CHAPTER II

THE SAINTS’ DAYS

1. _The origins of the Cultus of the Saints and the Grounds on which it Rests_

The ecclesiastical year recalls to the memory of the faithful all that God has done for the salvation of mankind, especially through the mysteries of the new Covenant, _i.e._ the life and passion of Jesus Christ, and she re-enacts them, as it were, before their eyes within the compass of each recurring year. To this the Sundays and festivals, especially those from Advent to Pentecost, are devoted. They form an organic whole, constituted in accordance with one definite idea, consisting of the three great festivals Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, each in itself the centre of a special season. The foundations and heart of the whole festal system of the Church were given by a higher Hand, and only the development—the much less important part of the whole—is to be attributed to the thoughts and contrivances of men.

It now remains for us to consider the second division of the Christian festival system—the Saints’ Days. These are distinguished from the feasts of our Lord both by their institution and by their treatment, their distribution throughout the year, their development and their diffusion throughout Christendom.[447]

From the foundation of the Church, there has been no controversy over the holiness and worshipfulness of those who laid down their life for the Christian faith. The New Testament itself did not omit to hand on to posterity the memory of those whose death fell within the apostolic period, such as the Holy Innocents, St James the Great, and before all others the first martyr St Stephen. The seer of the Apocalypse saw the martyrs of Jesus beneath the altar of God, Who did not forget them (Apoc. xvii. 6; vi. 9-11).

Neither did the Church forget them. From its foundation each Christian congregation was at pains to preserve the memory of the martyrs belonging to it. Thus, for example, Pionius and his companions celebrated the “true day” of St Polycarp’s death (_natale genuinum_) at Smyrna in 250, during which festival they were themselves seized and condemned to death.[448] Among the larger congregations, where the number of martyrs rapidly increased, special means were taken at an early date to preserve their memory. This was necessary in large communities if the memory of these heroes of the Faith was not to pass away. It is true that for the Church of Rome alone, do we possess definite information as to her mode of proceeding in this respect, but there is no room for doubt that smaller communities followed on the same lines, and for some indeed we have clear evidence that they did so. In many instances, the reverence which continued to be paid to the tomb of such an individual was sufficient to keep his memory alive. Those who suffered a shameful death as law-breakers in the opinion of the civil power nevertheless received honourable burial. According to Roman ideas earthly Justice was satisfied by the death of the guilty person, the body was given to the relations and friends to be duly buried.[449] Only when there was risk of a tumult was this permission withheld, which happened very rarely in the Roman Empire before the reign of Diocletian—or, where it was a question of high treason.

Not only the relations and friends were careful to preserve the memory of the martyrs, but, as we have already said, the congregation to which they had belonged. While the former erected chapels over the tombs of the martyrs, and preserved the information relating to them, the community on its part marked down in its registers their names and the days on which they suffered. In large communities the Bishops took steps for drawing up authoritative reports concerning the martyrs belonging to their flocks. According to the _Liber Pontificalis_, Clement I. is said to have divided Rome into seven regions, with a Christian notary appointed over each whose business it was carefully to investigate matters of this nature belonging to his region.[450] The size of the city of Rome rendered this necessary. Augustus had divided Rome for civil purposes into fourteen regions, but Clement, for the purpose he had in view, formed one region out of every two. Pope Fabian again adopted similar measures, and enjoined upon the seven sub-deacons the duty of seeing that the seven notaries made a complete collection of the acts of the martyrs. He thus doubled the number of persons employed in this matter, and placed the subdeacons over the notaries.[451] His predecessor Anteros (235-236) collected the _gesta martyrum_, and carefully preserved the Acts of the martyrs, as we learn from a somewhat obscure notice in the _Liber Pontificalis_.[452] This is again referred to in the same work, where it is stated that Pope Caius appointed the regions of the city to the deacons during the Diocletian persecution.

St Cyprian adopted the same plan at Carthage during the persecutions under Decius and Valerian. He ordered the priests and deacons of Carthage not only to interest themselves in every way on behalf of the faith of those in prison, but also to take thought for the bodies of those who died in bonds, even when they died without having undergone torture, and also to keep a record of the name and date of death of each one, in order that his memory might be celebrated along with the memorials of the martyrs.[453] The order to take down the date could be easily obeyed everywhere, since in every city, Calendars engraved on marble tablets were set up for public use.[454]

We have an authoritative document of this kind in the detailed account given by the communities of Lyons and Vienne, of the martyrdoms which took place there under Marcus Aurelius. Owing to its having been sent to Asia Minor, Eusebius was able to utilise it and incorporate the chief parts of it into his history of the Church.

The same thing happened more or less everywhere; the names of the martyrs belonging to the community were entered in the Calendars of the Church, and their memory was celebrated annually on the anniversary of their death. These were the so-called _martyres recogniti_, _i.e._ those who were recognised as martyrs by the community. Each large community, especially the patriarchal Churches, thus possessed their calendar of saints, which became more and more full of names in process of time. Authentic fragments of such calendars are contained in the Roman _Depositio Martyrum_, which, along with the _Depositio Episcoporum_, was compiled not later than the episcopate of Liberius (352-354). Fuller, because less ancient, is the Calendar of Carthage, dating from the end of the fifth century or from the beginning of the sixth, printed by Mabillon in his _Analecta Vetera_,[455] and of which he treats in iii. 398, of this work.

In the third century, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocæsarea in Pontus, was no less zealous than St Cyprian in collecting information concerning the martyrs. He travelled throughout the whole district, inspiring the people everywhere with zeal for the celebration of the memory of those who had suffered for the faith.[456] And thus in all the greater cities, catalogues of the local martyrs were compiled, as Sozomen testifies for two neighbouring towns, Gaza and Constantia. Each of these two towns, he says, had their own bishop and clergy, and also their own festivals of martyrs and catalogues of the priests who had presided over them.[457]

At a much later date, Maximus of Turin gives us some interesting evidence concerning these attempts of the different communities: “As we must celebrate the general commemoration of all the holy martyrs, so, my brethren, ought we to celebrate with special devotion the feasts of those who shed their blood in our own locality. For while all the saints, wherever they may be, assist us all, yet those who suffered for us intercede for us in a special manner. For the martyr suffers not for himself alone, but also for his fellow-citizens. By his sufferings, he obtains for himself a reward in heaven, and gives a good example to his fellow-citizens. He gains rest for himself and salvation for them.”[458]

The official cultus of the saints was at first confined to the martyrs. The earliest example of the public worship of saints, not martyrs, dates from the time of Pope Symmachus, under whom, about A.D. 500, a church was built and dedicated to Pope Silvester and Martin of Tours, in Rome, the _basilica Silvestri et Martini_.[459]

Our information concerning the martyrs is derived from three sources[460]:—

1. The _Acta_, _i.e._ the report of the trial taken down by the notary of the proconsul or procurator (_notarius_, _commentariensis_, and _exceptor_), containing the accusation, the examination, the depositions of the witnesses, the description of the tortures employed and the judgment given. Even in the time of Cicero the evidence of the witnesses was taken down in writing, and during the Empire full reports of both civil and criminal actions were taken and preserved. A proclamation of the Emperor Severus in 194, enjoins that these _acta_ be preserved, and be produced when required for ascertaining the truth. Copies were given for payment to people interested or concerned in the trial. Some of these reports of the trials of the martyrs have come down to us in their original form, and afford the most valuable materials which we possess for the history of early Christian times. The best known are the _Acta Proconsularia S. Cypriani_, along with the acts of Pionius, Maximilian, and Marcellus, etc.

2. _Passiones_, _i.e._ an account of the imprisonment, trial, and execution of the martyrs drawn up by Christian eye-witnesses at the time or immediately afterwards. They are worthy of all credit, for among the Romans legal proceedings took place as a rule in public. It was only under the later emperors that this publicity was so far curtailed that the proceedings were conducted in the basilicas or buildings set apart for that purpose. The earliest and best-known examples of these Passions are the letter of the church of Lyons to the churches of Asia Minor, the _Passio S. Perpetuæ et Felicitatis_, the _Martyrium Polycarpi_, etc.

3. Legends, _i.e._ narratives based upon documents of the nature described above, and worked up by later writers, either for the purpose of edification or from the point of view of a historian. This class of writings is very large, beginning with the account of the martyrdom of St Ignatius. The writings, however, differ endlessly as to their value, according to the knowledge and authority possessed by the writers, and according to their nearness to the date of the events described. There were many martyrs whose sufferings were recorded in no _acta_ or _passiones_, but were imprinted upon the memory of men, and became part of the traditions handed down in the community, until they were finally committed to writing. The later this took place, the worse for the authenticity. For it was then that anachronisms, alterations in titles, changes in the persons, and other similar historical errors could more easily creep into the narrative, as we know, in fact, they have done in many instances. The historical sense was unfortunately lacking to the Franks and Byzantines, as well as all idea of sound criticism.

A false kind of patriotism and national pride often goes along with credulity, so that we find here and there in literature of this kind even downright fabrications. After the introduction of printing, by which literature became more widely diffused and comparative criticism was rendered possible, it at once became evident among Catholics that error was mixed with truth, and that a sifting of the one from the other was necessary, and, in many cases, quite possible. In this province of criticism, those who have most distinguished themselves for judgment and insight are Launoi, Henschen, the Bollandists, Tillemont, Baillet, Ruinart, and in more modern times, Franchi di Cavalieri and others who have avoided extremes in either direction.

The matter from these writings incorporated in the service books possesses the same historical value as the source from which it is drawn. For, as Bäumer justly remarks, “it was not the intention of the Church, or of the compilers and authors of the service books, to claim historical authority for their statements. And so the Popes themselves have directed many emendations to be made in the legends in the Breviary, although many others still remain to be effected.”[461] The legends, by their incorporation into the Breviary, gain no higher degree of credibility than that which the person who incorporated them is able to confer upon them from a purely natural standpoint. This must be emphasised and maintained, for since the time of Bishop Aurelian of Arles,[462] the reading of the histories of the martyrs made its way more and more into the psalmody in the West, and became an essential part of the Breviary.

The honour of having cultivated for the first time the province of hagiography as a whole and not merely in a few particulars, belongs, as far as we know, to the historian Eusebius. Before he completed his history of the Church, he planned a collection of the Acts of the Martyrs (συλλοωὴ τῶν μαρτυρίων), which he quotes in his history (v. 1, 6). Unfortunately this compilation has been lost, although it was probably used by Gregory of Tours.[463] He gives further information in his work on the martyrs of Palestine which took place in his own lifetime during the Diocletian persecution, between 303 and 310. This book seems to have been composed after the completion of his History of the Church.[464] Had we similar writings of the same period relating to other provinces of the Church, we should be better informed concerning those extraordinary events.

The method adopted was plainly that each local community worked for itself alone without troubling itself about what happened elsewhere. The worship of the martyrs was also at first limited to particular localities. Certainly there was no lack of interest in what took place in other districts, as is shown by the letter from the churches of Lyons and Vienne to the Christians of Asia Minor, but liturgical and ecclesiastical worship was paid to the martyrs of the place alone. For example, the Calendar of the Roman Church contained those martyrs alone who belonged to the Roman community; in the same way the Alexandrian Calendar contained only those belonging to Egypt, the Antiochene Calendar only those of Syria, and so on. This state of things continued until the ninth century. A striking proof of this is the fact that Ignatius of Antioch, although he suffered death in Rome, finds no place in either the _Gelasianum_ or the _Gregorianum_, while at Antioch he was venerated as a saint from the beginning. A remarkable exception is the veneration which St Perpetua, St Felicitas, and St Cyprian enjoyed in Rome. In this case the relationship between the mother and the daughter church must be taken into account, for Christianity had spread to Carthage from Rome. From what has been said, it follows that information concerning the manner of a martyr’s death and the exact day on which he suffered, derived from local sources, is trustworthy in the highest degree, but it is forthcoming in a few cases only.

As it was the day of the martyr’s death which was kept and marked in the calendar, it must be observed that this day was sometimes called the martyr’s birthday, _natalis_, _natalitium_, and sometimes also _dies depositionis_. Owing to the burial taking place on the day of death, as was the custom among the ancients, _dies obitus_ and _dies depositionis_ could be used as synonymous terms.[465]

Among the Romans burial followed as soon as the death was certified. Nearly every one belonged to a burial society, which undertook the preparations for the funeral. In addition to these, there were only the preparations in the house to be thought of, and these—the washing and clothing of the corpse—could be quickly performed. Hence the burial could take place in a very short time. The Jews also buried their dead immediately after death, as the story of Ananias and Saphira shows.

The Christians of the first centuries followed out all the customs relating to burial usual in their time and country, excluding only those which were specifically heathen and idolatrous. That they buried their dead with the same expedition as the heathen is clear from an incident related by Tertullian.[466] The burial of a woman who seemed to be dead was for some reason delayed. While she lay ready for burial and the priests were reciting the prayers, she raised up both her hands, and, when the prayer for peace was concluded, laid them down again in their former position. It was only in the fourth century that it began to be the custom to delay burial to the third or fourth day after death,[467] but the earlier practice continued still to exist for a considerable period.[468]

As it was already the custom to inter those who died a natural death on the day of their decease, so there was no reason why the burial of the martyrs should be delayed, and thus with them the _dies obitus_ and the _dies depositionis_ were one and the same. Consequently the ancient dates in question, even when given as that of the burial, are always to be understood as referring to the day of the martyr’s death, and, when they form part of the traditions of the community to which the martyr belonged, they are to be received as absolutely reliable.

In the case of the martyrs, the rule of venerating them on the day of their death admitted of no exception, although it might be set aside in the case of those saints who were not martyrs, for certain reasons and in particular instances. Thus, for example, the day of St Chrysostom’s death, the 14th September, was already occupied in the fourth century by the festival of the Invention of the Holy Cross. St Basil died on the 1st January, and St Ambrose on the 4th April, which fell within the Pascal season. During Lent, no festivals of martyrs were to be celebrated on week-days, according to the fifty-first Canon of Laodicea, but only on Saturdays and Sundays at most. But this prohibition was by no means general.

Besides the lists of the _depositiones_, the service-books, the sacramentaries or missals, helped to preserve the memory of the martyrs.

In the earliest service-books of the Roman and also of a few other churches, the Masses in honour of the martyrs were not classed by themselves apart, but were incorporated with the others, and not separated from the course of the ecclesiastical year, or, to use a modern expression, the _Proprium de Sanctis_ and the _Proprium de Tempore_ were still fused together. Only in the _Gelasianum_ are the _Natalitia sanctorum_ separated from the ecclesiastical year and collected together in the second volume. Still later were the catalogues of the saints formed into independent works, the so-called martyrologies. In the East these began to appear at an early date. In this a return was made to the older arrangement, except that now it was not the martyrs of the local churches alone which were taken into consideration, but those of the Church Universal.

It is just this insertion of the saints’ days in the course of the Church’s year which proves that the names of the martyrs and the days of the commemoration were subject to the control of authority; that is to say, the compilations in question have all the weight attaching to public official documents and to reliable sources of information, and, for this reason, they may be used as material in historical works. Valuable information can be gained from a judicious employment of these compositions.

The restriction of festivals to those commemorating saints of a specific locality disappeared only slowly, and at a late date in the West. It disappeared still later, and only to a limited extent, among the Easterns, who showed a tendency to fill up their calendars with other things rather than with the feasts of foreign martyrs and saints, as, for example, the commemorations of Councils, Old Testament personages, and even the four beasts of the Apocalypse were pressed into the service. In the West the entrance of the Franks and Anglo-Saxons into the Roman Church gave the first impulse to an extension of the martyrologies and calendars in the direction of universalism or universal Catholicity. Both these nations, having no Christian antiquity of their own, adopted along with the ritual of the Roman Church her calendar of saints as well. Soon, however, they added to this the names of their own particular saints, and so prepared the way for more universal ideas; while, on the contrary, the Roman Church did not include in her calendar the saints and martyrs of the Franks and Anglo-Saxons. Only at the revision of the service-books in the sixteenth century did she so far yield as to act in some degree upon the principle of Catholicity in this matter. The subsequent increase and development of the festivals of the saints in the Calendar of the Catholic Church had a disturbing effect upon the ecclesiastical year and daily office. Ordinary Sundays have lost their position and have given place to the commemoration of saints, and green vestments only rarely make their appearance. The first step towards the general observance of the cultus of particular saints throughout the Church, and the admission of other than merely local saints to a place in the devotions of each community, may have been effected by the Litanies which came into use in France. The oldest form of a Litany of the Saints is contained in the prayer-book of Charles the Bald.[469]

The saintly personages of the Old Testament have really the same right to veneration as those of the New, being justified through faith in the future Messias, many of them were martyrs, and all attained to the Beatific Vision after our Lord’s resurrection. They are on this account called blessed by St Paul in Heb. xi. 4-39. The synagogue paid no worship to saints, but honoured the memory of the prophets so far as to erect monuments over their graves (St Matt. xxiii. 29). Accordingly there was nothing to prevent the same cultus being paid to them as to the saints of the New Testament, yet nevertheless it remained exceptional. Eastern calendars contain the names of many Old Testament worthies, Western calendars only a few, and the Roman Church commemorates none with the exception of the Machabees. But even the Eastern Churches have appointed no days in their honour, and so this part of the worship of the saints lies without the scope of this work.[470]

2. _The Festivals of St John the Baptist and St Stephen the Proto-Martyr_

In saying that in antiquity the worship of the martyrs was confined to the localities to which they belonged, it must be borne in mind that this rule admitted of two exceptions from the first. St John the Baptist and St Stephen the Proto-martyr, were honoured throughout the whole Christian Church from the beginning; their commemoration was universally celebrated, and even the former was regarded as a martyr in the ecclesiastical sense of the word.

The Baptist had at once been designated by his father in a moment of prophetic inspiration as a prophet and the Forerunner of the Lord, and later on he received from our Lord Himself the recognition of his remarkable sanctity (St Matt. xi. 11). Accordingly it causes no surprise to find proof of his worship and his festivals at a very early date. The latter already appear in the sermons of St Augustine as _solemnitates_, and as fixed on definite dates. Indeed, in course of time a regular little cycle of festivals of the Baptist came into existence. The date of his birth, for instance, was fixed by that of our Lord, as falling six months before Christmas; nine months earlier came the date of his conception,[471] and, in addition to these, the day of his death was celebrated on the 29th August, under the title of _Passio_ or _Decollatio_.

The festival of St John’s birth does not appear indeed in the Calendars of Philocalus and Polemius Silvius, although it is found in the most ancient calendar of the African Church, and in the list of festivals drawn up by Perpetuus of Tours. Among the sermons of St Peter Chrysologus and Maximus of Turin there are also to be found many allusions to it. It was numbered, by the Council of Agde in 506, among the chief feasts on which all the faithful must attend divine service in their parish churches and not in private oratories.[472] In the Middle Ages servile work was proscribed on it,[473] and until our own times it continued universally to rank as a high festival, but at the present time it is kept as such in only a few countries, as we have observed on page 35.

The festival of the Baptist’s conception was celebrated, especially in the East, and appears in the Calendars of Calcasendi and of the Syrians, also in the Neapolitan Calendars, and in that of Silos as well as in the Mozarabic Calendar, in the Calendar of Bede, in the Greek calendars, and in both menologies, _i.e._ that of Constantinople and that of Basil. Its introduction[474] at an early date is due to the circumstance that St John’s conception was announced by the angel, and also to the supposition, which appears as early as St Augustine, that by the meeting of his mother with Mary he was already purified from original sin before his birth.

The 29th August was kept as the commemoration of his death at an early date, both in Africa and in the East. The collection of St Augustine’s sermons contains two sermons for this festival (307 and 308), and it has its place among the festivals in the list of Perpetuus. The same date is given in the Coptic Calendar in Selden, in the Syrian, Neapolitan, and Mozarabic. As regards Rome, it had not yet made its way into the Leonine sacramentary, though it is found in the _Gelasianum_.

In addition, a so-called _synaxis_ of St John the Baptist is marked in the two Greek menologies. This is an instance of a peculiar custom among the Greeks, according to which, after certain chief feasts of our Lord and our Lady, there is held a second festival, or _synaxis_, on the following day, in honour of the personages who had taken part in the event commemorated by the feast. Thus with the feast of the 2nd February is coupled that of St Simeon, with that of the Nativity of our Lady, the feast of Joachim and Anna, and here, after Epiphany, the day of Christ’s baptism, we have the feast of St John the Baptist, on the 7th January.[475]

The cultus of St John the Baptist received a great extension throughout the whole Church in the fourth and fifth centuries, owing to the discovery of his relics. The records of the Church contain much information concerning both the discovery and the translation of these relics, though they give rise to insoluble difficulties.

