richest possible form of a Christian year. The previous difference in the development of East and West occasioned each to take its own particular course, determined in the one case very much by a Jewish-Christian, in the other by a Gentile-Christian, tendency. Nevertheless in the 4th century we find a considerable levelling of these divergences. This at least was attained unto thereby that the three chief festivals received an essentially common form in both churches. But in the 5th and 6th centuries, in the further development of the Christian year, the two churches parted all the more decidedly from one another. The Western church especially gave way more and more unreservedly to the tendency to make the natural year the type and pattern for the Christian year. Thus the Western Christian year obtained a richer development and grew up into an institution more vitally and inwardly related to the life of the people. The luxuriant overgrowth of saints’ days, however, prevented the church from here reaching its ideal.

§ 56.1. =The Weekly Cycle.=--Constantine the Great issued a law in A.D. 321, according to which all magisterial, judicial and municipal business was stopped on =Sunday=. At a later period he also forbade military exercises. His successors extended the prohibition to the public spectacles. Alongside of Sunday the =Sabbath= was long celebrated in the East by meetings in the churches, avoidance of fasting and by standing at prayers. The _Dies stationum_, Wednesday and Friday (§ 37), were observed in the East as fast days. The West gave up the Wednesday fast, and introduced in its place the anti-Judaic Sabbath fast.

§ 56.2. =Hours and Quarterly Fasts.=--The number of appointed _hours of prayer_ (the 3rd, 6th and 9th hours, comp. Dan. vi. 10-14; Acts ii. 15; iii. 1; x. 9) were increased during the 5th century to eight (_Horæ canonicæ: Matutina_ or matins at 3 a.m.; _Prima_ at 6 a.m.; _Tertia_ at 9 a.m.; _Sexta_ at 12 noon; _Nona_ at 3 p.m.; _Vesper_ at 6 p.m.; _Completorium_ at 9 p.m.; and _Mesonyktion_ or Vigils at 12 midnight); yet generally two of the night hours were combined, so as to preserve the seven times required in Ps. cxix. 164. This arrangement of hours was strictly observed by monks and clerics. The common basis of prayer for devotions at these hours was the Psalter divided among the seven days of the week. The rest of the material adapted to the course of the Christian year, consisting of scripture and patristic readings, legends of martyrs and saints, prayers, hymns, doxologies, etc. gradually accumulated so that it had to be abbreviated, and hence the name _Breviarium_ commonly given to such selections. The Roman Breviary, arranged mainly by Leo the Great, Gelasius and Gregory the Great, gradually throughout the West drove all other such compositions from the field. An abbreviation by Haymo, General of the Minorites, in A.D. 1241 was sanctioned by Gregory IX., but had subsequently many alterations made upon it. The Council of Trent finally charged the Papal chair with the task of preparing a new redaction which the clergy of the whole catholic church would be obliged to use. Such a production was issued by Pius V. in A.D. 1568, and then in A.D. 1631 Urban VIII. gave it the form in which it is still current.--In the West the year was divided into three-monthly periods, _quatuor tempora_, corresponding to the seasons of prayer recurring every three hours. There were harvest prayer and thanksgiving seasons, occupied, in accordance with Joel ii., with penance, fasting and almsgiving. Leo the Great brought this institution to perfection. The _quatuor tempora_, ember days, occur in the beginning of the Quadragesima, in the week after Pentecost, and in the middle of the 7th and 10th months (Sept. and Dec.), and were kept by a strict fast on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday with a Sabbath vigil.

