Calendar, The Christian

Calendar, The Christian

CALENDAR, THE CHRISTIAN

I.The Christian Week.

1.The Lords Day.

2.Wednesday and Friday.

3.Saturday.

II.The Christian Year.

1.Easter.

(a)The name.

(b)Early observance of Easter.

(c)The Quartodeciman Controversy.

(d)Determination of Easter. Paschal cycles.

(e)The fast before Easter.

(f)Palm Sunday.

(g)Maundy Thursday.

(h)Easter Week.

2.Pentecost and Ascension.

(a)The name Pentecost..

(b)Connexion of Pentecost and Ascension.

3.Christmas and Epiphany.

(a)Their origin.

(b)Advent.

4.Presentation of Christ in the Temple.

5.Commemoration of Saints, etc.

Recapitulation of festal cycles.

Literature.

The Christian Calendar in its origin appears to have been based mainly on the desire to commemorate, by festival or by fast, the events of our Lords life upon earth. These commemorations were either weekly or annual. But while the weekly observances were developed earlyalmost, or in part quite, from Apostolic timesthe annual celebrations were of very slow growth, and for some three hundred years were confined to the two seasons when the Jews and Christians in common observed a commemoration, Easter and Pentecost. It is noteworthy, as showing that the main desire was to commemorate the events in the life of Jesus, that one of the very earliest books which exhibit any considerable development of the festal cycle is the so-called Pilgrimage of Silvia, otherwise of Etheria (about a.d. 385), in which the customs at Jerusalem are described. It was natural that those who lived in the land where the events narrated by the sacred history took place, should wish to commemorate them on the spot by annual observances. But this development took place only in the 4th century.

I. The Christian Week.

1. The Lords Day.It is significant that the first meeting of the disciples after the evening when they saw their newly-risen Master was, as far as the Gospel tells us, on the immediately succeeding first day of the week (Joh 20:26 : note how emphatically the Evangelist says of the preceding week, , Joh 20:1, and , Joh 20:19). It was more than an accidental coincidence if, as is very generally assumed, the birthday of the Church (Act 2:1) was also on the first day of the week. At Troas the Christians met together, or held a synaxis ( ), on the first day of the week for worship and the Eucharist (Act 20:7, where appears to be more than a mere chronological reference, and to indicate a custom), and also probably for the Agape (cf. Act 20:7 with Act 20:11). In this and other passages it is necessary to remember that the first day of the week began, from the point of view of a Jew, with what we should call Saturday night; and this consideration is against Prof. Ramsays view that the service at Troas began on what we should call Sunday night (St. Paul the Traveller, ch. xiii. 3). That it was the custom for Christians to meet together for worship on the first day of the week appears also from 1Co 16:2 ( ), where the Corinthians are hidden each to lay by him in store, that there might be no collection when the Apostle came. This would point probably to a weekly assembly at which alms were collected. Otherwise there is no reason why any one day of the week should be specially mentioned.

The first mention of the Lords Day by name is Rev 1:10, if indeed this is the right interpretation ( ). This phrase has been variously interpreted of the first day of the week, or of the Day of Judgment, or of the Sabbath, or of Easter Day. The last two interpretations may be dismissed as having no support from the earliest ecclesiastical writings. The identification of with the Last Day has more probability; it would then be equivalent to (2Th 2:2; cf. 1Th 5:2 , Act 2:20 from Joe 2:31; 2Pe 3:10, 1Co 1:8 , and 1Co 5:5, 2Co 1:14, Php 1:6), and would mean that the Apocalyptist is carried forward in vision to the day of the end of the world. It is a valid objection to this view that it would practically make the Apocalypse deal only with the future, and that almost the earliest ecclesiastical authors after the canonical writers use in the sense of the first day of the week (see below). The more probable interpretation of the phrase in question is therefore the first mentioned above.

The NT evidence does not compel the belief that the Lords Day was of universal observance in the earliest ages of the Church, but it at least makes it probable (especially when we find it so generally established in the next age) that it was of Apostolic precept. And there is nothing to forbid the supposition that it was a following of the spirit of the teaching of the great Forty Days (Act 1:3). But we may gather, with the historian Socrates (Historia Ecclesiastica v. 22), that the Saviour and His Apostles did not make fixed rules as to the observance of days, and enjoined us by no law to keep this feast [he is speaking of Easter, but his argument applies equally to Sunday], nor do the Gospels and Apostles threaten us with any penalty, punishment, or curse for the neglect of it, as the Mosaic Law does the Jews. The aim of the Apostles was not to appoint festival days, but to teach a righteous life and piety.