In the first place one must bear in mind how the disciples of St John, on hearing of the death of their teacher in the fortress of Machærus,[476] came and took his body and buried it (St Matt. xiv. 12; St Mark vi. 29). The head doubtless remained at first in the keeping of Herodias, who had accepted it as a present. According to a creditable tradition, Samaria was the place of St John’s burial, as it was outside the limits of Herod’s tetrarchy, and under the jurisdiction of the Roman governor. The remains reposed there until the persecution of Julian in 362, when the pagan rabble violated the tomb and burnt the remains. A portion of them, however, was saved by monks and carried to Alexandria, where Athanasius deposited them provisionally in a church. Later on they were placed in the church erected by the Patriarch Theophilus in honour of the Baptist in the ruins of the destroyed Serapeum. The dedication of this church followed on the 27th May 385 or 386.[477] Tillemont was inclined to regard the 29th August as the day of the translation, which in this case as in others came to be regarded as the ecclesiastical commemoration of the event. Against this, however, is the fact that the more ancient Coptic Calendars know nothing of the 29th August as a feast of the Baptist.[478]

With regard to the saint’s head, there are two different accounts in existence. According to one account, given by Sozomen (7, 21), it is said to have been found in Jerusalem in the possession of monks belonging to the sect of the Macedonians, who carried it to Cilicia, when they were driven out from that city. When the Emperor Valens heard of this, he despatched an official to convey the relic to Constantinople. As they approached Chalcedon, the mules which drew the vehicle in which the messenger travelled with the relic refused to proceed any further, and all efforts to continue the route were unavailing—a circumstance frequently repeated in later legends. Valens and his court regarded this as miraculous and did not venture to bring the relic near the city. Accordingly it remained in a village near Chalcedon in charge of adherents of the Macedonian sect, until the reign of Theodosius, who brought it to Hebdomon, a suburb of Constantinople, where he had a church erected in honour of the Baptist.

The Paschal Chronicle makes mention of this translation in 391, as well as of another under the date 453, without throwing any light on the connection of the one with the other. This second translation, of which Rufinus also speaks (“Hist. Eccl.” 2, 28), is said to have come about in the following manner.

The head is reported to have been brought from Machærus to Jerusalem and there buried. In the time of Constantine it was taken to Emesa and hidden away in a cave. Why this was necessary at that particular period is not stated. Here it was discovered by a priest called Marcellus, the superior of a monastery in those parts. He composed a long and detailed account of the discovery, containing also a history of the previous vicissitudes of the relic.[479] The discovery was made in consequence of many dreams, and a fiery star is said to have guided Marcellus to the spot where the sacred treasure rested in an urn, deeply buried in the earth. Marcellus informed Bishop Uranius of Emesa of his discovery, and the bishop solemnly removed the relic on the 24th February, 452. It was first of all placed in the cathedral, and then soon afterwards in a chapel expressly built to receive it, to which it was conveyed on the 26th September of the same year. Here it rested under the Mohammedan dominion, and in 760 a large church was even built to replace the chapel. We have here a threefold translation of the head of St John the Baptist. It is asserted that a part of it is preserved at Amiens which was brought thither from Constantinople in the thirteenth century. Two of the three days commemorating these translations are marked in the Greek menologies, the 24th February and the 26th September.[480] The story of these translations throws no light upon the choice of 29th August for the beheading of the saint.

From a liturgical point of view, the birth of the Baptist was kept with special distinction at Rome in earlier times. In the Leonine sacramentary it is already provided with a vigil. Other saints’ days indeed were similarly provided, but the vigil of St John was to be kept as a fast, and, moreover, in addition to the two formularies for the Mass of his feast, there are two more specially intended for use in the Baptistery of St John. As early as the fifth century in Rome, three Masses seem to have been celebrated on St John’s Day as on Christmas, one on the vigil after Vespers, one during the night, and the third on the morning of the 24th June—this last being celebrated in the Baptistery. In the _Gelasianum_ we find only two Masses, one for the vigil, and one for the day itself, but in the _Gregorianum_ we find three again to be said at special times, as in the _Leoninum_.[481] Accordingly, Menard observes that Alcuin[482] also speaks of three Masses on St John’s Day commemorating the three great triumphs—as he calls them—which the Baptist had celebrated in preparing the way for our Lord, in baptizing Him, and in having been a Nazarite from his mother’s womb. The ordo of the Canon Benedict of St Peter’s, belonging to the year 1143, makes no mention of three Masses, though it speaks of two offices.[483] When the Council of Seligenstadt in 1022 (cap. 1) prescribed abstinence for the fourteen days before St John, it was acting without precedent, and was influenced by the desire to make the festival of the forerunner as like to Christmas as possible.

As at Rome, so too in Latin North Africa, the Nativity of the Baptist must have been celebrated with special honour, for we possess no fewer than seven sermons of St Augustine on it, and he distinctly speaks of it as a festival which had come down from his predecessors.[484]

THE PROTO-MARTYR ST STEPHEN. The cultus of this saint received also a great impulse from the discovery of his relics at Kaphar-Gamala.[485] This took place on the 5th December, in consequence of a revelation said to have been made to a priest of Jerusalem called Lucianus, in presence of John Bishop of Jerusalem, and of a Spanish priest from Braga, named Avitus, who was then stopping in Jerusalem. Lucianus wrote an account of the event in the form of a letter to all the churches,[486] which Avitus translated into Latin.[487] Whereupon the worship of the first martyr spread, one might say, in every direction. Pilgrims seeking relief from their sufferings visited his churches and chapels, numerous answers to prayer and miracles of healing followed, of which the sermons of St Augustine and his work on the “City of God” afford evidence.[488] Pope Simplicius († 483) erected a basilica in St Stephen’s honour at Rome. The festival of the discovery of his relics was fixed for the 3rd August.

Upon their discovery the relics were first taken to Jerusalem, but portions of them were bestowed upon other places, as, for example, a hand to the city of Constantinople, or rather to the Emperor Theodosius II.,[489] and smaller relics elsewhere. In the year 439 the Empress Eudocia brought the remaining relics to Constantinople and had them placed in the basilica of St Lawrence.[490] Over the tomb a chapel was erected, well known to pilgrims of the sixth century as the grave of St Stephen.[491] St Augustine, in the passages already quoted, speaks of churches erected in St Stephen’s honour in many places.

The worship of St Stephen, however, does not date merely from this period, but was much older, and may even be said to be as old as the Church herself, since St Paul gave him the title of “Martyr of Christ” (Acts xxii. 20). Many churches and chapels were dedicated to him in Constantinople, of which the oldest was built by or under Constantine, if Codinus is rightly informed.[492]

Apart from this, his name is to be found already in the earliest liturgical sources, _e.g._ the Arian martyrology, belonging to about 360, and in all Calendars ancient and modern excepting the Coptic Calendars, published by Selden and Calcasendi. A remarkable variation is observable with respect to the date, for the most ancient Calendars and also the Roman give it invariably as the 26th December, while the Eastern Calendars give it sometimes on the 27th, _e.g._ the two menologies of Constantinople and the Syrian lectionary. It cannot now be ascertained whether one of these days was the day of his martyrdom or not; it is not impossible, but it must be observed that the Coptic Calendar given in Mai notices only a discovery of his relics on the 27th December, with which agrees a later tradition of the Egyptian Church.[493] Accordingly the 26th or 27th December may have been observed as only the day of a translation of St Stephen’s relics.

3. _Festivals of our Blessed Lady in General_

The unique position occupied by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the scheme of salvation called for a corresponding recognition from the Church in the development of her festal system. As a matter of fact the Church has amply discharged this duty, inasmuch as not only the events in our Lady’s life recorded in Scripture have been made the occasion of festivals, but others also not mentioned therein. A considerable period, however, elapsed before this work was accomplished. This circumstance has been explained by reference to the fact that the Church, while paganism was still in power, refrained from publicly honouring the parents of our Lord after the flesh, on account of the myths and genealogies current about the gods. More weight may be given to the circumstance that the facts relating to the life of Jesus and the redemption He accomplished had first to be commemorated by fixed festivals before an extension of the Calendar in other directions could be thought of. Then again, in the early ages, it was felt to be an imperative duty to duly honour the commemorations of the numerous martyrs, and the custom of appointing days for the commemoration of saints not martyrs only came into existence later.

The cultus paid to the Mother of God by the Church existed long before the institution of her feasts, for Constantine is said to have built three churches in her honour in his new capital. According to recent investigations, a Church dedicated to her, Maria Antiqua,[494] is said to have existed in Rome before the erection of the Liberian basilica, generally reckoned as the oldest Church of our Lady in the Eternal City. It is certain that Ephesus had a noteworthy Church of our Lady in 431, in which the third Ecumenical Council held its meetings.

As regards festivals, all the churches of the ancient patriarchates observe many of them, especially the oriental Greeks and the Roman Catholic; the latter, without question, observes the largest number. But the ancient Church of Egypt also distinguished itself by its zeal for the worship of our Lady, and in the Coptic Calendars we find a _commemoratio Dominæ Virginis Mariæ_ on the 21st (corresponding to the 15th in the Julian Calendar) of each month.[495] Formerly every Saturday was generally dedicated to her. The first certain instance of the observance of a festival in honour of the Mother of God, which has so far come to light, is found in the panegyric on St Theodosius, preached by Theodore about the year 500. In this it is stated that a commemoration of the holy Mother of God (θεοτόκου μνήμη) was celebrated annually in the Palestinian monasteries, attended by a concourse of all the monks. Unfortunately neither the date of this festival nor its name is given, although there is good reason for thinking that it was the feast of the 15th August, which had been regarded as the day of our Lady’s death from the earliest times.[496] In Spain, in the time of Bishop Ildephonsus of Toledo († 667), a festival of the Mother of God was also solemnly observed. This prelate made penitential processions (_litaniæ_) in the three preceding days, and composed a special mass for the feast. Here again the particular name of the feast is unfortunately not given. Still it can only have been the feast of the 15th August.[497]

The number of feasts of our Lady observed at the present time in the Catholic Church is, as we have said, considerable, among them being some which affect the public life of the community and some whose observance is confined to the four walls of the Church. They can also be classified as greater and lesser, or, according to the date of their institution, as earlier or later. Among the greater feasts are the Conception, Birth, Annunciation and Assumption of our Blessed Lady, and Candlemas; among the lesser are the Presentation of our Lady in the Temple, her Espousals, the Visitation, and now the Feast of the Holy Rosary.

It is not, however, possible to speak, as many liturgists do, of a Marian ecclesiastical year. For the dates of our Lady’s feasts, viewed in their chronological order, overlap the limits of the year, and being subject to the same principles which regulate saints’ days, fall invariably on fixed days in the Calendar, and so cannot be said to form an integral part of the ecclesiastical year. Nevertheless they form in themselves a cycle of festivals, as is also the case in a lesser degree with regard to St John the Baptist. Two of them, however, have been brought into connection, at least externally, with the ecclesiastical year, _i.e._ the Annunciation, whose date depends upon Christmas, and the Visitation, whose date is regulated by the births of Christ and St John the Baptist. The former interrupts the course of the Church’s year, and falls within a cycle of feasts with which it has no inner connection. The Conception of our Blessed Lady, the latest in date of her great feasts, depends naturally upon the date of her birth. Finally, nothing can be said touching the grounds which led to the choice of these dates, for no historical evidence for the first institution of these festivals has come down to us. They have been appointed and sanctioned by custom.

We shall first deal with the great festivals of our Lady, the observance of which affected public life. From these we omit Candlemas, originally regarded rather as a festival of our Lord. Three others—the Nativity, Annunciation, and Assumption—can be considered together as far as their institution is concerned, inasmuch as they made their appearance in history at the same period—that is to say, in the seventh century. The reliable evidence for their introduction in Rome is confined to the following; in the later MSS. of the _Gregorianum_ appears a notice which confines the work of Gregory the Great to the first part of the sacramentary. This is the important preface “Hucusque.”[498] In this it is stated the entire preceding part of the book is due to Gregory I., with the exception of what concerns the Nativity and Assumption of our Lady, and a few other matters. From this it follows that the sacramentary used in the time of Gregory I. did not contain these two festivals of the Mother of God.

They had been already introduced, however, by the end of the seventh century. This is clear from the fact that they appear in the _Gelesianum_, and, secondly, from a statement in the life of Sergius I. (687-701),[499] to the effect that this pope directed that on the Annunciation, Nativity, and Assumption of our Lady, and in the festival which the Greeks call _Hypapante_, a procession (_litania_) should go from St Adrian’s to St Mary Major’s. These festivals were at that time already observed in Rome, when Sergius ordered these processions as adjuncts to existing festivals. This comprises all the reliable evidence at our disposal regarding these feasts of our Lady.[500]

All that we can with certainty deduct therefrom is that these three principal feasts of our Lady were introduced in the Roman Church only in the course of the seventh century. The sermons belonging to the same period also support this conclusion. The rich collections of sermons of St Augustine, St Leo the Great, Peter Chrysologus,[501] Fulgentius, and Maximus of Turin, contain no sermons for feasts of the Mother of God. All the chief, and also the majority of the lesser, feasts of our Lady had their origin rather in the East, and only at a comparatively late date made their way into the West. This also explains why none of them have been incorporated, as most of them might easily have been, into the ecclesiastical year. Their adoption by Rome resulted from the political dependence of Italy on Byzantium and from the intimate relations existing between the Apostolic See and the Imperial Court.

4. _The Three Ancient Festivals of our Blessed Lady—the Nativity, the Annunciation, the Assumption_

(1) THE NATIVITY OF OUR LADY

The spread of this feast seems to have been retarded, for it does not appear in many Calendars which contain the Assumption, _i.e._ in the Gotho-Gallican, in that of Luxeuil, in the Toledan Calendar of the tenth century, and in the Mozarabic; that it is not to be found in older Calendars goes without saying. On the other hand, it appears along with the Assumption in the _Gelasianum_ and in the Frankish Calendars drawn up under Roman influence in the Carolingian period, the earliest being those of Reims and Bede. It cannot be said to have been generally celebrated in the eighth and ninth centuries, although in many places it makes its appearance much earlier. Some writers have maintained that, on the whole, Fulbert of Chartres († 1028) was the first to introduce it.[502] But this is certainly wrong. Nevertheless he probably exerted himself to spread the observance of the feast in the northern parts of France, since we have two sermons of his preached on the feast, the oldest genuine Latin sermons on this festival, as it seems. In Greek there are two sermons of Andrew of Crete dealing also with the festival.[503] Evidence is wanting to show why the 8th September was chosen for the Nativity of our Lady.

(2) THE ANNUNCIATION

The official title of this feast is now _Annuntiatio B. Mariæ Virginis_, but formerly other titles were used, _i.e._ _Annuntiatio Angeli ad B.V.M._, _Annuntiatio Domini_,[504] _Annuntiatio Christi_, or even _Conceptio Christi_, etc., showing that it was regarded more as a festival of our Lord than of our Lady. That it owes its existence entirely to Christmas, and depends upon the date (25th December) assigned to the birth of Christ, requires no proof. But the reference to Mary is so striking that it could not fail to be regarded as essentially one of her feasts.

It is well known that the custom of the ancient Church was not to celebrate the festivals of martyrs and other saints during Lent, which rule the Spanish Church followed even with regard to this feast. But in Constantinople an exception was made in its favour, which was expressly approved by the fifty-second canon of the Trullan Council. The feast is absent from the ancient Gallican Missal and the Lectionary of Luxeuil, but in Rome, according to the evidence afforded by the _Gelasianum_ and _Gregorianum_, the feast was observed on the same date as in the East.

The feast of our Lady in Advent (S. Mariæ), noted, without further specification, in the Lectionary of Silos dating from about 650, can be no other than the Annunciation. Soon afterwards, however, the tenth Council of Toledo (656) took occasion to remark upon the difference of date. External influences (_traducti homines_) had been the cause. The Council decided in favour of the date hitherto observed in Spain, and ordained in its first canon that the feast should be celebrated throughout Spain eight days before Christmas—on the 18th December.

But in the East the other date was already so widely observed that it was even employed as a fixed indication of time, as, for example, when the Alexandrian Paschal Chronicle states in 624 that Heraclius and his forces started for the East on the day of Mary’s Annunciation.[505] This, along with other indications, shows that in the East the festival had been earlier adopted and was widely spread. A circumstance of special importance is that the schismatic Armenians, whose ecclesiastical year in other respects is very primitive in character, observe this feast. They keep it, however, on the 7th April. This is due to the fact that they have not adopted Christmas, and still celebrate the birth of Christ in the ancient manner on the 6th January. Counting back nine months from this date one arrives at the 7th April. The Armenians certainly celebrated this festival before their separation from the Church. It was known and loved in the East as early as the fifth century, as the sermons of Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople († 446), and of Peter Chrysologus of Ravenna († 450), prove.[506]

Both methods of dating the festival existed side by side for a long period. The majority was in favour of the 25th March, but the other date was not without supporters, especially in Upper Italy, for according to the Milanese rite the _Annuntiatio_ falls in Advent, and, indeed, on the fourth Sunday. In southern France the difference in date gave rise to sundry differences and disputes which terminated in a victory for the Roman usage. Certain Spanish monks, who came to Cluny under Abbot Odilo, desired to celebrate the festival after their own fashion, which was at first allowed them. In the eleventh century several Councils occupied themselves with the question, and decided, obviously out of regard for Rome, for the 25th March.[507]

A further consideration of the question shows that an agreement was arrived at by both parties. The Spaniards, in their _Missale Mixtum_, celebrated the feast twice—on the 18th December and the 25th March—with the same Mass,[508] and in Rome, in eighteenth century,[509] the feast of the _Expectatio Partus B.M.V._, was placed on the 18th December, the Gospel for the Mass being that of the Annunciation.

The sermons of Proclus already referred to give rise to an important observation. This preacher in other passages of his works enumerates the festivals celebrated in his time and in his diocese, among which, strange to say, the Annunciation does not appear.[510] Since there are not only two sermons of his composed for this feast, but the day itself is clearly marked out as a festival, this contradiction can only be explained by the fact that in the fifth century the Annunciation was kept simply as a festival inside the Church, but had not yet won its way to public recognition.

If the conception of the ecclesiastical year taken in Section I. of this chapter be assumed as correct, the Annunciation is most suitably observed in Advent, where it was correctly placed in the ancient Spanish liturgy. But owing to the fact that the Eastern Church did not sufficiently carry out the idea which underlay the ecclesiastical year, the feasts of our Lady were not incorporated therein, but were treated as ordinary saints’ days by being tied down to fixed dates. And so it comes to pass that with us the Annunciation, instead of coming in Advent, falls in Lent, and from time to time even in Holy Week, where it is singularly out of place. In North America, when this feast falls on one of the three last days of Holy Week or in Easter Week, it is now transferred, which on the whole may be regarded as a desirable arrangement.

(3) THE DEATH AND ASSUMPTION OF OUR LADY

In all probability this is the earliest of our Lady’s feasts. From the beginning, there was a general sentiment in the Church which led to the days on which the martyrs suffered being kept as solemn commemorations. The same thing took place at a later date with regard to the other classes of saints—confessors, virgins, etc.—and so Christian sentiment was soon directed towards the question of our Blessed Lady’s death. It is highly probable, if not certain, that the feast of our Lady, mentioned above as having been celebrated by the monks in Palestine, was that which we are now considering. Both in the East and in Rome the 15th August was kept as the day of our Lady’s death, while we find another date observed in Gaul.

As regards the references to the decease of the Holy Virgin found in patristic literature, we find Epiphanius alluding to it, but in such general terms as to show he knew nothing about it for certain.[511] Then we have a letter of the so-called Areopagite Dionysius containing the essential points of the tradition for the death and burial of the Holy Virgin, which we find later on in St John Damascene. The date of this letter depends upon the view taken of the author and date of the pseudo-Dionysian writings. The garden of Gethsemani is named as the place of burial.[512] The same tradition appears in the apocryphal Apocalypse on the “_transitus_” of Mary, where the year of her death is given as the third after our Lord’s resurrection,[513] while other authorities give it as the twelfth.

The chief authority, however, for the event is St John Damascene. Relying on the history of an otherwise unknown Euthymius, he describes the circumstances in detail. According to this informant, Pulcheria, wife of the Emperor Marcian (450-457), had erected a Church in honour of the Holy Virgin in the suburb of Constantinople called Blachernæ, to which she wished to translate the earthly remains of our Lady. With this end in view, she addressed herself to Bishop Juvenal of Jerusalem during the sitting of the Council of Chalcedon, but he informed the Emperor and Empress that the body of the Mother of God was not to be found in Jerusalem. She had indeed been buried there in the Garden of Gethsemani in the presence of all the Apostles; Thomas alone was absent, and only arrived on the third day after the burial; in order that he too might venerate the body of the Mother of God, the tomb was opened, but nothing was found save the linen grave-clothes, which gave forth a fragrant perfume. Whereupon the Apostles concluded that our Lord had taken up into heaven the body which had borne Him. In his panegyric on the Holy Virgin, Modestus, Patriarch of Jerusalem († 634), states that already in the seventh century there was a special festival in Jerusalem to celebrate her decease (κοίμησις). In addition, we have sermons dealing with this event by Andrew of Crete († 720 _circ._) and Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople († 733).[514] The bodily assumption of Mary into heaven was already known in the West in the sixth century, and is alluded to in Gregory of Tours.[515]

The Emperor Maurice is said to have appointed the festival of our Lady’s death (κοίμησις τῆς παναγίου καί θεομητέρος), and fixed it on the 15th August. Although this information is given by an historian of a much later date,[516] it must not be altogether set aside. Maurice may well have given official recognition to the festival, and by so doing settled the question of the day on which it was to be kept. The festival itself was, however, much older, for not only the heretical sects, which separated from the Church in the fifth century, such as the Monophysites and Nestorians, preserved this festival at the time of their separation, but most ancient national Churches, such as the Armenian and Ethiopian, have it in their Calendars. Accordingly the 15th August must have already been generally regarded in the Church as the day of our Lady’s death before the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, although not mentioned by historians of that time.