§ 56.3. =The Reckoning of Easter.=--At the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 the Roman mode of observing Easter prevailed over that of Asia Minor (§ 37, 2). Those who adhered to the latter method were regarded as a sect (_Quartadecimani_ Τεσσαρεσκαιδεκατῖται). The Council decreed that the first day of full moon after the spring equinox should be regarded as the 14th Nisan, and that the festival of the resurrection should be celebrated on the Sunday following. The bishop of Alexandria undertook the astronomical determination of the festival on each occasion, because there astronomical studies were most diligently prosecuted. He published yearly, usually about Epiphany, a circular letter, _Liber paschalis_, giving to the other churches the result of the calculation, and took advantage generally of the opportunity to discuss the ecclesiastical questions of the day. First of all at Alexandria, probably to prevent for all time a combination of the Jewish and Christian Easter festivals, the practice was introduced of keeping the feast when the 14th and 16th of the new moon fell upon Friday and Sunday, not on the same Sunday but eight days later,--a practice which Rome also, and with her a great part of the West, adopted in the 5th century (§ 77, 3). A further difference existed as to the point of time with which the day of full moon was to be regarded as beginning. The Easter Canon of Hippolytus (§ 31, 3) had calculated it in a very unsatisfactory manner according to a sixteen-years’ cycle of the moon, after the course of which the day of full moon would again occur on the same day of the year. In Alexandria the more exact nineteen-years’ cycle of Anatolius was adopted, according to which the day of full moon had an aberration of about one day only in 310 years, and even this was caused rather by the imperfection of the Julian year of 365 days with three intercalary days in 400 years. But in Rome the reckoning was made as the basis of an eighty-four years’ cycle which had indeed the advantage of completing itself not only on the same day of the year but on the same day of the week; while, on the other hand, it had this drawback that after eighty-four years it had fallen about a day behind the actual day of full moon. There was also this further difference that in Alexandria the 21st of March was regarded as the day when day and night were equal, and at Rome, but wrongly, the 18th of March. The cycle of 532 (28 ✕ 19) years reckoned in A.D. 452 by Victorius, a bishop of Aquitaine, was assimilated to the Alexandrian, without, however, losing the advantage of the eighty-four years’ cycle above referred to, which, however, it succeeded in obtaining only by once in every period of nineteen years fixing the equinox on the 20th of March. The Roman abbot Dionysius Exiguus (§ 47, 23), finally, in A.D. 525 harmonized the Roman and the Alexandrian reckoning by setting up a ninety-five years’ cycle (5 ✕ 19), and this cycle was introduced throughout all the West by Isidore of Seville and the Venerable Bede (§ 90, 2). The error occasioned by the inexactness of the Julian calendar continued till the Gregorian reform of the calendar (§ 149, 3).

§ 56.4. =The Easter Festivals.=--The pre-eminence of the Christian festival of victory (the resurrection) over that of suffering, especially among the Greeks, led, even in the 4th century to the former as the fruit of the latter being drawn into the paschal season, and distinguished as πάσχα ἀναστάσιμον from that as πάσχα σταυρώσιμον, and also at last to the adoption of the one name of Paschal or Easter Festival and to the regarding of the whole Quadragesima season as a preparation for Easter. The Saxon name Easter is derived from the old German festival of Ostara the goddess of spring which was celebrated at the same season.--With the beginning of the Quadragesima the whole mode of life assumes a new form. All amusements were stopped, all criminal trials sisted and the din of traffic in streets and markets as far as possible restricted. The East exempted Sunday and Sabbath from the obligation of fasting, with the exception of the last Sabbath as the day of Christ’s rest in the grave, but the West exempted only Sunday. Gregory the Great, therefore, fixed the beginning of the Quadragesima on Wednesday of the seventh week before Easter, _Caput jejunii, Dies cinerum_, Ash Wednesday, so called because the bishop strewed ashes on the heads of believers with a warning reference to Gen. iii. 19, comp. xviii. 27. With the Tuesday preceding, Shrove Tuesday (from _shrive_, to confess), ended the carnival season (_carni valedicere_) which, beginning with 6th Jan. or the feast of the three holy kings, reached its climax in the last days, from three to eight, before Ash Wednesday. On this closing day the people generally sought indemnification for the approaching strict fast by an unmeasured abandoning of themselves to pleasure. From Italy where this custom arose and was most fully carried out, it subsequently found its way into the other lands of the West. In opposition to these unspiritual proceedings the period of the Easter festivals was begun three weeks earlier with the 10th Sunday before Easter (_Septuagesima_). The Hallelujah of the Mass was silenced, weddings were no more celebrated (_Tempus clausum_), monks and clerics already began the fast. The Quadragesima festival reached its climax in the last, the _great_ week. It began with Palm Sunday (ἑορτὴ τῶν βαΐων) and ended with the great Sabbath, the favourite time for baptisms (Rom. vi. 3). Thursday as the memorial day of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and Friday as the day of Christ’s death, Good Friday, were days of special importance. A solemn night service, Easter vigils, marked the transition to the joyous Easter celebrations. The old legend that on this night Christ’s second coming would take place rendered the service peculiarly solemn. Easter morning began with the jubilant greeting: The Lord is risen, and the response, He is risen indeed. On the following Sunday, the Easter Octave, _Pascha clausum_, ἀντίπασχα, the Easter festival was brought to a close. Those baptized on the great Sabbath wore for the last time their white baptismal dress. Hence this sabbath was called _Dominica in albis_; subsequently, in accordance with the Introitus from 1 Pet. ii. 2, Quasimodogeniti; and by the Greeks, καινὴ κυριακή. The joyous celebrations of Easter extended over all the Quinquagesima period between Easter and Pentecost. Ascension day, _Festum ascensionis_, ἑορτὴ τῆς ἀναλήψεως, and Pentecost, πεντεκοστή, were introduced as high festivals by vigil services; and the latter was concluded by the Pentecost-Octave, by the Greeks called κυριακὴ τῶν ἁγίων μαρτυρησάντων and at a much later date styled by the Latins Trinity Sunday. The Festival-Octaves, ἀπολύσεις, had an Old Testament pattern in the עֲצֶרֶת of the Feast of Tabernacles, Lev. xxiii. 26.