To pass to the post-Apostolic age, Barnabas (xv. 9) says: We keep the eighth day for rejoicing, in the which also Jesus rose from the dead, and, having been manifested, ascended into the heavens, a passage which throws some light on the occasional observance in later times of Ascension Day and Pentecost together. Barnabas purposely names the eighth day rather than the first, as he has just spoken of it as following the Jewish Sabbath, the seventh day. I will make the beginning of the eighth day, which is the beginning of another world. The Didache speaks of the synaxis on the Lords Day, and uses the pleonastic phrase ; the purpose of the synaxis was that the Christians might break bread and celebrate the Eucharist, having confessed their sins that their sacrifice might be pure ( 14).Ignatius (Magn. 9) speaks of Christians no longer observing Sabbaths, but fashioning their lives after the Lords Day ( , ), which at least involves a general observance of the first day of the week.Pliny (Ep. 96) says only that the Christians met on a fixed day, and does not say which (soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem ). He apparently, as Lightfoot observes (Ignatius2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , i. p. 52), confuses Baptism and the Eucharist; but we may probably gather from his account that the Christians of Bithynia met before dawn on a fixed day to celebrate the Eucharist, and later in the day met for the Agape. This inference is disputed by some.Justin Martyr describes the assembling on the day called Sunday ( ) for the Eucharist by all who live in cities or in the country (Apol. i. 67). He also explicitly mentions the Sunday collection of alms, as in 1Co 16:2. In the Dialogue also Justin extols the eighth day (cf. Barnabas, l.c.) as possessing a mysterious import, which the seventh day had not; he is referring to the Jewish circumcision as a type of the true circumcision by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity, through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath (Dial. 24, 41).

That became a common name in the 2nd cent. for the first day of the week is further clear from the fact, which Eusebius tells us (Historia Ecclesiastica iv. 26), that Melito, bishop of Sardis about a.d. 170, wrote a book ( . . ). Dionysius of Corinth (a.d. 171) in his Epistle to Soter calls Sunday the Lords Day (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica iv. 23: ). After this the name becomes very common, and we find it both in Greek (e.g. Clement of Alexandria, Strom. vii. 12) and in Latin, dies dominica (e.g. Tertullian, de Cor. 3).

There is little evidence as to the way in which the Lords Day was observed in the earliest ages. The Eucharist and probably the Agape were celebrated; but perhaps to a great extent other occupations went on much as usual. It would not be easy for Christian working men to absent themselves from their avocations on a day when everyone around them was working; and this may have been the reason why the synaxis took place at night or before dawn, as in the examples in Acts and in Pliny. St. Paul apparently began his journey from Troas (Acts 20) on Sunday. There is no evidence in the earliest ages of any attempt to transfer the obligations of Sabbath observance to the Lords Day. The Jewish Christians already had their day of rest on the Saturday. But, as Zahn observes (Skizzen aus dem Leben der Alten Kirche, p. 214), the Gentile Christians must have very quickly learnt all over the world to keep the Lords Day; they were never compelled to keep the Sabbath, which was not one of the four observances enjoined in Act 15:29.

Tertullian, however, is the first to mention a Sunday rest (Apologet. 16, de Orat. 23), saying that the Christiaus postponed ordinary duties and business only on that day, the day of the Lords resurrection, and that they gave up the day of the sun to joy. He contrasts the Christian with the Jewish rest by implication. He says that the Christians did not kneel on the Lords Day (de Orat. 23, de Cor. 3). This custom we already find in Irenaeus (Fragm. 7), who traces it to Apostolic times; and it was afterwards laid down in the 20th canon of Nicaea.

For the 3rd and 4th cents., the Church Orders, some of which have only lately come to light, and the early Didascalia (i.e. the work as it was before it was incorporated in the Apostolic Constitutions, and as we have it, for example, in the Verona Latin Fragments, edited by Dr. Hauler) throw some light on the question of the Lords Day. The Christians are hidden on the Lords Day (die dominica), putting aside everything, to assemble at church (Hauler, p. 44). The fragment breaks off in the middle of a sentence explaining the object of Sunday churchgoing (audire salutare uerbum et nutriri ab ); but we can fill the gap from other forms of the Didascalia, such as the Syriac edited by Mrs. Gibson, from which we see that the Eucharist is being spoken of (be nourished with the divine food which endureth for ever, Gibson, ch. xiii.). This appears to come from the original Didascalia, and it is emphatically said that the Lords Day is the great time for the Christian assembly, for prayer, Eucharist, and instruction; and this emphasis is all the greater as it was not yet customary to have public daily prayers for all men. But about a.d. 375 the writer of the Apostolic Constitutions, in adapting the Didascalia, alters this direction for Sunday worship to a command to assemble twice daily, morning and evening (ii. 59). In the Testament of our Lord (circa (about) 350?), the way is being felt towards public daily service by providing daily forms for the clergy and the presbyteresses, with whom the devout might be invited to join [see, further, on daily service, Wordsworths Ministry of Grace, ch. vi.; and Cooper and Macleans Testament of our Lord, p. 189]. We may then say that until the latter part of the 4th cent. Sunday was the only regular and universal day for Christian assemblies. There is a possible local and temporary exception in the Hippolytcan Canons ( 217, ed. Achelis), which command daily service; but some have concluded that this is an interpolation, as it is thought to be in contradiction to 226. These Canons allow a bishop to celebrate the Eucharist when he pleases. And again, a daily celebration of the Eucharist is perhaps found in Cyprian (de Orat. Dom. 18). But no further trace of this is found till the latter part of the 4th century. The result arrived at does not mean, however, that the Christians were not bidden to pray daily; from a very early period, certainly from about a.d. 200 onwards, regular daily hours of prayer were prescribed (e.g. Can. [Note: Canaanite.] Hippol. 223 ff.). But private prayers are here meant, even though sometimes they were said in church. For other synaxes in the week, see below ( 2, 3).