We have unfortunately no information concerning the introduction of this festival in Rome. All we know is that it was celebrated there along with our Lady’s Nativity and Annunciation under Sergius I., at the end of the seventh century. About 847 Leo IV. ordained that it should be celebrated with a vigil and octave in the basilica of St Lawrence without the Walls. In the Gothico-Gallican missal of the seventh or eighth century, edited by Mabillon,[517] the festival is placed on the 18th January,[518] and not on the 15th August, as is also the case in the Lectionary of Luxeuil of the seventh century. This circumstance points to the conclusion that, independently of Byzantine influence, it was observed already at an earlier date in other parts of the Church as well, and came into existence spontaneously, so to speak.

It is also noteworthy that the feast appears already with the title _Assumptio_ in the canons of Bishop Sonnatius of Rheims, composed sometime about the year 630.[519] In the canons ascribed to St Boniface some amount of vacillation is observable. By the thirty-sixth canon of the Council of Mainz, in 813, it is appointed as a feast for the whole Frankish Empire, while the earlier Council of 809 had decided nothing concerning its adoption.

Among the Latins the festival did not at first bear the name _Assumptio_, but was called _Domitio_ or _Pausatio_, corresponding to the Greek title. This name left the particular object of the feast uncertain—whether it commemorated merely the decease or the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven. It was probably due to this that in the ninth century doubts as to the latter were here and there expressed.[520]

Unlike both Easterns and Westerns, the Copts have placed the death and bodily resurrection of the Mother of God on the 16th January (21st Tybi). We find it so in the _Synaxarium_ of the ninth century in Mai, and in that of Michael of Atriba; while the older Calendar of saints belonging to the seventh century given by Seldenius has a “_Planctus Dominæ Mariæ_” on this day, which may well mean the same thing.[521]

In not a few German and Sclavonic dioceses a blessing of the fruits of the field takes place on the 15th August. This is of ancient Germanic origin, but has been adopted into the Roman ritual. It seems to have arisen from some popular custom connected with harvest.[522]

5. _Institution and Spread of the Festival of the Immaculate Conception_

The two dogmatic definitions formulated during the pontificate of Pius IX. had this in common that they came as a surprise to many, although they only set at rest questions which had been ventilated for centuries. This is especially the case with regard to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, for the discussion of the question had been prolonged during a thousand years. Bound up with the discussion was the contention whether the festival in question ought or ought not to be celebrated; and these two things, the theoretical treatment of the doctrine, and the fortunes of the festival, were most intimately connected with one another, and found at one and the same moment their final solution. Indeed, the festival has a longer history than the doctrinal controversy. For the observation that Church festivals required a long time from their inception—which is for the most part to be looked for in monasteries—until they obtained general approbation and acceptance from the ecclesiastical authorities, applies to many festivals; but none has had so long and changeful a history as the festival of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. It has now, for the last fifty years, been celebrated as a festival of obligation throughout the Catholic Church, and has even been adopted in those countries which formerly set themselves most strongly against the increase of ecclesiastical holy days.

Our object is to give a comprehensive and detailed history of the vicissitudes of this festival, while leaving aside the history of the doctrine. Naturally they cannot be kept entirely distinct, still the latter shall only be touched upon in so far as is necessary for the elucidation of the history of the feast.[523] Passaglia and his collaborator Clemens Schrader, S.J., in their well known work, “_De Immaculato Deiparæ Conceptu_” (Rome, 1854 and 1855, 3 vols. 4to.), have given us a rich and noteworthy collection of materials for this purpose. We must do justice to the immense learning expended upon this work both in its dogmatic and historical sections, but the historical explanations can no longer be regarded as satisfactory. On the one hand, subsequent investigations have brought fresh facts to light which give a new turn to the history; and, on the other, Passaglia was deficient in the critical faculty, and merely in order to marshal as many proofs as possible, he made use of several which cannot stand close investigation, and must be set aside if the whole question is not to be misrepresented.

For the correct understanding and examination of the sources of evidence, it must first be observed that anciently both among the Greeks and the Latins the term _conceptio_ (σύλληψις) was taken in the active sense, while we are accustomed to take it in the passive sense. _Conceptio Mariæ Virg._ signified then the conception of Christ by Mary, while the (passive) conception of Mary was called the _Conceptio S. Annæ_.

Thus it follows that the festival of “the Conception of Mary” and the festival of “the Immaculate Conception” are not the same thing. Originally only a _festum Conceptionis B.M.V._ was celebrated, and only in course of centuries has a _festum Immaculatæ Conceptionis_ been evolved therefrom. This must not be regarded as a mere question of terms which might be employed interchangeably. Passaglia has not sufficiently emphasised this distinction, and consequently his presentation of the facts creates the impression that there was already in the fifth century a festival of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which is altogether erroneous. The simple statement of the facts will make this clear, and show that in the course of centuries the feast originally celebrated as the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was changed into a feast of the Immaculate Conception. This change came about in proportion as the matter was made clearer by dogmatic discussion, and as the doctrine of Mary’s exemption from original sin gained adherents in the schools. Even when this doctrine had found general acceptance in the West, and had authoritatively received the support both of conciliar decrees and of papal dogmatic decisions, the ancient title of the feast still remained in use for a long time. If we consult the service-books printed before 1854, we find in them indeed on the 8th December the _festum conceptionis_, but the word _immaculata_ is nowhere found in the office for the feast. An orderly representation of the historical facts concerned will show how this was brought about.

Evidence shows that the feast of our Lady’s Conception arose in the Eastern Church, and had gained civil recognition in the Byzantine Empire at a time, when in the West, ecclesiastical circles were still debating whether or not its celebration ought to be permitted. In a constitution entitled, “Concerning the days of the year which are whole holidays and half holidays,” the Emperor Manuel Comnenus in 1166 recognised it as a public festival on which servile work was forbidden. Now it is a known fact that the civil authorities are slow to give recognition to ecclesiastical festivals, and accordingly festivals have often been celebrated by the Church for a long period before they received the recognition of the State. So it was in this case. The Calendar of the Church of Constantinople in which the feast of the 9th December is marked as the “festival of the Conception of St Anne, the mother of the Theotocos,” is a century and a half older than this constitution. It bears the name of the Emperor Basil, meaning the second of this name surnamed Porphyriogenitus (976-1025), and, accordingly, it follows that even then the festival had received some lesser degree of recognition from the State.[524]

Concerning the date of the introduction of this feast, we have detailed information in a sermon of John of Eubœa, who lived in the middle of the eighth century. He was first a monk and then Bishop of the island, and was contemporary with St John Damascene, whom he occasionally visited. John declares that there are ten points in the life of the Holy Virgin which must be commemorated, and these he enumerates in the tenth section of his sermon. The most of them are at the same time feasts of our Lord, the only ones entirely relating to our Lady being her Nativity, Annunciation, and Assumption. With regard to the feast of our Lady’s Conception, John hesitates. First of all, in the passage referred to above, he enumerates it among the feasts, but at the end of his sermon he states that it is not acknowledged by all,[525] but he speaks highly in its favour, and considers in conclusion that it ought to be celebrated. From this it is plain that in his time the feast was not yet generally accepted, and that he exerted himself to spread it. If Passaglia, who quotes this sermon as evidence for the feast, had noticed this passage, he would have learnt that in the eighth century the festival had not yet become generally popular in purely ecclesiastical circles, such as among the specially devout and the religious, and he would have avoided the mistake of throwing back the inception of the feast to the fifth century in reliance on an interpolated and much later _Typicum S. Sabæ_.[526] John mentions the 9th December as the day of the feast. The contents of this sermon of his are in other respects of no importance.

George of Nicomedia, who lived about a century later, is the second Greek preacher of whom we possess a sermon for this festival.[527] It bears the title, “Concerning the Conception of St Anne,” and was delivered upon a festal occasion (πανήγυρις), and the day is already distinctly called a feast (ἑορτή). George considered it no longer necessary to merely commend the acceptance of the feast, but regarded its adoption as a matter of course. He reveals, however, the comparatively late date of its institution, by saying that the day was not to be kept “as one only recently added to the Calendar, but as one adopted on the best grounds, since it naturally belonged to the course of the year and is prescribed by the nature of things. In doing so we become partakers of the joy it promises.”

As far as the East is concerned these two witnesses are sufficient, especially as they throw light on the date of the institution of the feast. As in other cases, so here the origin of the feast is doubtless to be sought in religious communities. They were the first to think of honouring this act of redemption. It was certainly the monks, to whom is due the development of the Church’s psalmody, who in their canonical hours celebrated Mary’s Conception, and appointed a special day for this purpose, the 9th December, which was always kept as such in the Greek menologies. In course of time the feast issued forth from the limits of the monasteries, and from the inner circles of the devout, and attained publicity. Preachers glorified it. It met with a sympathetic reception in ever widening circles, until it gradually attained the rank, if not of a feast of obligation, at any rate, of a simple feast of devotion, and, finally, it obtained both ecclesiastical and civil authorisation.

The Byzantine Empire comprised during the whole of the period of which we have been speaking, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia. In the eighth century Byzantium was no longer able to retain its hold over the duchy of Rome and the Exarchate of Ravenna; at a still later date it lost Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, especially when the Normans settled in those parts. It retained its hold over the city of Naples longest of all; it was only in 1127 that Naples was taken by Roger II., who had himself crowned king of the Two Sicilies in 1130.

The constitution of Manuel Comnenus of 1166 mentioned above was never promulgated in Naples, and had no force there, but the connection with Byzantium had lasted sufficiently long for the feast of Mary’s Conception to obtain an entrance into Naples. That it actually did make its way there is proved by the Calendar of the Neapolitan Church of the ninth century, engraved on marble, and showing traces of Byzantine influence, which was discovered in 1742 in the Church of San Giovanni Maggiore. Apart from the historical facts which we have mentioned, the name and date of the feast—_Conceptio S. Annæ_, and the ninth December—show a Byzantine origin. And so in respect of the history of this feast, Naples, along with Lower Italy and Sicily, must be classed with the Eastern half of the Catholic Church as celebrating a feast, of which at Rome no one had as yet thought.

From all this it follows that the feast of Mary’s Conception was known in the Byzantine Empire as early as the beginning of the eighth century, although under a different name from that which it now bears. Was the feast, in its essential idea, the same as ours? This question the reader may answer for himself. There is much doubtless in favour of an affirmative answer. Greek writers refer to our Lady in the highest conceivable terms, as can be amply proved from the lections of the office for the 8th December now in use. They exalt her not merely above all men, but absolutely above every creature. Moreover, the feast of the Conception has a meaning only when the conception is regarded as sinless, just as the Greeks celebrate a commemoration of the conception of St John the Baptist solely On the ground that John was sanctified in his mother’s womb. In all other cases, it is not the birthday of the saints which is kept, but the day of their death. All this tells in favour of the affirmative. But on the other hand, the fathers of the Eastern Church have never either used or even discovered the specific terms to designate the Immaculate Conception, nor have they ever proposed the question if our Lady was free from original sin.

It is indeed very difficult to maintain the former view in the face of the fact that the Greeks, at the present day, do not regard their feast of Mary’s Conception as implying this meaning, but among them it is a feast of little importance. Their Breviary contains the following notice of the feast: “God sent His angel to the pious couple Joachim and Anna, and announced to them that the barren would give birth, and so to prepare the way for the conception of the Virgin. Thus the holy Virgin Mary was conceived in consequence of an announcement, but by means of man and from his seed. For our Lord Jesus Christ alone was born in an ineffable manner of the holy Virgin Mary without the co-operation of man and his seed.”

This announcement by an angel is based on an apocryphal legend, which appears in Byzantine sermons on our Lady, belonging to the eighth and ninth centuries. Joachim, according to Jewish custom, desired to present an offering in the Temple, but was driven back and insulted by members of the tribe of Reuben because he was childless. This caused him so much pain that instead of returning to his home, he sadly betook himself into solitude. Anna, in her anxiety, prayed earnestly to God, and was informed by an angel she should give birth to a daughter richly endowed with gifts of grace. This legend derived from the _Proto-evangelium_ of James, and propagated chiefly in the sermons of John of Eubœa and of Peter Siculus, was also known in the West, and figures largely in works of art; as, for example, in the beautiful picture in the cathedral at Augsburg, by Hans Holbein the Elder.

The Greek Breviary, however, shows that there was current among the people a still stranger idea, which it strongly opposes, _i.e._ that Mary was born on the seventh month after her conception, and so was what is called a seven months’ child. The reason why it is worth while to allude here to this will be plain later on. We may merely point out how all this shows the unimportant character of the festival among the Greeks.

It was otherwise in the West.[528] Here the festival in question makes its appearance on the scene just as its development in the East came to an end. To the tentative attempts at the introduction of this festival in monasteries, and among the inner circles of the devout, there followed its acceptance by several dioceses, not however without opposition. The theoretical discussion over the warrant and significance of the festival accompanied the early instances of its official introduction. These discussions lasted through centuries, and were only brought to a conclusion in our own times.

In attempting to trace out its introduction in detail, it must be borne in mind that we are treating of what was in the first instance a festival of the Conception only, not of the Immaculate Conception; that it was not a public holy day of obligation, but only a religious commemoration confined to the four walls of the churches; and, finally, that when it was adopted by some religious order or celebrated in some monastery, it does not follow that it was at the same time adopted by the diocese or country wherein such a monastery was situated.

Clear and detailed evidence for its introduction comes to us first of all from England. The individuals who more or less exerted themselves in this connection were a certain Elsinus or Helsinus, a monk of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, and later Abbot of Ramsay in the diocese of Winchester (1080-1087), St Anselm of Canterbury and his nephew of the same name, Osbert de Clare, Prior of Westminster, Warinus, Dean of Worcester, Abbot Hugh of Reading, and finally, the historian Eadmer.[529] Further particulars concerning these persons will be found in the appendix.[530]

We begin with the history of Elsinus, or Helsinus. He is not an imaginary personage, but one whose story is historically true. He was monk at St Augustine’s, and then Abbot of Ramsay under William the Conqueror. A legend, current in the middle ages in various forms as either a sermon or a letter of Anselm the Elder, states that he was sent by William with presents to the King of Denmark, in order to discover if he contemplated an invasion of England. Having fulfilled his embassy, he was overtaken on his return voyage by so severe a storm that the ship seemed about to be dashed in pieces. As all were invoking our Blessed Lady in this moment of peril, a form arrayed in episcopal vestments appeared, which was supposed to be St Nicholas, the patron of sailors. He addressed Elsinus by name, and promised him he would be saved, if he in his turn promised to celebrate the feast of our Lady’s Conception annually on the 8th December, and to exhort others to celebrate it also. Elsinus promised, and all were saved.[531]

This legendary narrative was adopted formerly for the lections in the Breviary,[532] but more recently it has been altogether discredited. The learned Maurist Gerberon, editor of St Anselm’s works, in particular has objected to this narrative on the grounds that after the battle of Hastings in 1066, William returned to Normandy, and the landing of the Danes followed immediately. Gerberon has overlooked the fact that since Elsinus undertook this journey as Abbot, not as a simple monk—which in itself would have been highly improbable—it must be placed between 1080 and 1087, not in 1066. However, although the story be a legend, yet this much is true, that Elsinus did introduce the feast of the 8th December into his monastery.[533]

That Anselm the Younger introduced it into his monastery at Bury St Edmonds is proved by two letters, dating from 1128-29, of Osbert de Clare, a zealous defender of the doctrine. He laments that two bishops, Roger of Salisbury and Bernard of St Davids, have opposed the introduction of the feast. They had even held a Synod, and forbidden the feast as an absurd novelty. This fact, and also the circumstance that Osbert himself in a sermon on the 8th December made no mention of the Immaculate Conception of Mary from fear of the opponents, as he himself says, show how strong the opposition to both feast and doctrine must have been among the Anglo-Saxon secular clergy of that period.[534]

From what has been said it can be regarded as historically certain that the feast of Mary’s Conception was observed in many Benedictine monasteries in England, about the year 1128—in Ramsay, Bury St Edmonds, Reading, Worcester and Westminster.[535]

Possibly also in some others, but in no case was the feast celebrated outside the walls of the monasteries.[536] It must have encountered opposition, for important personages, both ecclesiastical and secular, looked upon it with disfavour, and it was still very far from gaining the support of the secular clergy, of bishops and synods. Indeed one synod of the period forbade the feast altogether. Its adoption followed only in the fourteenth century. When we bear in mind the ecclesiastical and civil circumstances of the times, we are astonished to find how such a novelty—for so the feast is called in the writings already quoted—could have made its way to England first of all. For, in the eleventh century, that country was torn by internal strife, and invaded by foreign foes; while the national clergy, according to the statement of a contemporary English historian, were sunk in simony and worldliness.[537] That is scarcely the atmosphere suitable for the inception of a feast so intimately connected with the inner religious life of the community. For this some impulse from without was required. Such an impulse came indirectly from the East through intercourse with Normandy, whence so many learned and zealous monks and clergy came to England after the conquest. The political, or rather dynastic, connection of the country with Normandy dates not only from the battle of Hastings in 1066, but goes back to the times of King Edward the Confessor, whose wife Emma was a Norman princess.

The official introduction of the feast of our Lady’s Conception in England only commenced in the thirteenth century, and only spread slowly. The provincial Synod of Oxford in 1222, Canon VIII., refused to recognise it as a feast of obligation, although it established its private observance. The diocesan Synod of Worcester does not mention it in its list of festivals. On the other hand it was celebrated at St Albans in 1228,[538] and the diocesan Synod of Exeter in 1287 formally adopted it by a decree which naturally affected that diocese alone.

In Normandy the feast, whose celebration found in England precarious toleration in the retirement of the cloister, was already introduced by the secular clergy without encountering any opposition. This is stated by Osbert himself when he remarks in his letter to Anselm how, on the other side of the channel, the feast had been solemnly kept by some bishops.[539] If these words do not apply to Normandy, we should like to know of some other country on the Continent where the feast was then observed. It is certain that it was kept at Rouen under Bishop Rotricus (1165-1183), and placed on a level with the feast of the Annunciation.[540] Owing to the law that, in the province of Rouen, consisting of six dioceses, the daughter churches must follow in their ritual and Breviary the use of the metropolitan Church, this feast would soon be celebrated all over Normandy.[541] When the Corporation of Norman students at the Paris University chose it as their particular festival, it was not a mere fancy on their part, but must have had its origin in the ecclesiastical observances of their home. Still less must this fact have been the cause why the feast in the middle ages went by the name of the “Norman’s feast” (_festum nationis Normannicæ_). This name can only have come into existence because the feast had been zealously celebrated in Normandy for a long time, by all the people, before it was kept in any other country of the West. Henry of Ghent, a member of the Sorbonne, distinctly declares this to have been the case.[542] The Normans, however, could not have been the originators of the feast. Doubtless they got their knowledge of it in Lower Italy, where it had been observed for a long time, after they had begun to settle there. Those who are unwilling to adopt so rationalistic an explanation of the matter, draw attention to the fact that the two Anselms, the earliest known propagators of the feast in England, were not uninfluenced by other Eastern forms of showing honour to our Blessed Lady. This is shown not only by Anselm’s hymns on the Mother of God, in which the refrain, _Ave sponsa insponsata_, has been adopted from the so-called _hymnus acathistus_, but also by an entry in an Irish Calendar (upon which too much stress has recently been laid), in which Mary’s conception is put down on the 3rd May, in accordance with the ridiculous Greek legend,[543] that Mary was born seven months after her conception. Granting that this entry really belongs to the ninth century, it is only evidence of monastic learning, but affords no proof for the existence of the feast in Ireland. It only shows that the writer knew of the Greek fable in question, and made use of it for his Calendar.