§ 56.5. =The Christmas Festivals.=--The first traces of the Christmas festival (_Natalis Christi_, γενέθλια) in the Roman church are found about A.D. 360. Some decades later they appear in the Eastern church. The late introduction of this festival is to be explained from the disregard of the birthday and the prominence given to the day of the death of Christ in the ancient church; but Chrysostom even regarded it as the μητρόπολις πασῶν τῶν ἑορτῶν. Since the 25th of March as the spring equinox was held as the day of creation, the day of the incarnation, the conception of Christ, the second Adam, as the beginning of the new creation was held on the same day, and hence 25th Dec. was chosen as the day of Christ’s birth. The Christian festival thus coincided nearly with the heathen _Saturnalia_, in memory of the Golden Age, from 17th to 23rd Dec., the _Sigillaria_, on the 24th Dec., when children were presented with dolls and images of clay and wax, sigilla, and the _Brumalia_, on 25th Dec., _Dies natalis invicti solis_, the winter solstice. It was considered no mere chance coincidence that Christ, the eternal Sun, should be born just on this day. The Christmas festival too was introduced by a vigil and lasted for eight days, which in the 6th century became the _Festum circumcisionis_. The revelling that characterised the New Year Festival of the pagans, caused the ancient church, to observe that day as a day of penance and fasting. The feast of the Epiphany on the 6th Jan. (§ 37, 1) was also introduced in the West during the 4th century but obtained there a Gentile-Christian colouring from Luke ii. 21 and was kept as the festival of the first fruits of the Gentiles and received the name of the Festival of the three holy kings. For even Tertullian in accordance with Ps. lxxii. 10 had made the Magi kings; it was concluded that they were three because of the three gifts spoken of; and Bede, about A.D. 700, gives their names as Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. By others this festival was associated with Christ’s first miracle at the marriage in Cana, and also with the feeding of the 5,000 in the wilderness. After the analogy of the Easter festival since the 6th century a longer preliminary celebration has been connected with the Christmas festival. In the Eastern church, beginning with the 14th of Nov., it embraced six Sundays with forty fast days, as the second Quadragesima of the year. In the Latin church, as the season of Advent, it had only four Sundays, with a three weeks’ fast.