It may be asked if the feast made its appearance in the West first of all in Normandy, and in England, which since 1066 had been politically united with Normandy, or had been observed earlier elsewhere? Could we believe Passaglia, it had been celebrated already in Spain in the seventh century.[544] If so, it is impossible to think it could have disappeared later on without leaving a trace behind. The genuine Mozarabic liturgy does not contain it, and in the oldest Spanish Calendars, _e.g._ that of Toledo of the tenth century, published by Morinus, it does not appear. The Jesuit Leslæus, who wrote the introduction to the Mozarabic liturgy, admits candidly that the feast came into Spain through France.[545] The two reasons which Passaglia gives for his opinion are worthless. He relies upon a spurious life of St Isidore of Seville, which contains later interpolations, while the genuine life written by Ildefons makes no mention of it, and upon a passage in the laws of the West Goths. But this latter passage has to be taken as referring to the Conception of Christ by Mary in accordance with the terminology then in use. When the same author wishes to make his readers believe that the feast existed in Cremona already in the tenth century,[546] it has to be borne in mind that Bishop Sicardus of Cremona,[547] in the thirteenth century, strongly opposed its introduction there.

It may be regarded as certain that the feast of our Lady’s conception was introduced into the Benedictine monasteries of England by the two Anselms at the end of the eleventh century. We must not, however, regard England as especially the home of the feast in the Latin Church, for both St Anselm and his nephew had received their training in Normandy, which was their second home. From thence they passed in later middle life to England, for William liked to fill the chief spiritual posts in England with foreigners.

When the author of the tract _De Conceptione B.M.V._ laments that the feast met with much opposition both from clergy and laity, his complaints were well grounded, for the names of a number of famous men are known to us at the present day as having strongly opposed both the feast and the doctrine which underlay it. For the most part they were men of importance. We can name Roger of St Albans, Bishop of Salisbury, and Bernard, Bishop of St Davids († 1147). The former was minister and adviser of King Henry II., the latter chaplain to Queen Matilda. In France the most famous opponent of the feast was St Bernard, the celebrated preacher Maurice de Sully († 1196), Bishop of Paris, and Peter of Celle, Abbot of Moutier-la-Celle, from 1181 Bishop of Chartres.[548] It is especially remarkable that the greatest liturgists of the middle ages, Beleth, Sicardus of Cremona, and Durandus of Mende, all opposed the feast.[549] In Germany, the monk Potho of Prüm may be named, although his views are obscure.

The conduct of St Bernard must be more closely examined. The opportunity of expressing his views was furnished by the circumstance that the Canons of Lyons commenced, about 1140, to celebrate the feast of our Lady’s conception, without having obtained the authority of the Holy See for this “novelty.” According to the then existing state of canon law, the bishops had the right of arranging by themselves the festivals to be celebrated within their respective dioceses. But St Bernard in his letter to the Canons makes no mention of the bishop. This is explained by the fact that the letter was written at a time when the Church of Lyons was without any recognised head, and when St Bernard was exerting himself with the Pope to obtain the confirmation of Fulco, the bishop elect.[550] It may well have been that in this matter the canons acted despotically. St Bernard, however, does not bring this charge formally against them in his letter, but lays all the stress upon objections to the inner significance of the feast. It was customary, he says,[551] to celebrate the day of our Lady’s birth, because she, like Jeremias and John the Baptist, had been sanctified before birth (fuit ante sancta quam nata). Mary could not be holy before she existed, but her existence began at her conception and that was not free from concupiscence. If her conception was to be regarded as holy, one must logically hold that her parents were already holy also. Christ our Lord was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and consequently His conception was holy and a feast of the Church (Annuntiatio). Before taking any steps in the matter, St Bernard concludes, the Apostolic See ought to have been consulted, to whose authority he commits the matter. The Roman Church, to which he appealed, was, however, in no hurry. More than three hundred years had to pass before she in any degree broke through her reserve on this question.

The effect of this letter is not known, but there is no doubt that during the twelfth century the feast made steady progress in France. Unfortunately we possess only a few data to illustrate its development, for the investigation into the ecclesiastical history of special localities requires to be more extensively taken in hand. In Rouen, the capital of Normandy, it was certainly observed at that period, as we have already seen. Next, its observance is prescribed by the statutes of Le Mans, in the Province of Tours, in 1247.[552] In Rheims it appears between 1261-1271. A more important fact is that the General Chapter of the Franciscans, held at Pisa in 1263, decreed that the feast should be celebrated throughout the entire order.[553] Although it did not attain to the rank of a feast of obligation for clergy and people, yet it became known throughout the world, and especially at the papal Court at Avignon, where Franciscan influence was strong. Finally the standpoint of the thirteenth century with regard to this feast is best summed up in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, “Although the Roman Church does not celebrate it, she allows other Churches to do so,”[554] and in those of St Bonaventure who justifies the keeping of a festival on the day of our Lady’s conception.[555] Accordingly the number of dioceses and provinces within which it was celebrated was constantly on the increase; for the fourteenth century we have Canterbury 1328; Treves between 1338 and 1343;[556] Paderborn 1343; Münster 1350;[557] Utrecht 1350; Brixen 1399, while other diocesan synods, _e.g._ Prague in 1355, did not yet adopt it. When it is asserted that the feast had been introduced at Liège under Bishop Albero II. († 1145), it must be urged on the other side that the list of feasts drawn up by the diocesan synod of Liège in 1287 makes no mention of it.[558] The synod of Cologne of 1308 does not mention it either, although it is contained in the Cologne Calendar of the same century. For Mainz we have the fact that this feast is employed for dating a decree of the year 1318.[559] In the province of Canterbury, the feast obtained official recognition only in 1328, _i.e._ two hundred and nineteen years after the death of those who had first exerted themselves in its favour.[560]

As far as Canon law and the liturgy are concerned, the feast of the _Conceptio B.M.V._ remained in the fourteenth century as incomplete as it had been in the twelfth and thirteenth. Generally speaking, however, each bishop had then the right of appointing the festivals for his own diocese, but this right was always restricted to the appointment of those festivals already recognised and permitted by the Church universal which he desired should be observed within his own diocese—as, for example, whether St Mary Magdalene should be kept as a holiday or not. But in this case it was not a question of a feast already recognised by ecclesiastical authority, and its opponents could always object with reason: _Non est authenticum_.

Important if not decisive steps were at length taken by ecclesiastical authorities in the fifteenth century. In the meantime, the doctrine, which had been defined and formulated by Duns Scotus was so widely accepted, except among the Dominicans, and enjoyed so much popularity among the people, who violently took sides on the question, that it was possible for the Council of Basel (which began by being ecumenical, but became schismatical after its quarrel with the pope), to state in its thirty-sixth session, on the 17th September 1439, in answer to the petition of the theological faculty of Paris, that the doctrine that Mary by a special gift of grace had never been subject to original sin was “pious and agreeable to the worship of the Church, the Catholic Faith, and the teaching of Holy Scripture.” The Council forbade the contrary doctrine to be taught. At the same time it renewed the decree in regard to the feast of “her Holy conception, which was kept on the 8th December both by the Roman Church and by others.”[561] Granting that the Council was ecumenical, all circumstances connected with the feast, with regard to both doctrine and ritual, were now formally settled. This decree was not without effect, as soon appeared from the fact that in the Mainz Breviary of 1507 the lections for the second nocturn of the feast are drawn from it. It also certainly influenced the further spread of the feast, as soon appeared from its being expressly authorized and received by a provincial synod at Avignon, held under the presidency of a papal legate in 1457.[562]

Although the fathers of the Council of Basel were of opinion that the feast was celebrated by the Roman Church on the 8th December, this was only partially correct. The fact is that at Avignon, with the full knowledge of the Papal Court, it had been already celebrated without meeting with any opposition from the authorities. So, too, in Rome it had been celebrated by religious in the churches of their monasteries. It can well have been that Alvarus Pelagius († 1340), as we are informed, preached on this day in Rome; this, however, does not prove that the diocese of Rome, or the Papal Court, had adopted the feast at that date, for that, it would have been necessary to include the day in question in the Calendar and treat it as a festival in the Missal and Breviary. And so it would appear that it was kept as a purely ecclesiastical holy day, and not as yet as a public official holiday with rest from servile work. Nevertheless there were those at Basel who maintained it was a festival of the Roman Church.

The Franciscan order, as has been already said, added our Lady’s conception to the number of the feasts observed by themselves. They celebrated it everywhere where they had a church of their own, and also in Avignon and Rome during the residence of the popes. Other orders followed their example—namely, the Benedictines, Cistercians, Carmelites, all of which had houses in Rome,[563] and so, since there were many churches belonging to these orders in Rome, it might well seem as if the Roman Church herself kept the festival, all the more since the popes knew of it and tolerated the practice. In Sixtus IV. (1471-1484), a Franciscan ascended the Papal throne, and he it was who finally took the decisive step in the direction of recognition instead of toleration. On the 27th February 1477[564] he published the Constitution “_Cum præ excelsa_,” in which he granted indulgences on the feast. In particular he granted to all those who on this day recited the office composed by the Papal notary, Leonardo Nogaroli of Verona, and assisted at Mass and the canonical hours, the same indulgences which his predecessors granted for Corpus Christi. In this way the feast was adopted into the diocese of Rome, and made its way into the Calendar, Breviary and Missal, but only as a purely ecclesiastical feast. It must also be observed that no advance was made in the doctrine concerned, for the pope in his decree speaks of a _Conceptio immaculatæ_, or, as he expresses himself in another place, _prælibatæ virginis_, not of an _immaculata conceptio_.

This was not the only official act of Sixtus IV. in favour of the feast. In 1479 he built a chapel in old St Peter’s, which he dedicated and endowed in honour of our Lady’s conception and in honour of the Franciscan saints, Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua. In 1483, however, he was compelled to forbid, by a special constitution, the supporters and opponents of the doctrine of Mary’s exemption from original sin to call each other heretics. This proves that the strife between the two parties had then waxed warm. Even in Germany there were bitter contentions concerning the point in question in Frankfurt, Marburg, Heidelberg, and at Bern in Switzerland.

By the decree of Sixtus IV., in 1477, the office for the feast was finally prescribed for the diocese of Rome as a _duplex_, but not for other dioceses; these were free as before to adopt it or not. Clement VIII. raised it to a _duplex majus_. Clement IX., added an octave, and Clement XI., by a decree of 6th December 1708, prescribed it for the whole Church.[565] It had already been observed in Spain as a regular holy day of obligation, for Philip IV. petitioned Innocent X. for it and the pope had granted his request in a constitution of 10th November 1644.[566] It was only in 1854 that it became, through the zeal of Pius IX., a holy day of obligation for the whole Catholic world.

The steps in regard to this feast taken by Rome were, as we have seen, separated from one another by considerable periods of time. With regard to the significance of the feast, however, in spite of the declaration of the Council of Trent, a policy of delay and _laissez-faire_ was maintained. The feast remained a simple _festum conceptionis_, and the idea of the _immaculata conceptio_ did not receive outward expression, except that Paul V. permitted the recitation on all free Saturdays of an _officium conceptionis B.M.V._, in which the _invitatorium_ is, “Immaculatam conceptionem Mariæ virginis celebremus.”

Pius IX. had a new office drawn up which he prescribed for use on the 25th September 1863, in which the idea contained in the _invitatorium_ is expressed beyond all doubt. Hymns expressing the same idea were inserted, and the bull “Ineffabilis” was drawn upon for some of the lections, while for others the preference was given to the homilies of the later Greek writers. The pope’s letter elevating the feast to the rank of a holy day of obligation for all Christendom received an enthusiastic reception everywhere. The rank of the feast was not increased. It was only by Leo XIII. that it was placed on an equality with the three chief festivals of the year.

In tracing out the long process of development by which this feast passed from Byzantium by Lower Italy to Normandy and England, and from thence throughout the entire West, our attention has been drawn especially to the conduct of the Roman See. Passaglia endeavours by every means to magnify the part it played, and to date its intervention as far back as possible. Still he is finally obliged to own that the Roman Church was not the first to pay a special cultus to the Mother of God as conceived without original sin. But, he adds, she has done everything during the space of five hundred years[567] for the glorification of this feast and for the spread of the doctrine which forms its basis. It is difficult to see what is gained by magnifying the part of the Roman See at the cost of historical truth. Others regard with satisfaction the fact that Rome in no way pressed matters forwards. In a question so much debated, Rome could not have adopted a better course than to wait until the conviction of all Christendom, in so far as it was interested in the question, had arrived at maturity. The Immaculate Conception had been the dominant doctrine for a long period, and wanted nothing but the formal approbation of the teaching church.

6. _The Lesser Feasts of Our Lady_

While the number of lesser feasts of our Lady according to the existing Roman rite is very considerable, yet only a few of them come much before the public, and the history of the most of them affords no points of general interest. We shall therefore confine ourselves to the following:—

1. The Feast of the Name of Mary owes its origin to the devotion of the faithful, and was first authorised by the Apostolic See for the diocese of Cuença, in Spain, in 1513. It was abolished by Pius V., but re-established by Sixtus V., and finally prescribed by Innocent XI. to be observed by the whole Church on the Sunday after the Nativity of our Lady. This was done in 1683, on the occasion of the deliverance of Vienna from the Turks.[568]

Maria, or Miriam, is the Greek form of Miryam, a name over the etymology of which many opinions were held in antiquity. Eusebius explains it to mean “illuminatrix una vel illuminans eos, aut smyrna maris vel stella maris.”[569] St Peter Chrysologus and St John Damascene derive it from the Syrian _mar_ (feminine _martha_), lady, which appears also in the Roman breviary along with the other explanation, “stella maris.” In the Middle Ages this was the usual, and even yet is the favourite, explanation. O. Bardenhewer maintains that the only derivation permissible is from ‎‏מָרָא‎‏, fat or stout, in the sense of the imposing or stately one. Those to whom Bardenhewer’s derivation does not commend itself will be glad to hear that Professor Macke has had the happy thought to refer back to the first bearer of the name, Miryam, the sister of Moses, and to derive the names of both brother and sister from the Egyptian. In Egyptian it would be: _Meri jom_, which would be equivalent to Friend of Water, or Bride of the Sea, and so approaches more to the meaning of _Stella Maris_.

2. The Presentation of our Lady in the Temple[570] (Præsentatio B.M.V., 21st November). The story that Mary at the age of three years was brought by her parents to the temple in fulfilment of their vow, there to be educated, appears only in apocryphal writings,[571] but it fell in so completely with the ideas of religious, both in ancient and modern times in East and West, that it was not long before it asserted its influence on the cycle of our Lady’s Feasts. The commemoration appears officially for the first time in the constitution of Manuel Comnenus, published in 1166, as a fully recognised festival on which the law courts did not sit. The date is the same as at the present day.[572] The feast was introduced into the West by a French nobleman, Philip de Maizières, who spent some time at the Court of Gregory XI. at Avignon in 1371 as representative of the King of Cyprus. He represented the manner in which the day was celebrated in the East in such a way as to move Gregory to ordain it as one of the festivals of the Papal Court. It soon made its way in other places also—in Navarre in 1374, in Treves in 1381, in Metz in 1420, in Cologne and elsewhere. In Rome it was introduced by Sixtus IV., and an office for it was added to the Roman breviary without its recitation being imposed (_inter festa ad libitum_ and _pro quibusdam locis_). It was only Sixtus V. who, in 1585, ordained it for the whole Church after it had been for a time suppressed by Pius V. The original office was altered under Clement VIII. Although the feast at first was regarded as unimportant, it attained in Prussia to the rank of a feast _in foro_, and this in an unexpected way, in 1893. It falls in Prussia on the third Wednesday in November, and occupies a position midway between the movable and immovable feasts.

3. The Visitation (_Visitatio B.M.V._) was formerly included among the lesser feasts of our Lady, although the most prominent and popular of them. At the present day it has a higher rank (_duplex II. cl._), and, in certain localities, it has an octave. It used to be kept as an entire holiday. It is not only grounded upon Scripture, but the event it commemorates is one of the most important related in the New Testament, both on account of the sanctification of St John the Baptist in his mother’s womb, and because of its being the occasion on which the Magnificat was first uttered. Nevertheless this feast does not exist among the Greeks, but, on the 2nd July, they celebrate the translation of the Holy Virgin’s garment in the church of the suburb of Constantinople called Blachernæ, which took place under the Emperor Leo I. in 469.[573]

The earliest traces of the feast are found in the thirteenth century. They appear in different localities at about the same date, which may be due to the fact that the newly founded order of the Franciscans had adopted the feast and promoted its celebration. It appears among the Franciscans as early as 1263, and received official recognition during the great schism from Urban VI., and Boniface IX. in 1389. After the schism was healed, the Council of Basel was compelled in its forty-third session, on 1st July 1441, to issue a decree authorising the feast, and granting indulgences to those who assisted at divine service on the day. They felt obliged to adopt this measure, the feast not having been adopted within the obedience of the anti-pope.

There is nothing to show why the 2nd July was chosen for this feast, and one must needs have recourse to surmise. There seem to be indications that it is connected with the date of the Annunciation on the one hand, and, on the other, with the Nativity of St John the Baptist, the octave of which it immediately follows. It was regarded as probable that Mary had chosen the time of Elizabeth’s confinement for her visit, and had remained some time with her afterwards.[574] Perhaps, however, the real reason was that the Greek Church had already for some time kept this festival of our Lady on the 2nd July. The feast was, moreover, kept on different days in different countries. In Paris, for example, it was kept on the 27th June; Archbishop John II. of Prague, who introduced it into his province in 1385, placed it on the 28th April. Its proper place, if the main idea of the ecclesiastical year were carried out, would be in Advent.

4. The Feast of the Holy Rosary (_Sollemnitas SS. Rosarii B.M.V._). Towards the end of the twelfth century we find it had become usual to use the angelic salutation (St Luke i. 28), along with the salutation of Elizabeth (St Luke i. 41), as a prayer. This prayer was authorised and imposed by many councils. We have evidence to this effect from a synod of Paris under Bishop Odo de Sully (1196-1208),[575] and, in the period immediately following, from the synods of Orleans, Durham (1217), Treves (1237), and elsewhere.[576] The new prayer was joined to the “Our Father” in such a way that ten “Hail Marys” were recited after one “Our Father” fifteen times, each prayer being counted on a string of beads. The originator of this form of prayer, called the Rosary, is generally, but without foundation, considered to have been St Dominic. The custom of using a string of beads on which to count a stated number of prayers had already been in existence for a long time, and only became general when the custom grew up of reciting one hundred and fifty “Hail Marys” to correspond to the number of the psalms. This was called the “Mary Psalter,” the Rosary, or the “Psalter of the Laity.”[577] When this form of prayer took shape is not exactly known, but it has quite recently been maintained that St Dominic did not originate it, as is often affirmed. His biographer and other contemporaries do not ascribe the invention of the rosary to him. It is only at the end of the fifteenth century that a Dominican, Alanus de Rupe (de la Roche), produced this story,[578] which unfortunately has found its way into the breviary. A notable improvement was made in this devotion in the fifteenth century, by adding after the name Jesus in each Hail Mary the mention of some event in the lives of Jesus and Mary bearing on the work of salvation, beginning with the message of the angel and concluding with the descent of the Holy Ghost and the Assumption. Among these, the five points taken from the Passion of Christ—the so-called “sorrowful Mysteries”—form the centre, and thus the entire rosary now falls into three parts, each complete in itself.[579]

By this means the devotion gained a more definite meaning. The mere recitation of the prayers is closely connected with meditation, and each mystery has more or less reference to some feast of our Lord or of our Lady, and so is brought into relation with the different liturgical seasons. It can thus to a certain extent be connected with the whole cycle of festivals of which indeed it was a sort of summary.

In its completed form the Rosary became the favourite devotion of all, high and low, clerical and lay, and a special confraternity, favoured by the popes and endowed with indulgences, was formed for its spread and encouragement.[580] The Rosary was a source of innumerable graces not only to individual believers, but even Christendom as a whole had recourse to its assistance in times of general distress and danger, especially when pressed by the Turks. Remarkable answers to prayer, among which was numbered the victory of Lepanto (7th October 1571), first moved Pius V. to institute a feast in thanksgiving. Gregory XIII. gave stability to this feast by ordering in 1573 that in every church possessing a chapel, or at least an altar of the Rosary, it should be celebrated as “the Feast of the Holy Rosary” on the first Sunday in October. Clement X. granted the feast to the whole of Spain without this proviso. Clement XI. extended the feast to all Christendom in consequence of the victory gained at Peterwardein by Prince Eugene on the 5th August 1716.[581]

A commemoration much beloved by the people, is that of the Seven Dolors of Our Blessed Lady, which cannot be regarded as a festival in the usual sense of the term. It takes place on the Friday after Passion Sunday. Its introduction was prepared by the ascetic literature of the twelfth century, in which also its roots are to be sought. The pious monk Eadmer in his treatise “On the Excellencies of the Virgin Mary” chapter v. (see App. x., page 446) deals with the share taken by Our Lady in the sufferings of her Son. The writing of an unknown author (_De Passione Christi et Doloribus et Planctibus Matris Ejus_, MIGNE, _Patr. Lat._, clii.), attributed to St Bernard, while full of deep piety, is yet rather effeminate and sentimental. The third treatise belonging to this subject is composed by Amadeus, a disciple of St Bernard, Abbot and afterwards Bishop of Lausanne († 1159), whose fifth homily is entitled _De Mentis Dolore et Martyrio B.M.V._ (MIGNE, _Patr. Lat._, clxxxviii., 1325-1331). He deals with Our Lady’s share in her Son’s sufferings in a merely general way and in outline. At a later date, the matter was treated in more detail and with additions, so that the Seven Dolors of Our Lady were the result. In this form, the matter was taken up by the Servites, whose order came into existence in 1240, and to whom Innocent IX. in 1688 granted a second feast of the same name to be celebrated out of Lent on the third Sunday in September.

7. _The Feast of St Joseph.[582] The Cultus of SS. Joachim and Anne_

During the first centuries of the Church’s existence it was only the martyrs who, as we have said, enjoyed religious veneration. It was probably owing to this custom that no cultus was paid even to those personages who had been closely related to our Lord during His earthly life. St Joseph, our Lord’s foster-father, is a striking instance of this law. Although mentioned as a “just” man in Holy Scripture, and the object of occasional eulogies in patristic literature, he received universal public veneration only at a late date. While we possess much information concerning the tombs of the Apostles, and while even the graves of the Old Testament prophets have frequently had attention drawn to them, tradition has nothing to report concerning the death, burial, and relics of St Joseph.

The earliest traces of a direct cultus appears in one of the Coptic calendars[583] published by Seldenius. In this “Joseph the Carpenter” is entered on the 20th July, as also in the somewhat later _Synaxarium_ in Mai,[584] which at latest may belong to the ninth century. The date, 20th July, had no influence upon other churches. The menology of Constantinople does not contain St Joseph’s name, and even the _Basilianum_ only mentions him by the way on the 25th December, in the form of a commemoration. After the Nativity of our Lord, the Magi are first mentioned, and then St Joseph as spouse and protector of the Holy Virgin (ὁ μνήστωρ καὶ φύλαξ τῆς παρθένου). He has no special day of his own.

In the West, an Antiochene martyr called Joseph, otherwise unknown, appears in the so-called martyrology of St Jerome on the 20th March.[585] This cannot refer to the foster-father of Christ on account of the mention of Antioch and the absence of any indication of the saint’s condition, although this transformation has taken place in some martyrologies. With the unmistakeable title of foster-father of our Lord (_nutritor Domini_), St Joseph appears first in the martyrologies of the tenth century, as in one belonging to Fulda[586] and in others. As these are of private origin, and of merely local importance, it cannot be said that the cultus of St Joseph had therefore become universal. Throughout the whole Middle Ages it remained rather a private devotion, although numerous traces of the esteem in which St Joseph was held, and even of external veneration paid to him by individuals are to be found.[587]

It was through the private devotion of many important or holy members of the Church that the public cultus of St Joseph came into existence. Among these may be named St Bernard, St Gertrude, St Brigid of Sweden, and St Vincent Ferrer. Among the most enthusiastic and influential in this respect was the Chancellor John Gerson, following the lead of his master Peter d’Ailly, and, at a later date, the Abbot Trithemius. In 1400, Gerson composed an office in honour of the Espousals of Joseph with Mary, and urged the Council of Constance to take steps for the spread of the devotion. The way had been already prepared by the Franciscans, especially St Bernardine of Siena, and Bernardine de Bustis, who showed great zeal for the worship of St Joseph.[588]

These attempts resulted in the approval given to the cultus by Sixtus IV.,[589] who inserted St Joseph’s day in the Roman Breviary as a feast with one lection (_festum simplex_). Under Clement XI. it was changed into a feast with nine lections. Accordingly, at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the 19th March began to be kept as St Joseph’s day in the Missals and Breviaries of many religious orders, _i.e._, the Carmelites, Hermits of St Augustine, Premonstratensians, Dominicans, Knights of St John; these were followed by the Benedictines and Jesuits, while the service-books of the Carthusians, Camaldules, Cistercians and Cluniacs of the same period remained without it.[590]

Owing to the fact that later on, several royal personages such as the Emperors Ferdinand III. and Leopold I. of the House of Habsburg, and King Charles II. of Spain, were devoted to the cultus of St Joseph, Gregory XV. raised his festival to the rank of a festival of obligation in 1621. Benedict XIII. inserted his name into the Litany of the Saints, and Pius IX., on the 8th December 1870, conferred upon him the office of Patron of the Universal Church.

Among the Greeks, the parents of Our Lady enjoyed a religious cultus from a comparatively early date, although all that was known of them was derived from the apocryphal _Proto-evangelium_ of James. Joachim and Anne already had their own commemoration on the 9th September in the menology of Constantinople, and Justinian I. is said to have built a church in honour of St Anne in Constantinople.[591] Their names are mentioned by Epiphanius[592] and appear in the oldest Neapolitan Calendar on the 9th September, a circumstance which shows Byzantine influence, for among the Syrians their festival is kept on the 25th July.

In the West, however, their legend was received with considerable reserve, and although Pope Leo III. had their pictures placed in the church of _Maria ad Præsepe_, no trace of any liturgical commemoration appears in calendars before the Middle Ages. It is no proof that any special cultus was paid to them, that we find them occasionally mentioned in writings and spoken of as saints. It was only in 1378 that Urban VI. authorised the worship of St Anne for the English at their own request. Sixtus IV. especially approved of it,[593] and Gregory XIII., in 1584, appointed the 26th July for her feast. In the fifteenth century she was venerated with special devotion in Germany, the town of Annaberg being named after her.

As regards Joachim, Julius II. is said to have approved of his being commemorated with a special office on the 22nd March. Gregory XII. introduced a new and improved office, and fixed the commemoration for the Sunday within the octave of the Assumption. Leo XIII. raised it to the rank of a feast of the second class.[594]

Baillet has some remarks concerning Our Lady’s parents which are worthy of notice. He thinks that Mary at the time of her espousals to Joseph was an orphan; consequently, since her parents died before the death of the Redeemer, they were considered as belonging to the Old Testament, and were not made the object of a cultus. Whether they were actually named Joachim and Anne is doubtful,[595] for Anna in Hebrew means “Grace,” and Joachim, “Preparation of God.” It is possible that owing to ignorance of their real names, these appellations were chosen for them. The names appear in Epiphanius only at the end of the fourth century.

8. _The Festivals of the Apostles in General_

The cultus of the apostles followed the same lines of development as that of other saints. At first it was merely local, but although the tendency to observe the festivals of the apostles throughout the whole Church was stronger than in the case of other saints, still their festivals did not attain earlier to universal observance than those of ordinary saints, that is to say, at the period of the compilation of universal martyrologies, though there were, of course, some exceptions.

The earliest calendars of particular churches have, on the average, only a few feasts of apostles, usually only one or two. It was only in course of time that the longing for completeness appeared, which in the tenth century was carried to such a pitch by the Greeks that they set down in their calendars not merely every personage who had received honourable mention in the New Testament, but even the Seventy Disciples, although there was but slender authority for their names.

From the first a difference was made between the apostles who had lived and worked within the existing boundaries of the Roman Empire, and those who had ended their lives in barbarian countries. In the far East, there was a second world-power similar to the Roman power in the West, _i.e._, the empire of the Parthians, or that earlier Persian Empire of the Achæmenides, which in its turn, again, had risen from the ruins of the ancient empires of Babylon and Assyria. The Jews had obviously numerous relations from old time with this Eastern Empire in consequence of their historical connection with it. After the return from exile, many Jews had remained there, and probably many others returned thither at a later time. In fine, the circumstances attending on the first Whitsunday show that many Jews were scattered throughout those provinces. The Eastern Empire consisted of a number of vassal states, which recognised a supreme sovereign, the King of Kings, but, in other respects, remained independent and sovereign, as for example, Armenia, whose inhabitants were moreover closely allied by blood with the Persians.

The Jews, as Semites, had naturally more sympathy with these Easterns, once their ancient grievances had been forgotten, than they had with the Greeks and Romans who, at the beginning of the Christian era, were their oppressors. This explains why some of the apostles, some for life and others only temporarily, betook themselves thither, and spent their lives there in mission work and even ended their days in those parts. This is also the reason why we have so little reliable information concerning their life and work, and why the days of their deaths were not celebrated for so long a period in the West. The apostles who devoted themselves to the Eastern Empire were probably Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, Simon Zelotes, and Jude. Thaddeus also laboured there for a time in Mesopotamia and Osrhoëne. No traces remain of the labours of Matthias who is said to have preached to the Ethiopians, and of whose life, a writer of the ninth century, Autpert, Abbot of Monte Cassino, confesses nothing is known.[596]

Several of the apostles have been commemorated from the first in the calendars, and always on the same day, while others, on the contrary, appear on different days in different parts of the Church, a circumstance which seems confusing to the historical investigator, but which can easily be explained when one has correctly grasped the principles which operate in liturgical matters. With regard to those who have everywhere been commemorated from the first on the same day, one can usually be certain that they died as martyrs in the Churches in question.

Although the only correct view is to maintain that the commemorations of the apostles were treated in the same way as the days devoted to the memory of the martyrs, and that their names appeared in the calendars on the day of their death (_dies natales_), still this is true of only a few indeed of their commemorations in the calendars actually in use. For the majority of the apostles died in barbarian countries with no one on the spot to collect information, and only much later a few floating pieces of information concerning them were collected from popular tradition. Another difficulty may have arisen from the different systems of chronology in use, and so even when the day of an apostle’s death was set down it was probably not understood by the Greeks and Romans, and so was forgotten. For these and other reasons it came to pass that, later on, when the commemoration of a certain apostle had to be fixed in the calendar, the date of the invention or translation of his relics was generally chosen, or finally the date was fixed simply by chance.

As absolutely trustworthy, I can, therefore, regard only the day of the death of St Peter, St Paul, and St Andrew, perhaps also the day of the death of St Mark and St Luke, since they ended their days in civilized countries, at a period when the hierarchy of the Church had already been established in those parts. With regard to St John, the question is open to doubt, first, because he did not die a martyr’s death, and secondly, because he did not preside as bishop over a particular congregation. Had he done so, the list of bishops for that particular city would have been careful to inform us of the fact.

Although the cultus of each apostle was originally local, yet there are early traces that the cultus became universal. Thus already in the fifth century a day within the octave of St Peter and St Paul seems to have been dedicated to the cultus of all the apostles in common. We find in the so-called Sacramentary of Leo I. the following prayer: _Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui nos omnium apostolorum merita sub una tribuisti celebritate venerari_, etc. The same prayer appears also in the Gelasianum, where it is found in _lib._ 2, No. 33.[597]

A mediæval liturgist, Beleth, gave expression to the view that the separate apostles had no special festivals in the primitive Church, but that all together were commemorated on the 1st May,[598] and that finally only St Philip and St James continued to be commemorated on this day. The facts, however, as far as we have been able to learn, do not bear out the opinion of this writer which he inferred from the greater calendars, but the festivals of each of the apostles came into existence one by one, from the ninth century onwards, until they reached their full number. The council of Erfurt in 932 raised all feasts of apostles to the rank of holy days of obligation for Germany. Pope Boniface VIII. in 1293 made them all _duplicia_.

Even before the meeting of the Nicene Council, Constantine had built a church in honour of all the apostles[599] in Constantinople, in which he was afterwards buried.[600] It was rebuilt under Justinian and re-dedicated on the 29th June 550, the feast of St Peter and St Paul.[601] This church had considerable influence upon the cultus of the apostles inasmuch as under Constantius attempts were made to provide it with their relics, obviously with the intention of resembling Rome as closely as possible. The relics of St Timothy were first translated thither from Ephesus on 1st July 356, which caused a great increase of devotion to this saint. He had lost his life in a popular uprising in Ephesus under Nerva on 22nd January 97, of which his successor, Polycrates, has given us an account.[602] The church became possessed of a still greater treasure in the following year when the relics of St Andrew and St Luke were placed in it.

As we should expect from what has been said above, there exists historical material for the feasts of only a certain number of the apostles, while others, as, for example, the feasts of St Matthew, St Matthias, St Bartholomew, and St Thomas, are of no further interest than to mark the translation of their relics.

In conclusion it may be useful to draw attention to the actual increase of the festivals of the apostles in the calendars. The _Leoninum_ has only two, the 29th June and the 30th November. The lectionary of Luxeuil in the seventh century has the same number, _i.e._, the 22nd February and the 29th June, that of Silos, about 650, has four (22nd February, 29th June, 30th November, 27th December), and, in addition, the feast of St Peter’s Chains. The calendar of St Geneviève (between 714-731) has the same number, omitting St Peter’s Chains. From this point the number of feasts of the Apostles increases rapidly; the calendar of Charlemagne of 781 has eight already, and subsequent calendars contain ten or more. A singular peculiarity appears in the calendar of Polemius Silvius (see below) where we find only one feast of apostles, the 22nd February, “Depositio SS. Petri et Pauli.” The ancient Neapolitan calendar brings the number up to sixteen days, giving two commemorations to some apostles and including the disciples Thaddeus and Barnabas.

9. _The Festivals of the Apostles and Evangelists in Particular_

(1) ST PETER AND ST PAUL

The 29th June, the commemoration of the martyrdom of the two chief apostles, is the only feast of apostles that is still observed as a public holiday. It can be regarded under two aspects as a universal and as a local festival. It is important as a local festival, because, since a constant tradition maintained that St Peter and St Paul were put to death in Rome under Nero on the same day, it is only natural that this day should be kept in Rome as the _dies natalis ss. apostolorum_, in the customary manner from the first, and so was never forgotten. But even in other localities, apart from Roman influence and tradition, we find efforts made in antiquity to devote a day to the commemoration of these same two apostles. This is proved by the fact that in the Arian martyrology in use in the East, it had already a place, on the 28th December, after St Stephen and the apostles St James and St John. This is by no means an isolated phenomenon, for in the Armenian calendar it has a corresponding place, _i.e._, on the 27th December, while in the Nestorian calendar it appears on the second Friday after Epiphany.[603] In Cappadocia, or at least in Nyssa, we find the Christmas season again considered to be the suitable time for a collective feast of the apostles, for the commemoration of the apostles Peter, James, John and Paul follows the Feast of St Stephen.[604] Even in the upper valley of the Rhone, it was felt necessary to observe the day of the death of the two chief apostles, for the calendar of Polemius Silvius, which belongs to this region, contains the entry: _depositio ss. Petri et Pauli_, but on the 22nd February, the day on which in other parts of Gaul the Feast of St Peter’s Chair was celebrated. That this calendar gives no feast of any sort on the 29th June, shows that in his choice of the day, Polemius was quite independent of the Roman tradition. The considerations which weighed with him in so doing will be explained further on.

In other parts of Italy, the true day of the apostle’s death was well known, and observed, as for example, at Milan in the time of St Ambrose.[605] Among the sermons of Maximus of Turin, belonging to the fifth century, we find no fewer than ten[606] for this feast. The sermons of St Augustine, among which are five for this festival, show that in North Africa the day was kept as a holy day; he speaks of it as a _dies festus_ and a _sollemnitas_.[607] Moreover St Augustine belongs to the number of those Fathers who expressly state that although both apostles died on the same day of the month, they died in different years,[608] a fact which the historical and biblical science of the day persistently overlooks, which naturally must cause serious misgivings as to the reliability of the principles on which its chronology is constructed.

Among the numerous sermons of St Peter Chrysologus there are none for this day. As regards St Chrysostom, while we have seven sermons of his in honour of the apostle Paul, we have only one “on Peter and the Prophet Elias” conjointly, in which St Peter is only briefly mentioned in the introduction and treated as of secondary importance. There is nothing to show that it was preached on the 29th June.[609] The fact that neither of these saints preached on this day, is an indication of the practice followed at Ravenna and Antioch.

With regard to Rome, the local tradition, which regarded the 29th June as the day on which both apostles were put to death, was committed to writing by the chronographer of 354, and all later chronographers. A western tradition, supported by many of the great Fathers of the Church, adds further that, though both apostles died on the same day of the month, they died in different years. This idea appears in St Augustine, in the _Leoninum_, Arator, Gregory of Tours, and in three Greek writers, but scholars have so far ignored it. It is further evident from the _Depositio Martyrum_ that the day of their death was specially chosen for a translation of their relics which took place in 258. The special festivities observed in Rome are described for us by Prudentius from what he had seen himself when he visited the city about 405. According to him the whole city was in commotion: the faithful visited the tombs of the apostles and in the two churches erected in their honour, pontifical mass was celebrated.[610] This is in complete agreement with the tradition according to which devotion to the martyrs was closely connected with the spot where they suffered and with the date on which they suffered, and the chief commemoration consisted in the offering up of the Holy Sacrifice over their tombs. Owing to the distance which separated the two churches of the apostles from one another, it was most fatiguing to celebrate mass at both places, and so in course of time the festival was divided into two parts, and the Mass in honour of St Paul took place on the 30th June. An examination of the earliest Roman missals shows that in the _Leoninum_ there is a number of masses for this day, all commemorating the two apostles together, but, in the _Gelasianum_, on the contrary, there is only one mass for the two apostles conjointly (_III. Kal. Jul. in Natali SS. Apostolorum Petri et Pauli_), and, in addition, one for each of them separately. It may be that the division of the feast was then customary, but the 29th June continued to be called _Natalis SS. Apostolorum Petri et Pauli_. As early as the fifth century the feast was kept at Rome with a vigil and octave.[611]

At an early date, the 29th June, which had hitherto been celebrated chiefly in the West, _i.e._, in Rome and the surrounding districts, began to be observed as a universal festival of the whole Church, inasmuch as it began to be celebrated in Constantinople. The Roman Senator Festus, who had been sent on matters of state to the new Emperor Anastasius, in 491, moved the emperor, according to Theodorus Lector, to celebrate this feast solemnly in Constantinople.[612] Although the feast may have been kept already in Constantinople before this time, it now began to be celebrated with greater pomp. The day must certainly have been known in Constantinople before this date, but can hardly have been kept as a festival.

After this the 29th June appears in all Calendars and martyrologies as the commemoration of the two chief apostles. In the West we find it first in the Calendar of Perpetuus of Tours. The Carthaginian Calendar is unfortunately defective, but that the day was kept there cannot be doubted on account of the evidence given by St Augustine’s sermons. It is also found in the later oriental Calendars, with the exception of a few belonging to Egypt.[613]

While this feast, like the festivals of all martyrs, was originally local, and was celebrated only in Rome and in the churches dependent upon Rome, the esteem in which the Roman Church and the apostles were held early gained for it the character of a universal feast.

(2) THE FEAST OF ST PETER’S CHAINS

The Roman breviary bases the foundation for this feast upon the following legend. Eudocia, wife of Theodosius II.[614] since 421, was presented with a chain at Jerusalem which was believed to have been that with which St Peter was bound while imprisoned, as recorded in Acts, chap. xii. She brought this chain to Rome, where another chain was already preserved in the Church of St Peter on the Esquiline.[615] This is said to have been the chain with which St Peter was confined during his Roman imprisonment. Both chains appeared to be of the same workmanship, and united themselves together of their own accord. Whereupon the church was rebuilt at the Empress’s expense, and received the name of _Eudoxiæ ad Vincula_. There is no trustworthy proof for the presentation of the second chain by Eudocia, although there is evidence that in Rome the faithful prided themselves on possessing a chain of St Peter before this supposed gift of the Empress.[616] Under Benedict XIV. it was proposed to suppress the lections in the breviary containing these legends.

The feast of St Peter’s chain is not in the _Gelasianum_, and appears only in Calendars of the eighth century, as, for example, in that of Bede, but not yet as a feast of obligation. The decree of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus raised it to this rank in 1166. The spread of the feast was undoubtedly facilitated by the circumstance that in 969 a courtier of the Emperor Otho I. was healed in Rome by touching the chain.[617] That the commemoration was fixed for the 1st August does not imply that this was the day on which the apostle was set free from imprisonment; but in this, as in other cases, the date of the Church’s dedication caused this day to be chosen.

(3) THE CONVERSION OF ST PAUL

The Conversion of St Paul was kept as a holiday of obligation in several dioceses of France and Germany, and especially in England. It is uncertain where and when it first became so. It is not in the _Gelasianum_ nor in the older editions of the _Gregorianum_, but appears in the later texts of more recent editions, as a later addition, for it is still frequently lacking in later MSS. and Calendars.[618] Nevertheless it appears in Ado and Usuardus. The 25th January seems originally to have had another signification; for in the recent critical edition of the _Hieronymianum_ of De Rossi and Duchesne, the two oldest recensions give on this day a translation of the relics of St Paul, which is said to have taken place in Rome (_Romæ_, _Translatio B. Pauli Apostoli_). The most recent of the ancient codices, that of Metz, now in Bern, belonging to the tenth century, has a translation and conversion of St Paul on the 25th January. The idea of the conversion soon replaced that of the translation, and fixed the character of the feast. As such it spread, and soon attained to universal acceptance. The translation which the feast originally commemorated is believed by De Waal to have taken place in the time of Constantine, when the basilica of St Paul was erected[619] (_Translatio et Conversio S. Pauli in Damaso_, the words _conversio_ and _in Damaso_ being added by a later hand).