§ 56.6. =The Church Year= was in the East a symbolic adaptation of the natural year only in so far as it brought with it the Christianising of the Jewish festivals and the early recognition of Western ideas about the feasts. Only on the high festivals, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost are they retained; on the other Sundays and festivals they never obtained expression. The Easter festival was considered the beginning of the church year; thereafter the Quadragesima or Epiphany; and finally, the Old Testament beginning of the year in September. The whole church year was divided into four parts according to the _Lectio continua_ of the gospel, and the Sundays were named thereafter. The κυριακὴ πρώτη τοῦ Ματθαίου was immediately after Pentecost. The =Latin Church Year= begins with the season of Advent, and distinguishes a _Semestre Domini_ and a _Semestre ecclesiæ_. But only the former was fully developed: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost with the Sundays belonging to them, representing the founding, developing and completing of the history of salvation. To a corresponding development of the second half we find early contributions, _e.g._ the Feast of Peter and Paul on 29th June as festival of the founding of the church by the Apostles, the Feast of the leading martyr Laurentius (§ 22, 5) on 10th August as memorial of the struggle prescribed to the _Ecclesia militans_, and the Feast of Michael on 29th September with reference to the completion in the _Ecclesia triumphans_. That in these feasts we have already the germs of the three festivals of the community of the church which were to correspond to the three festivals of the Lord’s history appears significantly in the early designation of the Sundays after Pentecost as _Dominica post Apostolos, post Laurentium, post Angelos_. But it never was distinctly further carried out. This deeply significant distribution was overlaid by saint worship, which overflowed the _Semestre Domini_. The principle of Christianising the Pagan rites was legitimated by Gregory the Great. He instructed the Anglo-Saxon missionaries to the effect (§ 77, 4), that they should convert the heathen temples into churches and heathen festivals into ecclesiastical festivals and days of martyrs, _ut duræ mentes gradibus vel passibus non autem saltibus eleventur_. The saints henceforth take the place of gods of nature and the church year reproduced with a Christian colouring all the outstanding points in the natural year.--As the last festival connected with the history of the Lord, the Feast of the Glorification, ἁγία μεταμόρφωσις, was held in the East on 6th August. According to tradition the scene was enacted on Mt. Tabor, hence the feast was called Θαβώριον. The Latin church adopted it first in the 15th century (_F. transfigurationis_).[170]

§ 56.7. =The Church Fasts= (§ 37, 3).--In the Greek church the ordinance of fasting was more strict than in the Latin. In one period, however, we have a system of fasts embracing four great fasting seasons: The Quadragesima of Easter and of Christmas, the period of from three to five weeks from the Pentecost Octave (the Greek Feast of All Saints) to that of Peter and Paul on 29th June, and the fourteen days before the Ascension of Mary on 15th August. There were also the νηστεῖαι προεόρτιοι on the evenings previous to other festivals; and finally, the weekly recurring fasts of Wednesday and Friday. The strictest was the pre-Easter fast, observed with gradually advancing rigidness. On Sexagesima Sunday flesh was eaten for the last time, then followed the so-called Butter week, when butter, cheese, milk and eggs were still allowed; but thereafter complete avoidance of all fattening food was enjoined, reaching during the great week to the utmost possible degree of abstinence. In the West instead of Wednesday, Saturday was taken along with Friday, and down to the 13th century it was enjoined that nothing should be eaten on these two days of the week, as also on the quarterly days (_quatuor tempora_) and the evenings preceding the feasts of the most famous Apostles and martyrs, the vigil fasts, until 3 p.m. (_Semijejunium_) or even till 6 p.m. (_Plenum jejunium_); while in the longer seasons of fasting before Easter and before Christmas the injunction was restricted to avoidance of all fat foods (_Abstinentia_).--Continuation § 115, 1.

§ 57. WORSHIP OF SAINTS, RELICS AND IMAGES.[171]

Though with the times of persecution martyrdom had ceased, asceticism where it was preached with unusual severity gave a claim to canonisation which was still bestowed by the people’s voice regarded as the voice of God. Forgotten saints were discovered by visions, and legend insensibly eked out the poverty of historical reminiscences with names and facts. The veneration of martyrs rose all the higher the more pitiable the present generation showed in its lukewarmness and worldliness over against the world-conquering faith of that great cloud of witnesses. The worship of Mary, which came in as a result of the Nestorian controversy, was later of being introduced than that of the martyrs, but it almost immediately shot far ahead and ranked above the adoration of all the other saints. The adoration of Angels, of which we find the beginnings even in Justin and Origen, remained far behind the worship of the saints. Pilgrimages were zealously undertaken, from the time when the emperor’s mother Helena, in A.D. 326, went as a pilgrim to holy places in Palestine and afterwards marked these out by building on them beautiful churches. The worship of images was introduced first in the age of Cyril of Alexandria and was carried out with peculiar eagerness in the art-loving East. The Western teachers, however, and even Gregory the Great himself, only went the length of becoming decoration, using images to secure more impressiveness in teaching and greater liveliness in devotion. In the West, however, still more than in the East, veneration of relics came into vogue.