(4) ST ANDREW AND ST LUKE THE EVANGELIST

We can deal with the festivals of these two saints together, for in the year 357, on the 3rd March, their relics were solemnly translated at the same time to the Church of the Apostles in Constantinople.[620] Until this date the tomb of St Andrew was in Patras, where he had suffered death. The previous burial place of St Luke is not specified, but it may have been either in Patras or somewhere in the neighbourhood. The possession of St Andrew’s relics was of great importance to Constantinople, because he was regarded as the apostolic founder of the Christian community there, and the catalogue of bishops, which, historically speaking, only begins with Metrophanes (315-325), has been carried back to him, inasmuch as it was maintained he had ordained Stachys as first bishop of the See. More certain, from an historical point of view, is his martyrdom at Patras, of which we have a trustworthy account.[621] Besides this, there is a well-known encyclical letter to the priests and deacons of Achaia, which in all essential points agrees with the account of the martyrdom, although in some other respects it is open to criticism.[622] The so-called martyrology of Jerome on 5th February commemorates St Andrew’s ordination as Bishop of Patras.

The date for St Luke’s death never varied and seems to be correct. Both dates, the 18th October and the 30th November, appear in the oldest Neapolitan Calendar, which contains no other festival of an apostle except St James the Less (27th December). From the fact that the relics of St Andrew and St Luke happened to be translated at the same time, many ancient and modern writers drew the hasty conclusion that St Luke had also died in Patras and been buried there. A document which, though certainly late, can yet be traced back to Philostorgius,[623] gives the true place of his death and burial as Thebes, which Paulinus of Nola confirms. His relics may well have been translated thence at the same time as those of St Andrew were brought from Patras. They were carried to Constantinople at the command of the Emperor Constantius by the official Artemius, who had also brought the relics of St Timothy to the capital.

(5) ST JAMES THE GREAT

James, the son of Zebedee and brother of St John the Evangelist, was a native of Galilee. His labours, after the Crucifixion, were not of long duration, for in the year 42 or 43 he was beheaded at the instigation of King Herod Agrippa I., who had enjoyed indeed the dignity of king of Judea since 37, but only during the last years of his reign did his power extend over Jerusalem. According to the usual custom he came to Jerusalem for the Passover, and then, in order to gain favour with the Jews, he had St James seized and made away with shortly before the feast; and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take up Peter also, in order to make away with him too, after the feast. This happened not long before the death of Herod himself, which is narrated in the same chapter of the Acts (Acts xii. 1-4 and 23).

The day of St James’s death was shortly before Easter, or, as we should say, in Holy Week, and, in accordance with this circumstance, the Copts keep his commemoration on the 12th April,[624] and the Syrian lectionary of Antioch on the 30th of the same month. Although these do not exactly represent the actual day of his death, they are not far off from it. The observance of the actual day was, moreover, interfered with by the circumstance that it came at a season when the thought of our Lord’s passion prevented the celebration of a martyr’s feast. In the menologies he is mentioned only in the _Basilianum_ on the 9th October.

The bodily remains of St James, as well as those of St James the Less, were still in Jerusalem in the sixth century.[625] In the ninth century we find them in Spain, at Compostela, where they were an object of great veneration, as we learn from Notker Balbulus.[626] They must have been taken there some time between the seventh and ninth centuries. An account of the translation, such as we possess in other instances, is not extant; there is no information in any author to show when or by whom the translation was carried out. The translation itself can well be historically true, although the opinion that St James preached the gospel in Spain is only a legend.[627] One is led to think that the relics were secretly carried off by Christians from Jerusalem from fear of the Arabs, and finally found a second resting-place in Spain.

The Roman breviary and martyrology place his feast on the 25th July, which is marked as the day of a translation of his relics, without giving any further particulars. The _Gelasianum_ does not mention St James, and he appears in liturgical books only at the end of the eighth century. His name is entirely absent from the older liturgical books of the ancient Spanish Church, an inexplicable circumstance had he been the apostle of Spain. The veneration for him begins to show itself in Spain only from the ninth century. In Western Calendars he appears in that ascribed to Charlemagne of 781, published by Piper, and also in the later MSS. of the _Gregorianum_, but not in the sacramentary of Mainz dating from 840. The entries in the different recensions of the _Hieronymianum_ are noteworthy. The Weissenburg codex on the 25th July has simply a martyr James, with no other specification except _Portus Romanus_ as an indication of place; the Echternach codex describes this martyr as _apostolus_ and _frater Joannis Evang._,[628] and adds _Hierosolym_; the codex of Bern has briefly _Passio S. Jacobi_. It is not evident on what grounds the two later recensions have made James, the martyr of _Portus Romanus_, into the apostle. The _Neapolitanum_ does not mention an apostle James on the 25th July, although it does on the 15th November,[629] and, along with Philip, on 1st May. Although he is found in Bede, he is absent from the Calendar of St Geneviève, dating from 731-741.

(6) ST PHILIP AND ST JAMES THE LESS

It is well known that in early days lists were drawn up containing the names of those bishops at least who had presided over the chief sees, along with the duration of their episcopates. Since some apostles had acted as bishop in certain cities for a length of time, while others—as, for example, St Paul—never settled down for long in one place, the former, in addition to their martyrdom, had a yet further claim to be commemorated. This is the case with St Peter, St James the Less, and St Mark.

St James the Less, son of Alpheus or Clopas, immediately after Christ’s death was entrusted with the office of Bishop of Jerusalem by the other apostles, which he held for thirty years.[630] His death was caused by the High Priest Ananias II., who availed himself of the interregnum that intervened between the death of Porcius Festus and the arrival of the new procurator Albinus. Gessius Florus succeeded Albinus in A.D. 64. St James’s death, according to St Jerome’s precise statement, fell in the seventh year of Nero. According to St Jerome’s way of reckoning, which agrees with the official method, Nero reigned fourteen years and a half, and his seventh year corresponds with the sixtieth of the Christian era.[631]

St James was commemorated in the East on the 27th December. This is his date in the Arian martyrology, which is followed by the very ancient Carthaginian Calendar. Although the latter incorrectly adds that he was killed by Herod, it is evident that St James the Less is intended, for all the Eastern documentary sources place the commemoration of St James the Less in the Christmas season. They differ as to the day, some commemorating him on the 26th, some on the 28th, the Neapolitan and Mozarabic Calendars on the 29th, and the Syrian lectionary has his name both on the 28th December and on the 23rd October.

In accordance with these ancient witnesses we would willingly place his death on the 27th December, but there are strong reasons against this. First, in these documents he is coupled for the most part with St John the Evangelist, and it is unlikely that both of them died on the same day. Secondly, in the most ancient document of all, the Arian martyrology, immediately after St James and St John, on the 28th December, come St Peter and St Paul, who suffered death on a different date altogether; the compiler simply placed the chief personages connected with our Lord on the days after Christmas. Thirdly, the church built by Helena on the Mount of Olives, in which St James and St John received special veneration, was dedicated on the 27th December.[632] Here again, as in so many other cases, the date of the church’s consecration became the date of the festival of the saint specially connected with it. Of course it may be thought that the church was consecrated on the day of the saint’s death, but for this there is, at any rate, no proof concerning this particular church. And so we must give up the 27th December as the real day of St James’s death. It may have been the day of his appointment to the episcopate.[633]

That this is so is further confirmed by the accounts written by pilgrims, in which it is stated that St James was buried in the church on the Mount of Olives, and that he had owned a house in Jerusalem and a burial place, in which he had buried Zachary and Simeon.[634] It is true that later Latin authorities expressly give his _dies natalis_, _i.e._ the actual day of his death, on the 27th December,[635] but their evidence is not conclusive. In marked distinction from the Eastern tradition, the _Hieronymianum_ gives his death on the 25th March: “Hierosolyma passio Jacobi Justi,” or, as in the Bern codex, “fratris Domini.” This date coincides strikingly with the statement of Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._, 2, 23, 11), that the death of St James happened during the season of Easter.

The Constantinopolitan authorities, like the Roman, take an independent line. The most ancient among the former do not mention St James the Less, but the _Basilianum_ names him on the 23rd October and the 30th April, both times with the title then only given to martyrs (ἄθλησις). We shall have occasion to refer elsewhere to the arbitrary and singular character of this work.

With regard to the Roman service-books and those derived from them, they agree, beginning with the _Gelasianum_, in placing St James along with St Philip on the 1st May. This is owing to the fact that in the sixth century a church was erected in honour of these two apostles in Rome, which is known at the present day as the Basilica of the Apostles. Pope Pelagius I. (556-561) commenced the erection of the church, which was completed by his successor John III.[636] It was dedicated on the 1st May, and so it came to pass that the commemoration of these two apostles is celebrated in the Roman rite on this day. Later on, the 1st May came incorrectly to be considered their _dies natalis_.

The commemoration of St Philip in the menology of Basil, and in the _Neapolitanum_, is on the 14th November. A monastery of St Philip existed in Constantinople as early as 511.

(7) ST JOHN

As regards St John the Apostle and Evangelist, we have seen his commemoration was joined with that of St James the Less, on the 27th December, although this was not the date of their deaths. In course of time St John gradually eclipsed St James and gained possession of this day for himself alone; yet in the _Hieronymianum_ and in the Gothico-Gallic missal, ascribed by Mabillon to the eighth century, St John and St James are still commemorated together (_Natalis Jacobi et Joannis_). In the _Gelasianum_, and also in later Roman and Frankish martyrologies, and in Bede, St John alone is commemorated, as at the present day.

St John died and was buried in Ephesus. When his grave was opened, probably under Constantine, who built a church in his honour in the part of Constantinople called Hebdomon, no remains of his body were found in it, but only powder, which was called manna. The intention evidently was to provide this church in Constantinople with relics of its titular saint. It is not surprising that the idea became prevalent among the Greeks that St John, like our Blessed Lady, had been taken up bodily into heaven. This opening of his grave must have taken place on the 8th May, for the menology of Constantinople makes mention on this day of the manna mentioned above.[637] The 26th September seems to have been regarded as the day of his death, for the same authority mentions the “Departure” of the apostle (μετάστασις τοῦ ἁγίου Ιοάννου τοῦ θεολόγου)[638] on this date. So, too, does the Calendar of Naples under the name of his Assumption (_Adsumptio Joannis Evangelistæ_). Among the Jacobites of Antioch also the 26th September was kept as the day of his departure (_decessus Joannis Evang. ex mundo_).[639] Where there is so much divergence, nothing certain can be determined. Most probably Morcelli is correct in supposing that the 26th September was the day on which St John died in Ephesus, and that on the 27th December some church or chapel, or, at least, an altar, was dedicated to his honour.[640]

The 6th May appears already as a festival of St John the Evangelist in the Gothico-Gallic missal, without any further specification, but simply with the rubric: _Missa S. Joannis Apostoli et Evangelistæ_. The Roman festival on this day, “Joannis ante Portam Latinam,” was introduced on the ground of Tertullian’s statement.[641] The oldest recensions of the _Hieronymianum_ do not mention it, nor yet the recension of Metz belonging to the ninth century.

(8) ST SIMON AND ST JUDE (THADDEUS)

The apostles Simon and Jude, like St Philip and St James, are constantly commemorated together in Western Calendars, but in their case there is an inner reason for this arrangement. According to a tradition, which appears in the pseudo-Abdias, the two apostles spent thirteen years together in Persia labouring for the spread of Christianity, and there suffered death at the same time in the city of Suanir.[642] The day of their death is here given as the 1st July, which is also given in some Western martyrologies—such as those of Naples and Toledo, which plainly derive their information from this source.

In the Roman Calendar, and in those dependent upon them, the two apostles are indeed constantly commemorated together, but on the 28th October. No reason has been discovered for the choice of this date. It does not seem to have been due either to the _Hieronymianum_ or to Bede. The former has “In Suana, a city of Persia, the birthday of the apostles Simon and Jude”[643] (_Cod. Epternac._). As far as Roman sacramentaries are concerned, St Simon and St Jude appear only in the later recensions of the _Gregorianum_.

The menology of Constantinople does not contain St Simon, but it has Thaddeus on the 20th August. The _Basilianum_ has an apostle Simon on the 29th April who is called Jude, and on the 10th May the apostle Simon Zelotes, and, further, an apostle Jude on the 22nd May and 19th June. All this is obscure and arbitrary. The fact that these apostles are not joined together, but have each their separate day, agrees with the Eastern service-books. The lectionary of the Syrians of the eleventh century has St Simon on the 10th May, Jude on the 16th May. The Coptic Calendar in Seldenius has Jude Thaddeus on the 20th May.

A remarkable proof of the obscurity hanging over the apostles is found in the circumstance that in some calendars which commemorate them together on the same day other saints of the same name are found in addition. Thus in the _Neapolitanum_ there is a Jude on the 26th May and a “passio S. Simonis Ap.” on the 10th September, as well as the commemoration of them both together on the 1st July. In the Parisian lectionary of St Geneviève, in the Calendar of Charlemagne, and in the _Gelasianum_, there is no mention of St Simon and St Jude.

(9) ST MARK THE EVANGELIST

According to a constant and universal tradition, he was the first Bishop of Alexandria, and his name appears first in all lists of the bishops of that See. However, as far as calendars and martyrologies go, his name does not appear in those of the West until the ninth century, nor in the _Constantinopolitanum_ until the same period. Unfortunately the most ancient Coptic Calendar in Mai is imperfect for the month of April. It is only in the _Synaxarium_ of the ninth century, published by Mai, that he appears. His name appears in all later Coptic Calendars, in the _Neapolitanum_, which mentions him a second time on the 17th May, and in the _Basilianum_. There is not much to be said in support of the 25th April as the day of St Mark’s death. Moreover, the _Hieronymianum_ gives the 23rd September as the date of his death, but the Paschal Chronicle puts it down on the 1st Phormathi, _i.e._ the 26th March.[644] St Jerome in his chronicle gives the year of his death as the eighth of Nero.

That the processional litanies take place on St Mark’s day is a mere accident, as is proved by the circumstance that in the oldest Latin Calendars—as, for example, in that of Fronteau, and in the Mainz edition of the _Gregorianum_—the _Litania major_ alone is put down on the 25th April without any mention of St Mark.

(10) THE FEASTS OF ST PETER’S CHAIR

(_18th January and 22nd February_)

The historical investigation of these two feasts necessitates the consideration of two questions which must be discussed separately—first, their name and significance, and, secondly, the dates on which they are celebrated.

_Cathedra_, when used in its literal sense by the oldest ecclesiastical writers, means the bishop’s seat in the apse of the church behind the altar, upon which he sat, when not otherwise engaged, during the performance of divine service. Figuratively, the _cathedra_ is the symbol of episcopal authority in general and of the bishop’s teaching authority in particular, just as the throne is the symbol of royal authority. _Cathedra Petri_, then, signifies especially the teaching authority of St Peter and his successors in the See of Rome, or, in other words, the Primacy. This can easily be proved from the writings of the Fathers, and the evidence for it has often been set forth in writings and treatises dealing specially with this question, and so it need not be repeated here.[645] That the feast was intended to celebrate the bestowal of the Primacy on St Peter is clear from the oldest liturgies, and will become sufficiently evident in the course of our remarks.[646]

But how came it to pass that the Feast of St Peter’s Chair—we are considering at present only the more ancient of the two commemorations—was fixed for the 22nd February? This question can only be answered by a critical investigation into the history of the feast. The two feasts present entirely different peculiarities. The second half of February among the heathen Romans was marked by popular festivities partly religious and partly secular in character; on the 13th February commenced the great festival of the dead, _Parentalia_, and lasted eight days, the concluding day being called _Feralia_. During this time no marriages were celebrated, the temples remained closed, and the magistrates laid aside the external insignia of their office. Upon the commemoration of the departed followed immediately, on the 22nd February, the festival of surviving relatives—the _Chari_—named in consequence _Charistia_ or _Cara Cognatio_. This celebration had no recognised place among the functions of the official worship of the State, and no public festivities presided over by the colleges of priests were provided for it.[647] Nevertheless, it was a very popular feast, and stuck its roots deeper into the life of the people than any of the official festivals. All ranks joined in celebrating it; the portraits of the ancestors of each family were adorned with garlands, a sacrificial meal was presented to the household gods, incense was burnt, and a pig was offered in sacrifice; where quarrels had broken out in a family, harmony was again restored, and the religious ceremonies were performed amid the rejoicings of all; the deeds of famous members of the family were recited, and the day concluded with a banquet, which lasted until a late hour.[648] In addition to this, the _Charistia_ was also a festival in the schools; the walls were hung with garlands, and presents were given to the teachers.[649]

Such a festival must have been highly popular. It seems to have been observed everywhere wherever Latin was spoken, in Africa as well as in Gaul. In Gaul the feasting customary on this occasion continued to take place long after it had been given up elsewhere.

These banquets are censured in two sermons, attributed to St Augustine, but not by him, though they are ancient, and date from about the sixth century. From these we see that the _Feralia_ and the _Charistia_ are no longer separate; the preacher speaks only of the meals and gifts which were offered on behalf of the departed.[650] These continued on into Christian times, and in Gaul took place on the 22nd February, although this was not the correct day for the _Feralia_.[651] It seems, then, that in many places the memory of both living and dead relatives was celebrated on one and the same day, and this was always the 22nd February. About 1198 an Englishman, who lived in the North of France, informed Beleth[652] of the feastings which took place on this day.

Accordingly it cannot be mere accident, when we find a Christian feast very early fixed for this day. Gregory the Great recognised that people must not be all at once deprived of the old customs; he ordered that in England, at the dedication of churches and on the feasts of the martyrs, the newly converted Christians might retain some of the heathen customs which had been usual on similar occasions.[653] Instances in which this principle was put into practice are, for example, the processional litanies and the customs observed at the New Year. It is clear that the appointment of a Christian feast on the _Charistia_ is another instance of the tendency to deprive the heathen festivals of their harmful character.

That this held good of the feast in question, and that a determined attempt was made to give it a Christian character, is shown by the fact that in other countries a different feast was appointed for this day. Polemius Silvius, Bishop of Sion, in the upper valley of the Rhone, composed a calendar for the year 448, the most ancient Christian calendar in existence, which he dedicated to Bishop Eucherius of Lyons.[654] In this document the heathen festivals are omitted, everything especially heathen has been removed, and only historical and meteorological notices remain; it contains some saints’ days, although very few in number. On the 22nd February we find the entry, _Depositio SS. Petri et Pauli_, along with a note on the _Charistia_, which shows that the intention of the writer was to supplant the heathen feast of the _Cara Cognatio_. Again, it is noteworthy that an event was chosen for this purpose which was commemorated in Rome, _i.e._ the burial of the two chief apostles. The 29th June was not then kept as a festival of the apostles in the upper valley of the Rhone, which belonged at that time to Gaul, and probably was not kept either in the whole province to which Sion (_Sedunum_) belonged.[655]

The idea of Polemius Silvius in making the 22nd February into a commemoration of St Peter and St Paul found no imitators, but the custom of celebrating instead the _Cathedra Petri_ on this day became general in the Gallican liturgies. The significance of this feast is expressed in the words of the collect for the day: “God who on this day hast given Blessed Peter to be head after Thee to the Church” (_Deus qui hodierna die B. Petrum post te dedisti caput ecclesiæ_); _i.e._ the occasion of the feast was not the foundation or organisation of one particular church, either Rome or Antioch, but the appointment of St Peter to be head of the whole Church in general, or, in other words, the bestowal of the Primacy upon him, or his ordination as bishop (_natale episcopatus_), as others prefer to have it.[656] In this connection it must be borne in mind that, in antiquity, it was already the custom to celebrate the anniversary of the bishop’s consecration, and that special masses exist in the old sacramentaries, and among the sermons of St Leo the Great there are some for such occasions.

From the fourth to the ninth century, we find this feast of the 22nd February (Cathedra Petri), without further specification, in the greater number of calendars and martyrologies, especially in those of Gaul. As the latest which give only one feast of this name, we may mention the martyrology of Wandlebert, the Calendar of Corbie of 826 in d’Achery,[657] and also the Gothic Calendar. Nevertheless, there are some Frankish calendars which contain no feast of this name, as, for example, that of St Geneviève, published by Fronteau, and the Calendar of Charlemagne. It is not in the _Neapolitanum_, nor in certain lectionaries of the same period, such as the _Comes Albini_, the lectionary of Spires, and, finally, the Roman sacramentaries.[658] It is remarkable that neither the _Gelasianum_ nor the _Gregorianum_ have a feast of St Peter’s Chair, yet it is certain that the feast was known in Rome in the fourth century, for the chronographer, referred to on page 295_n._, in his _Depositio Martyrum_ sets down: “VIII. Kal. Martias, Natale Petri de Cathedra.”

A remarkable alteration now took place, doubtless caused by another view being taken of the meaning of the feast. When the words _Cathedra Petri_ were no longer taken as referring to the bestowal of the Primacy or the episcopal and teaching office in general, but as referring to some definite episcopal See, then the question was asked, Is Antioch meant or Rome? For although the official lists reckon Evodius, and not St Peter, as first bishop of Antioch, still there were writers of antiquity, such as Origen, who represent St Peter’s residence in Antioch (Gal. ii. 11) as his Antiochene episcopate. This view led to the division of the feast into a Roman and an Antiochene Feast of St Peter’s Chair; for reasons which are unknown, the 18th January was chosen for the former, while the latter continued to be celebrated on the 22nd February.

The martyrology of the Venerable Bede marks the date at which this division of the feast came into existence. In the original recension, given by the Bollandists, the feast of the 18th January does not appear, but the feast of the 22nd February has the note attached, “At Antioch.” It is possible that Bede considered the feast commemorated the commencement of a particular episcopate, and since, according to his idea, the Antiochene episcopate of St Peter preceded his Roman, and Antioch must have been the first See occupied by the apostle, he added the words, “At Antioch, where the disciples were first named Christians.”

The separation is complete in Ado and Usuardus, and appears in the oldest editions of the _Hieronymianum_, and, in defect of further information, the compiler of this document may be regarded as the originator of the separation.[659] There thus arose a threefold practice—either both feasts were kept, or neither, or that of the 22nd February; the last was the case in only a few dioceses. The Cologne Calendar of the fourteenth century had only one feast, but the more ancient calendar belonging to the ninth century had both.[660]

This diversity of usage, resulting from the independence of each diocese in the adoption of festivals, was put an end to by Pope Paul IV. at the advice of Cardinal Sirleto, when, on the 6th January 1558, he ordered that both feasts should be observed throughout the entire Catholic world.[661] At the consultations concerning the reform of the Breviary in 1742, it was considered that the two feasts should once more be joined into one, but this, however, was not done, which,[662] from a historical point of view, is to be regretted, for neither Eusebius nor the official lists of bishops know anything of an Antiochene episcopate of St Peter. The pseudo-Clementines make use of St Peter’s activity in the See of Antioch for their own ends,[663] and to them must be traced back the statements of Origen, Jerome, and others, for in antiquity, as well as in the Middle Ages, they enjoyed more consideration, and were more widely read, than at the present day. In the ninth century it was regarded as an inviolable principle of canon law—as we know from the case of Pope Formosus—that a bishop must not be translated from one See to another. How could this principle have been maintained in the face of so striking an instance of translation?

The Feast of St Peter’s Chair was unknown to the Greeks and Easterns in antiquity, but the modern Uniats have naturally adopted it.

10. _The Festivals of St Mary Magdalen, St Cecilia, and St Catherine_

(_22nd July, 22nd and 25th November_)

The saints which have occupied us until now were all prominent figures throughout Christendom, and stood in close relation to the Redeemer and His work; in consequence, their festivals were kept as feasts of obligation in the Middle Ages, at a period when it seemed almost impossible to do too much towards the development of the cycle of feasts; a large number kept this rank until recent times. Other saints of less importance enjoyed the same distinction through their being the patrons of particular countries, dioceses, or localities; it would take too long to deal with such here; besides, their festivals are not of historical importance. Still, among festivals of this sort there are some which formerly were kept as feasts of obligation; of these several are deserving of notice, since they attained a rank above that of a mere local festival, either because of some special circumstance, or because the life of the particular saint in some way or other caught the popular fancy.

(1) ST MARY MAGDALEN

This is especially the case with regard to St Mary Magdalen, whose feast, not indeed in Rome, but throughout the South of France, and even elsewhere, as in Cologne, was kept as a feast of obligation in the Middle Ages.

According to the general opinion, Mary, the sinner of Magdala, who took her name from that place, either because she was born there, or because it was the scene of her excesses, was the sister of Lazarus and Martha of Bethania; she was the same person who humbly bathed the feet of our Blessed Lord with her tears and anointed them with ointment. According to another opinion, prevalent in the Greek Church, there were three Marys connected with our Lord—Mary, the sister of Lazarus; Mary of Magdala, on the Lake of Gennesaret; and the sometime sinner mentioned in St Luke vii. 37. This latter opinion distinguishes Mary Magdalen from Mary, the sister of Lazarus. The Latin tradition, on the other hand, from Tertullian downwards, regards them as identical; the sister of Lazarus having lived a life of sin at Magdala, came, after her repentance, to live with her brother and sister at Bethania, but was still popularly known as Mary Magdalen. She was also the same person, mentioned by the other two synoptists (St Mark xvi. 9; St Luke viii. 2), who was possessed by seven devils.[664] Both opinions received support from the words of the gospels; but the Roman liturgy has adopted the latter, and even the lections drawn up for St Martha’s Feast are influenced by it. This office of St Martha is only of late introduction in the Liturgy.

In addition, we must take into account the adventures of the Magdalen and her family after our Lord’s death, or rather the adventures ascribed to her. Our information is scanty; the pseudo-Clementines state that Lazarus followed St Peter in his missionary journeys in Syria;[665] other documents mention Cyprus as the scene of his labours and death. Absolutely no information concerning the further doings of his sisters has come down to us from antiquity; however, Western mediæval documents dating from the thirteenth century are remarkably rich in details; in these it is admitted, indeed, that he was Bishop of Cyprus, although this would have been incompatible with the actions here ascribed to him. This information is contained in a voluminous work which has been audaciously ascribed to Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda, although it is difficult to see how he, in his retired monastery, surrounded by forests, could have gained possession of such information.[666] The greater part of this work, chapters i.-xxxv., is devoted to a description of the life of St Mary Magdalen and her family, which follows and elaborates the biblical narrative; but it contains several additions to the facts mentioned in the New Testament; especially there is a great deal said about Marcella, as the housekeeper of the family at Bethania is said to have been called, who later on played an important part in the legend. The second part begins with the thirteenth year after Christ’s Ascension, when St James the Great had been beheaded and St Peter was in prison. Then, according to the story, Herod Agrippa drove the faithful from Palestine, and twenty-four of the disciples of Jesus, with Maximinus at their head, were sent by the apostles as missionaries to Spain and Gaul. St Mary Magdalen joined them, and Martha and Lazarus followed her example, the latter being at the time Bishop of Cyprus; they embarked unmolested, and were carried by the south-east wind to the shores of Southern Gaul, where Maximinus became Bishop of Aix in Provence. The other disciples distributed themselves over the other provinces, of which there were seventeen in Gaul and seven in Spain—twenty-four in all, just the number of the disciples. As a matter of fact, Spain and Gaul did comprise this number of provinces, not however in the time of Christ, but in the fifth century, as the _Notitia Dignitatum_ shows. This betrays the late origin of the legend. St Mary Magdalen is said to have lived at Aix with Bishop Maximinus, and to have often preached there to the faithful. According to other accounts, she is said to have passed thirty years in a life of solitude and penance in the cave of the Ste Baume, near Marseilles, while Lazarus is said to have been Bishop of Marseilles, where he died a martyr.

More trustworthy, though not so interesting, is the information which we find in Greek sources concerning Lazarus and his sisters. From these we learn no more than that the Emperor Leo VI. in 887 built a church in his honour in Constantinople, and in 899 a monastery;[667] thither the relics of Lazarus, but not those of his sisters, were translated from Citium in Cyprus, where they had hitherto reposed. The menology of Basil and the calendars of the Copts and Syrians show that St Mary Magdalen was honoured in the Greek Church on the 22nd July. The resurrection of Lazarus was specially commemorated in the Constitution of Manuel Comnenus on the second Saturday before Easter.[668]

In the West the earliest traces of the cultus of St Mary Magdalen are found in Bede, and then in the martyrologies of Rabanus, Ado, and Usuardus, always on the 22nd July, and with the designation, “Natale.” The _Hieronymianum_ does not mention Lazarus and St Mary Magdalen, but the name of Martha occurs five times; however, the sister of Lazarus cannot be intended, for the days (29th July and 17th October) are not those on which she is commemorated. Although the first-named martyrologies contains the mention of St Mary Magdalen, it knows nothing of her voyage to the South of France. Usuardus, indeed, puts Lazarus and Martha together on the 17th December, but merely says that a church was erected in their honour at Bethania. As far as the service-books are concerned, the name of St Mary Magdalen appears for the first time in a missal of Verona of the tenth century, and then in some missals of the eleventh century, but the missals of the Roman rite (secundum consuetudinem Rom. curiæ) mentions her only in the thirteenth century; it is the same with regard to St Martha.[669] Even to the present time Lazarus has not obtained a place in the Roman Breviary, but his commemoration is sanctioned for certain localities on the 17th December. The lections for his office contain no account of his life.

The attitude of the Roman Breviary is significant as indicating the change of views. The lections for St Mary Magdalen are simply taken from a homily of St Gregory, and contain no references to her life, while those of the much later office of St Martha (29th July) contain the more recent form of the legend with the later additions. They know nothing, however, of the pseudo-Rabanus, according to whom St Mary and her companions were forcibly placed by the Jews on board a boat without rudder or sail, and yet, notwithstanding, reached Marseilles in safety.

With regard to St Mary Magdalen in particular, the tradition must not be overlooked which states that she was originally buried in Ephesus; this is maintained by Gregory of Tours at the end of the sixth century, and then, at the beginning of the seventh century, Bishop Modestus of Jerusalem states that St Mary joined St John at Ephesus after the death of our Lady, and there suffered martyrdom; the third witness is Bishop Willibald of Eichstätt, who visited her grave in Ephesus.[670] In 887, as we have said, Leo VI., the Philosopher, placed her relics in the Church of St Lazarus, which he had built in Constantinople, but the writers who mention this fact do not imply that her relics were translated from Cyprus, as some modern writers arbitrarily assert, on account of the mention of St Lazarus’ relics being brought from that island on the same occasion.[671] However this may be, the tradition says nothing about St Mary Magdalen being the sister of Lazarus; in fact, she is described by Glycas as a daughter of Simon the Leper. This tradition furnishes fresh grounds for the belief that the account of the translation of St Mary’s relics refers to a truly historical event.[672]

The investigation of scholars have brought to light the following facts as throwing light upon the Provencial legend: (1) An early sarcophagus at Marseilles, belonging to a certain Lazarus, Bishop of Aix (407-417), who was thought to be the Lazarus mentioned in the New Testament; (2) the existence of reputed relics of St Mary Magdalene in the Monastery of Vezelay in the diocese of Autun. The earliest official mention of Lazarus is in a decree of Pope Benedict IX. of the year 1040[673]; this pope consecrated the Church of St Victor at Marseilles, and from this date the legend developed rapidly. Its complicated history has been clearly set forth in the investigations of L. Duchesne and J. Rietsch; the latter shows that it is probable the Emperor Leo VI. presented the relics of St Lazarus to the widowed Empress Richardis on her visit to Constantinople during her travels in the East; she probably gave them to the Convent of Andlau in Alsace, over which she presided.

Among the numerous works on this subject we may mention: M. Faillon, _Monuments Inédites sur l’Apostolat de Sainte Marie Madeleine en Provence_ (a collection of all documents genuine and otherwise bearing on the question), Paris, 1848. Lacordaire, _Vie de Sainte Marie Madeleine_, Paris, 1860, popularised the legend, and made it a point of national honour to defend it. L. Clarus (Volk), _Geschichte des Lebens, der Reliquien und des Kultus der heiligen Geschwister Magdalena_, _etc._ Regensburg, 1852, is uncritical, but pleasantly written. L. Duchesne, _Sainte Marie Madeleine_, Toulouse, 1892. J. Rietsch (_Die Nachevangelische Geschichte der Bethanischen Geschwister_, _etc._, Strassburg, 1902) has probably settled the question of the relics by his careful investigations.

(2) ST CECILIA

A parish church was dedicated to St Cecilia in Rome as early as 499, to which two priests were attached, and a cemetery was named after her fellow-sufferers, Tiburtius and Valerian, in the sixth century. No further information respecting her cultus has come down to us from antiquity, and in the literature of the patristic period, with the exception of Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth century, her name is not mentioned. Her cultus was apparently limited to Rome, although she had a chapel or church in Ravenna,[674] as the poet just mentioned states.

A change took place when Pope Paschal I. in 821 discovered the saint’s body, in consequence, as he said, of a vision; until then it was believed that the Lombards had carried it away with them. Paschal had the body taken from the cemetery of SS. Sixtus and Prætextatus, where he found it, and brought to her church in Rome, where it still remains. Immediately after her death, according to the statement in her _Passio_, her body must have been placed in the papal crypt.[675] Her name was then inserted in the martyrologies of Ado, Usuardus, and Rabanus Maurus, and placed under the 22nd November, which is certainly the day of the translation of her relics, for the _Hieronymianum_ in its oldest recension gives the 16th September as the day of her death (_Natalis_). St Cecilia appears in Bede and in the Frankish calendars of the eighth century composed under Roman influence, but in the most ancient calendar of Carthage, one looks for her name in vain.[676] After the miraculous discovery of her relics and their translation, on account of the interest taken in such matters in the ninth century, her fame spread throughout the whole Christian world; and churches were dedicated to her, even in the recently converted North Germany.

From the point of view we are considering, sufficient has been said about St Cecilia, still we cannot omit the opportunity of making some remarks on the date and circumstances of her martyrdom. We have a full account of it in the _Passio S. Cæciliæ_, which, according to Fachmäuner, was drawn up at the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century. This document states that Cecilia was condemned to death and executed by a prefect of Rome called Turcius Almachius; a Roman bishop (papa urbanus) placed her body in the papal crypt, and dedicated her house as a church; this pope had already been a confessor for the Faith on two occasions before the death of St Cecilia. These statements cause great difficulty, since Pope Urban I. (223-230), who can alone be meant here, lived during the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, who was very well disposed towards the Christians, and during whose reign they were free from persecution. It is exceedingly improbable that a high official could have persecuted them in Rome, under the eyes of the emperor, in the way described in the _Passio_. It is impossible that Pope Urban I. could have twice been a confessor at this time, and no evidence of such a thing exists; moreover, we have no evidence for the existence of a prefect of Rome called Turcius in that period, but we do find persons of this name in official positions in the time of Constantine and later. All this, taken along with the circumstance that it was a time of much unsettlement in Rome, agrees well with the fourth century, when the emperor was seldom in the capital, but does not suit the reign of Alexander Severus.

The fact that St Cecilia appears neither in the ancient Roman Calendar, the _Depositio Episcoporum_, nor in the chronographer of 354, points to the conclusion that she must belong to the reign of Julian. All the indications of time agree with this date; the only thing against it is the name of the contemporary pope—Urban; this may be an error, but how the name found its way into the _Passio_ can be explained on various grounds; either the original text did not contain the pope’s name, which was introduced by mistake at a later date by some redactor of the original document, or, if the words “papa urbanus” were in the original document, they are to be taken in the sense of “Bishop of the city of Rome.”[677] This falls in with the pontificate of Liberius all the better, since, in the years 355-365, he was opposed by an anti-pope, Felix, who had a small following, and spent his time mostly outside Rome, where also he died.

The circumstance that the pope, whatever his name may have been, had been twice a confessor for the Faith also suits Liberius, who had been banished under the Arian Constantius to Berœa (355-357). After the Councils of Seleucia and Rimini in 359, Constantius even desired his death, because he refused to subscribe to the Arian Creed, and he was obliged to remain in hiding for two years in the catacombs until the death of the tyrant (November 361).[678]

The opinion that the martyrdom of St Cecilia took place under Alexander Severus has hitherto received the most support, and the difficulties have been explained on the supposition that it happened while the emperor was absent from the capital; this, however, is arbitrary, and does not really remove the other difficulties. There is no need to dwell upon the dates which have been assigned in more recent times. With regard to the more ancient dates, Ado, Usuardus, and De Rossi place the martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, plainly on account of the use of the plural by the prefect when he said (c. 24) “the emperors” had commanded that the Christians should be punished by death, but this general command was repeated during all the persecutions from Nero to Diocletian. Less wide of the mark is the most ancient attempt of all to fix the date, _i.e._, made by the first compiler of the _Liber Pontificalis_, for although not remarkable for historical knowledge, he places the death of Cecilia under Diocletian.

The family of the Turcii did not belong to Rome, but came from Samnium, where one of the name in the third century is mentioned as a proprietor of brick works in Aufidena.[679] Various members of the family quickly made their way to high offices in the State,[680] and in the summer of 363 a Turcius Apronianus was prefect of Rome, where he distinguished himself as a persecutor of the Christians. His wife, however, was a sister of the elder Melania, St Jerome’s pupil, through whose influence the whole family was baptised in 397. As a Christian Turcius Apronianus enjoyed the friendship of St Paulinus of Nola and the priest Rufinus.[681] His descendants flourished all through the fifth century, at the end of which a Turcius Asterius Secundus was consul. All this, taken in conjunction with the influential position of the family, easily accounts for the absence, in ecclesiastical literature of a subsequent period, of references to St Cecilia, at whose death a Turcius had played such an evil part. Otherwise it would be incredible that the preacher and poets of that date should have passed over a story which presented so many points of interest.[682] Nothing more is known of Turcius Almachius than what is related in the passion of St Cecilia. He must have been prefect from the end of 361 to the autumn of 362.

When all has been said, we must admit that the account of St Cecilia’s martyrdom, as it has come down to us, gives rise to serious difficulties from whatever point of view we regard it. Tillemont and Baillet were inclined to regard it as lacking all authority. The only way to give full force to all the facts of the case is to place it in the period to which it really belongs, _i.e._ to the reign of Julian the Apostate.

(3) ST CATHERINE

The Festival of St Catherine, though only of late introduction, quickly spread throughout the whole of Western Christendom; not only did Faculties of Theology select her as their patroness, but her day (25th November) was widely adopted for annual fairs, and her name was frequently given to children of both noble and lowly families. The original form of her name was Æcaterina (Αἰκατερίνα), the modern Russian Jekaterina; its derivation from the Greek _katharos_ cannot, therefore, be maintained. Catherine is said to have been a noble virgin of Alexandria, who, according to the legend, expostulated with the tyrant Maxentius on account of his cruelty during the Diocletian persecution, and was, in consequence, seized by him and forced to hold a disputation with fifty philosophers. Not only did St Catherine hold her own against the philosophers, but even won them over to Christianity; whereupon the empress, who had heard of her wisdom, visited her in prison, escorted by two hundred soldiers. The soldiers, however, along with their captain, were converted also, and condemned to death in a body by the emperor. The martyr herself was next tortured, milk, instead of blood, flowing from her wounds, and then put to death by the sword. So far the legend as given by Metaphrastes; the carrying of her body by angels to Mount Sinai is a later addition.

It does not require much exercise of the critical faculty to realise the improbabilities of this story, and at the present day critics are all but unanimous[683] in rejecting it; and so we need only concern ourselves with it here in so far as it has given rise to the Feast of St Catherine. In this connection we observe that not only the ancient Church as a whole knew nothing of St Catherine, but, what is still more to the point, neither the Syrian nor Egyptian Calendars published by Selden and Mai make any mention of this remarkable martyr. Among the Greeks, the _Menologium Basilianum_ is the first to mention her, while in the Latin Church she does not appear until the fourteenth century. Durandus, although he treats of all the important saints’ days, does not name St Catherine, neither does the _Liber Ordinarius_ of Siena concluded in 1263. In the numerous Italian missals consulted by Ebner, St Catherine is usually found only in the supplements which date from the fourteenth century. In the body of the missal, she appears only in the missal of Trani, belonging to the end of the thirteenth century. It is not difficult to fix the period at which the legend met with general acceptance, for St Catherine is absent from the menology of Constantinople, but is commemorated as a martyr of the second class in that of Basil. To this period belongs three Latin poems found among the works of Alfanus,[684] Abbot of Monte Cassino, and later Archbishop of Salerno (1058-1085). Alfanus, whom St Peter Damian calls a lover of truth, but who is proved to have been very credulous by a story which he tells of some unnamed Byzantine monarch,[685] appears to have been the first to make the legend known in the West. The origin of the story is lost in obscurity, and, as in the case of the legend of St Lazarus, we have hitherto been unable to discover reliable data on which to base any conclusion. The story of St Catherine may well be one of those popular tales, drawn up in a historical form, which were circulated in the Middle Ages, and occupied the place of poetic fiction. Its excision at any early date from the service-books is much to be desired in the interests of the respect due to them.

11. _The Festival of All Saints_

The Festival of All Saints has no intimate connection with the ecclesiastical year, but is of the nature of an addition from without, and, like the saints’ days, is fixed for a special date. In the earliest ages the Church paid an external cultus to the martyrs alone, among whom she included, at an early date, St John the Baptist, but it was only in the course of centuries that other saints, not martyrs, attained to this distinction. The cultus of simple confessors, however, formed at first quite the exception, and only became general along with the introduction of canonisations. Thus in the early ages there was no Festival of All Saints, but only a commemoration of all the martyrs, the intention being that no martyr might be left unhonoured. Their number had been increased to such an extent by the Diocletian persecution, that it was no longer possible to celebrate a special commemoration of each one separately, and so many martyrs had to be passed over; thus a commemoration of all the martyrs was instituted as a matter of course.

As far as we know at present, we first meet with this commemoration in the Church of Antioch, which, on the first Sunday after Pentecost, kept a commemoration of all the holy martyrs. We have some sermons of St John Chrysostom preached on this day.[686] In course of time the feast became general throughout the East, and an All Saints’ Sunday finds a place in the Eastern calendars, while the Uniats have accepted the Roman date for the feast.

In the West the festival passed through the following phases. The Emperor Phocas († 4th October 610), as master of Rome and lord of Central Italy, gave the Pantheon to Boniface IV. at the pope’s request. The building had been erected by Agrippa in honour of Augustus in 27 B.C. The learned are not agreed as to whether it was originally a temple or a bath (Laconicum sudatio), but it had certainly statues of the gods in the niches which adorn its interior; however, in the seventh century it no longer served its original purpose, and its maintenance was a source of expense to the imperial treasury. The pope had the building cleansed and made into a church, which he dedicated to our Lady and all the martyrs;[687] the day of the dedication was the 13th May (609 or 610), which thus came to be observed in Rome as a commemoration of all the holy martyrs.

A second stage in the early development of the feast was reached in the next century, when Gregory III. (731-741) dedicated an oratory in St Peter’s to “the Redeemer, His holy Mother, all the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, and all the just and perfect who are at rest throughout the whole world.” In this oratory the monks were to celebrate vigils and say mass in honour of the saints.[688] Here we have the same idea manifested which underlies the Festival of All Saints. A Roman basilica had been already dedicated in honour of all the apostles, and the day of its dedication, the 1st May, probably served as a commemoration of all the apostles. The Church of “S. Maria ad Martyres,” the Pantheon, was, moreover, thoroughly restored by Gregory III.[689]

The third and decisive stage in the progress was reached under Gregory IV. (827-844). A mediæval, but, in this case, well-informed writer states that a great number of pilgrims went annually to Rome for the Feast of all the Martyrs (13th May), and that, since the supply of provisions in Rome in spring was insufficient for the support of both pilgrims and inhabitants, Gregory IV. changed the feast from the 13th May to the 1st November.[690] Frankish writers of the same period inform us that this pope exhorted Louis the Pious to introduce the festival into France, and that Louis, with the consent of all the bishops of Gaul and Germany, accordingly ordered it to be observed throughout his empire in 835.[691]

Many writers on this account give this as the year in which the festival was instituted, and attribute its origin to Louis the Pious, but in this they are mistaken. Sixtus IV. (1471-1484) provided All Saints’ with an octave.[692]

12. _The Commemoration of All Souls_

The pious duty of prayer for the departed (2 Machabees xii. 46) finds expression in private and public devotions. The public prayers usually take place on stated days, _i.e._ the day of the death, the seventh and thirtieth days after death, and the anniversary; the observance of these devotions is left in the hands of the relatives and friends of the deceased. The religious Orders began at an early date to observe these pious customs with regard to their own departed members.[693] Besides this, for the last thousand years a particular day in the year has been set apart for the commemoration of all the departed in general; this was the 2nd November, or, if the 2nd fell on a Sunday, the 3rd. The impulse which led to its introduction into the ritual of the Church came from Cluny, for in 998 the Abbot Odilo issued an ordinance to this effect (the so-called _Statutum S. Odilonis pro Defunctis_)[694] to all the monasteries of his congregation. In this it was directed that in all monasteries of the Order on the 1st November, after vespers, the bell should be tolled and the office of the dead recited, and on the next day all the priests of the congregation were to say mass for the repose of the faithful departed.

This example found imitators without there being any legislation on the point. Other Orders speedily took it up, such as the Benedictines and Carthusians, etc.;[695] but it was longer before the secular clergy adopted this practice in each diocese. The date of its introduction varies greatly in different countries; it will be sufficient for us to give a few dates for which we have certain information, which have a special interest for us.

The first diocese to adopt All Souls’ Day seems to have been Liège, where it was introduced by Bishop Notker († 1008).[696] It appears in the martyrology of Besançon, called after Bishop Protadius, and compiled between 1053 and 1066; it is mentioned in the fourteenth of the Roman Ordos, which belongs to the thirteenth century; it is not found in the Cologne Calendar of the same century, nor in the more ancient one published by Binterim; it is also absent from a calendar put out in 1382.[697]

We have more detailed information respecting the Church of Milan. Bishop Otricus (1120-1125) had already introduced the observance of All Souls’ Day, but placed it on the day following the dedication of the cathedral, _i.e._ the 15th October. This arrangement continued to the time of St Charles Borromeo, who in 1582 adopted the Roman, or rather the original date.[698] In the Greek and Russian Churches the commemoration of the departed is kept on the Saturday before the Sunday “Apoecros,” which corresponds to our Septuagesima Sunday. The Armenians keep it on Easter Monday.

13. _The Festivals of the Angels_

The existence of higher and purely spiritual beings formed part of the religious belief of the Jews; they are mentioned in countless passages of the Old Testament, but no worship was paid directly to them by the Synagogue. In the Christian Church the cultus of the angels, especially of St Michael, can be traced back to remote antiquity. In more recent times special days have been set apart in honour of the other two angels named in the Holy Scriptures, and also of the Guardian Angels; St Gabriel is honoured on the 18th March, St Raphael on the 24th October.

The first Christian emperor built a church in honour of St Michael on the headland called Hestiæ on the Bosphorus. It was built on the spot called Anaplus, distant from Constantinople seventy stadia by land and thirty-five by water. The place afterwards took the name of Michaelion, after the church. On the opposite headland on the Asiatic shore Justinian also erected a church of St Michael. Nicephorus makes Constantine the founder of both churches, but Theophanes speaks only of one built by him.[699] According to Du Cange, there is said to have been no fewer than fifteen churches and chapels of St Michael in Constantinople and the neighbourhood in the Middle Ages. Other towns also erected, at an early date, churches dedicated to St Michael, as, for example, Ravenna in 545. St Michael enjoyed special veneration at the same period at Chonæ in Phrygia,[700] an ancient and celebrated place of pilgrimage, and the chief centre in the Byzantine Empire of the cultus of the angels.

Chonæ, the present Khonas on the Lycus, situated on a tributary of the Mæander in the ecclesiastical province of Laodicea, is the name given since the ninth century to the ancient Colossæ, to the Christian community of which city St Paul addressed one of his epistles, wherein he already speaks of the worship of angels. Even in the time of the apostles there existed a half-Jewish, half-Gnostic sect which disturbed the peace of the local church by teaching that Christ was inferior to the angels, who must be worshipped and invoked in preference to Him; St Paul (Colossians ii. 18) rejects this teaching as heretical, nevertheless, it did not die out, for in the fourth century the Council of Laodicea was compelled to censure this false worship of the angels in its thirty-fifth canon.[701] This was not a prohibition of the cultus of the angels in general, for at the same period St Ambrose and St Hilary in other parts of the Church exhorted the faithful to invoke them.[702] The true worship of the angels existed also in Colossæ, for Metaphrastes tells us that an apparition of the Archangel Michael himself took place there, in honour of which Manual Comnenus later on prescribed that the Festival of the Apparition of St Michael should be kept as a festival of the second class on the 6th September (Apparitio S. Michælis in Chonis).

The first church dedicated to the Archangel in Rome, or rather in its neighbourhood, seems to have enjoyed great veneration. The oldest Roman sacramentary, which goes by the name of Leo the Great, gives no less than five masses for the anniversary of its dedication; in three of them St Michael is mentioned by name in the prayers or prefaces. From the fact that in the other masses the angels in general are spoken of without special mention of St Michael, we must not conclude, as many liturgical writers have done, that they deal with the cultus of the angels in general. The church was situated, according to subsequent information, on the Via Salaria at the sixth milestone from Rome; but beyond this nothing further is known about it. These masses for the day of the Consecration of the Basilica of the Holy Angel in the Via Salaria[703] are placed on the 30th September in the _Leonianum_. As regards later Roman sacramentaries, the prayers for a mass in honour of St Michael are given in the _Gelasianum_ on the 29th September. The _Gregorianum_ gives on the same day the dedication of the basilica of St Michael without the addition “in via Salaria.”[704] It is probable that another church of St Michael is meant here whose dedication took place on the 29th and not the 30th September. The day of this church’s dedication has continued to our own time to be kept as the Festival of St Michael the Archangel.

In the city itself there was also a church erected in honour of St Michael, the date and founder of which are both unknown. Among the ecclesiastical buildings of Pope Symmachus (498-514) in the city of Rome, the _Liber Pontificalis_ says that he enlarged and beautified the basilica of St Michael.[705] A church of St Michael was also built by a pope of the name of Boniface near the Circus Flaminius,[706] and, in the ninth century, the Church of St Michael _in Sassia_ was also erected.

The Churches of the West accepted the Roman date, the 29th September, for the Feast of St Michael,[707] and in the Middle Ages it ranked as a holy day of obligation, especially in England, where King Ethelred in 1014 provided it should be observed with a vigil and a preparatory fast of three days.[708] In Germany the Council of Mainz (813) in its thirty-sixth canon established it as a festival; and the imperial banner, to be carried in battle, bore the figure of St Michael. In France the feast was established by the sixty-first canon of the diocesan Synod of Tours in 858. In Constantinople the feast was observed on the 8th November; it is marked in the menology as the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael, while in the _Basilianum_ the same day is called only a Synaxis of the Archangel. In the later Coptic Calendar of Calcasendi, St Michael occurs no less than six times (7th April, 6th June, 5th August, 9th September, 8th November, and 8th December). In the Syrian lectionary he is set down in the 6th September.

In the course of the sixth century a second Festival of St Michael began to be celebrated in the West, in consequence of an apparition near Sipontum on Monte Gargano which took place on the 8th May; the year, unfortunately, is not known, but the Bollandists place it in the interval between 520 and 530. Since Monte Gargano, like Chonæ in the East, became a famous Western place of pilgrimage, this local festival gradually came to be observed in other places in the West. The calendars and martyrologies frequently confuse it with the feast of the 29th September, as, for example, the two oldest recensions of the _Hieronymianum_, those of Metz and Weissenburg; and similar mistakes occur in other calendars.[709]

Gabriel and Raphael have no special commemoration either in the _Hieronymianum_ or in other ancient martyrologies and calendars of the Latin Church, neither do they appear in the Greek menologies; it is only in the tenth and eleventh centuries that in a few instances we find them commemorated on special days.[710] Although Gabriel appears in the most ancient Coptic Calendar, it is doubtful whether the day chosen for his commemoration, the 18th December, is not in the first instance a commemoration of the Annunciation, and only secondarily and accidently a feast of the Archangel. In the same way, his name appears in the Syrian lectionary on the 26th March, the day after our Lady’s Annunciation.

A special festival in honour of the Guardian Angels was first celebrated in the sixteenth century in Spain on the 1st March,[711] and afterwards in France on the first free day after Michaelmas. Pope Paul V. permitted the whole Church to celebrate the Feast of the Guardian Angels (27th September 1608), and, at the request of the Emperor Ferdinand II., prescribed its observance throughout the imperial dominions. Clement IX. in 1667 placed the feast on the first Sunday in September, and provided it with an octave. Clement X. in 1670 made it a _festum duplex_ of general obligation, and gave it a fixed place in the calendar on the 2nd October; the older date, however, still remains in Germany and in a part of Switzerland.[712] Leo XIII. raised it to a duplex majus.

14. _The Two Festivals in Honour of the Holy Cross_

(_3rd May and 14th September_)

The discovery of the true cross is ascribed to St Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. Helena was born about 246 at Drepanum in Bithynia, of humble origin, having served as maid in an inn (stabularia) where Constantine Chlorus made her acquaintance about 273. From their union sprang the future Emperor Constantine, born on 27th February 274 at Naïssus, now Nisch in Servia. When Constantine Chlorus was raised to the rank of Cæsar on 1st March 292, he, like his colleague, had to separate from his wife (whether Helena or another is disputed), in order to form a more influential alliance, with Theodora, daughter of Maximianus Hercules, by whom he had three sons.

But in 306, when Constantine after his father’s death became the emperor’s colleague and Cæsar, he raised his mother to a position of honour and brought her to the court. When, in 311, he professed Christianity, Helena also followed his example, and at the age of sixty-four or sixty-five became a Christian. The misfortunes of her son’s family life disturbed her last years, and she was especially grieved at the death of her grandson Crispus, whom Constantine caused to be murdered in 326, at the instigation of his stepmother Fausta.[713] As a pious Christian she found consolation in the performance of good works, to which she devoted herself. She died in 326, and her body was buried at Rome in the Via Lavicana, but two years later it was taken to Constantinople.[714] In her honour Constantine changed the name of her birthplace to Helenopolis, and bestowed upon her the title of Augusta; on medals she is called Flavia Julia Helena.

She obtained great honour after her death, and in Jerusalem especially her memory was held in veneration by the religious virgins of the locality;[715] St Ambrose calls her a woman of good and holy memory; St Paulinus of Nola had a high idea of her worth, and speaks of her as deserving all veneration, and Theodoret, although imperfectly informed as to the facts of her life, praises her exuberantly.[716] As to her admission among the ranks of the saints, this was effected only at a late date, and in a few instances. We find her name, indeed, in the eighth century in the menology of Constantinople set down along with that of her son on the day of his death (21st May). This shows that the author of the menology was ignorant of the day of her death, and also that no cultus was paid to her immediately after her decease; still, to both the term saint is applied in this document. No trace of her cultus appears in the West before the ninth century. The most ancient MSS. of the _Hieronymianum_ do not contain her name; she is not to be found either in Bede or Ado; Usuardus has placed her in his martyrology under the 18th August,[717] and from him her commemoration passed into the Roman martyrology on the same day, but in the other liturgical books she has no place.[718] When we find “S Helena” in a graffito or in an itinerary, this cannot be regarded as a fact of much importance.[719]

Soon after he became sole emperor, Constantine decided to erect a church over the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. According to Eusebius,[720] the heathen had filled up the place with rubbish, raised the level of the ground, and built a temple to Venus on the site. This was now destroyed, the rubbish removed, and deep under the surface the cave of the Holy Sepulchre was discovered.[721] The emperor’s letter to Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem concerning the building of the church is given in full by Eusebius. The erection of the building was undertaken at once, and Eusebius has given us a full description of it.[722] At this point Eusebius begins to speak of Helena, and relates how she came to the East and visited the holy places, and on this occasion she gave rich presents to the churches which her son had built both in Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives.[723] Whereupon Eusebius relates the death of Helena, but of her discovery of the Holy Cross he says not one word; it is only in his Commentary on the Psalms (lxxxvii. 11; cviii. 29) that certain mysterious expressions are found which may refer to it.[724] This silence is all the more remarkable since Jerusalem belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Cæsarea, and Eusebius must in any case have known of the event.

Later historians and writers, beginning with Socrates and Sozomen,[725] have a great deal to say upon the subject. According to them, the cross of our Lord, and those also of the two thieves, along with the title written by Pilate, were all found deep under the surface of the ground; but the cross on which our Lord suffered could not be distinguished from the other two. Bishop Macarius solved the difficulty by obtaining a miracle from God, in answer to his prayers; the three crosses were laid, one after another, upon a sick woman, in the belief that she must be cured when touched by our Lord’s cross. And so it happened, as the third cross touched her body, she recovered. This healing of a sick person has become in later writers, as, for example, in Paulinus of Nola,[726] a resurrection from the dead, showing in this, as in other cases, the development of the legend. In addition, the nails of the cross were also found, and these, along with half of the cross, were sent by Helena to her son in Constantinople; the other half was preserved in Jerusalem in a silver shrine in a chapel specially built for its reception.

Socrates, from whom these details are taken, places these events after his account of the Nicene Council; many writers place them in the year after the Council, but this is incorrect, since in that year Helena died; the Alexandrine Chronicle alone, which in such matters is very reliable, gives the day and the year for these events, _i.e._ 14th September 320.[727] Other authorities give a yet earlier date; indeed, a Syrian legend relates that a certain Protonika had discovered the Holy Cross during the reign of Tiberius.[728]

The day of the discovery of the Holy Cross was kept annually at Jerusalem with great ceremony, all the more as the consecration of the church was kept on the same day. The two principal churches in Jerusalem, the one on Golgotha, which bore the title of _Martyrium_ and _Ad Crucem_, and the other, also built by Constantine, and called the _Anastasis_, were both consecrated on the same date, _i.e._ the 14th September.[729] Already in the fourth century numbers of pilgrims came to Jerusalem to celebrate this festival; they came from distant countries, from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and among them several bishops were to be found. The Gallic pilgrim, of whom we have so often spoken, was present at this festival, and has left an interesting description of it, and a later pilgrim, the penitent Mary of Egypt, was converted on the occasion of the festival. We have already related how the Holy Cross was exposed for the veneration of the faithful every year in Jerusalem on Good Friday.

The 14th September was at first only a local festival at Jerusalem and in those other towns which possessed portions of the Holy Cross, such as Constantinople and Apamea; it spread afterwards to other places, and soon became universal in the East. It is called in the East the Exaltation of the Cross (ὕψωσις τοῦ τιμίου καὶ ζωοποιοῦ σταυραῦ, or τῶν ἁγίων ξύλων), from which is taken its Western name, _Exaltatio Crucis_, but the pilgrim Theodosius, who visited the Holy Land about 530, employs the correct term, the Finding of the Cross (inventio crucis).[730] According to the menology of Constantinople, the festival was preceded by a preparation of four days (10th to 13th September). On the three last days of Holy Week the court and all the high officials took part in the public worship of the Holy Cross, as we learn from a writer[731] of the seventh century. The Coptic calendars usually prolong the celebration during three days.

In the seventh century the relic of the Holy Cross was connected with an event of great importance. Chosroes II., King of Persia, began to make war against the Eastern Empire at the time when Heraclius ascended the throne; he captured the cities of Apamea and Edessa, and defeated the Greeks in several engagements; in June 614 his general Salbarus took Jerusalem with great slaughter. He laid waste the churches, and carried off to Persia, with the rest of the booty, the portion of the Holy Cross which was preserved there. The course of the war still remained unfavourable to the Greeks until Heraclius, having made peace with the Bulgarians, himself led the full strength of his army against the Persians in 621. The fortune of war changed, and the Greeks reconquered their lost territory, being aided in this by internal discord among the Persians. Chosroes was deposed and murdered in 628; his successor, Siroes, hastened to make peace with the Greeks, and restored to them the wood of the Holy Cross. At the end of the year Heraclius returned as victor to his capital, and at the beginning of the following year he set out for Syria, taking the Holy Cross with him. He brought it himself from Tiberias to Jerusalem,[732] where he handed it over to the Patriarch Zacharias on the 3rd May, if the traditional date be correct. Tradition further adds that, arrayed in his royal robes, he essayed to carry it upon his shoulders, but at the foot of the hill of Calvary he found himself unable to proceed further until, upon the advice of Zacharias, he laid aside his royal apparel. No festival in commemoration of the event was introduced in the East, although it was in the West.[733]

With regard to the spread of these two festivals throughout the Church, we must call attention to a remarkable fact; the day of the discovery of the Holy Cross by Helena (14th September) naturally existed as a festival from the first in Jerusalem, from whence it soon spread throughout the entire eastern half of the Church, but in the West, although the discovery of the cross was already well known in the fourth century, the festival in honour of the event was not adopted, at least not at once.

It was just the opposite with regard to the recovery of the cross by Heraclius; the grief at the news of its loss was equalled by the joy which the whole Christian world felt at its recovery. While in the East people remained content with the already existing feast, in the West the day of the recovery of the cross was kept as a solemn commemoration, and was placed in the calendars and martyrologies at an early date; we find it mentioned by the name “Day of the Holy Cross” (_dies sanctæ crucis_) in the lectionary of Silos, which belongs to about 650—probably the earliest mention of the festival. The ancient Gallic liturgies published by Mabillon, both the lectionary and sacramentary, contain the Festival of the Holy Cross in spring, but call it “The Finding of the Cross” (_Inventio Sanctæ Crucis_).[734] None of these service-books mention the feast of the 14th September. The _Gregorianum_ has both feasts, so has the _Gelasianum_, at all events in Thomasi’s edition, but the second is a later addition.[735]

The way in which the _Martyrologium Hieronymianum_ treats these feasts is worthy of notice. The Weissenburg Codex, written about 750, has both days; the Echternach Codex, which represents the oldest form of the text, has neither, and the Bern Codex, the latest of the three recensions, has only one, _i.e._ the 3rd May, which, in common with all Latin authorities, it calls the Finding of the Cross.[736] The authentic text of Bede has only the 3rd May, so too has the sacramentary of Padua, belonging to the first half of the ninth century.[737]

These notices might easily be increased, but they are sufficient to show how that in the West, when it was known that the Holy Cross had been recovered from the Saracens, the feast of the 3rd May was, in the seventh century, immediately introduced, but the feast of the 14th September only became known in the eighth century, and won its way to acceptance slowly and partially. In many churches it was received quite late, as for example in Milan in 1035.[738]