The Lords Day was the usual day for the ordination or consecration of a bishop; so the older Didasealia in Mrs. Gibsons form, iii. [but this is an interpolation from one of the following books], the Egyptian Church Order (ed. Tattam, 31), the Apostolic Constitutions (viii. 4), and the Testament of our Lord (i. 21); also in the Ethiopic Church Order ( 21), according to Achelis, though Ludolf (ad suam Hist. aethiop. Comment, p. 323) has in die sabbati. The Canons of Hippolytus perhaps mention Saturday, though Achelis gives in ea hebdomade; but the Arabic for Saturday and week are pronounced alike (see Rahmani, Test. D. N. Jesu Christi, p. xxxvi).

The rest on the Lords day appears (especially until the time of Constantine) to have been mainly to allow of church-going. But in the edict of Constantine in 321, the magistrates and people in cities are bidden to rest, and all workshops are directed to be closed on the venerable day of the sun; while no such obligation is laid on those engaged in agricultural pursuits. Whatever the motive of the emperor in making this decree may have been (and this is disputed), it doubtless did much to bring about a weekly holiday on the Lords Day.

2. Wednesday and Friday fasts.Almost from the beginning we can trace an observance of these two days for the purpose of fasting. In this way the early Christians interpreted our Lords words in Mat 9:15, that they should fast when the bridegroom should be taken away from them; though, as we shall see, some found a more particular fulfilment of these words in the fast before Easter. The reason why Wednesday and Friday were chosen is not entirely obvious. The stricter Jews had made a practice of fasting twice in the week (Luk 18:12), and, as we learn from the Didache ( 8), the Christians took over the practice, but changed the days. Probably ever since the Return from the Captivity, Monday and Thursday had been the Jewish fasts, though we read of Judith fasting daily save on Sabbaths and New Moons and the eves of both and the feasts and solemn days of the house of Israel (Jdt 8:6). Monday and Thursday were chosen, or were afterwards accounted for, because there was a tradition that Moses went up into the Mount on the latter day and came down on the former. But these were not matters of law, for the Mosaic Code prescribes only the Day of Atonement as a fast; and though occasional fasts were ordered in times of trouble, these were never permanent nor of universal obligation. Thus the Pharisees boast in Luk 18:12 was that he did more than he was obliged by law to do (see, further, in Plummers St. Luke, in loc.). In the sub-Apostolic age the Christians went a step further and seem to have tried to make the Wednesday and Friday fasts universal. The Didache ( 8) says: Let not your fastings be with the hypocrites [the Jews], for they fast on the second and the fifth day of the week; but do ye keep your fast on the fourth day and on the preparation (there is a change of construction: . For the latter, with direct accusative, see the parallel Apost. Const. vii. 23 and v. 15; and Oxyrhynchus Logia, 2: , and Testament of our Lord, ii. 6 and 12 [apparently]). A reason was found for the choice of Wednesday and Friday in the fact that on the former day the Jews made a conspiracy against our Lord, and that He was crucified on the latter. But this first appears in Peter of Alexandria ( 311), who gives this explanation in his Canonical Epistle (canon xv.). It reappears elsewhere, e.g. in Apost. Const. v. 15. Another explanation is given by Clement of Alexandria (Strom, vii. 12). He says that the fourth and sixth days are named from Hermes and Aphrodite respectively. The true Christian or Gnostic fasts in his life in respect of covetousness and voluptuousness, from which all the vices grow. Considering, then, that the symbolical explanations differ, and that they are not found until a somewhat later date than the first mention of these days, it is reasonable to suppose that they are afterthoughts. Yet it is probable that, when the Jewish fast days had to be changed, Friday was not accidentally fixed upon, but that our Lords death on that day would make it appropriate as a fast; and when once Friday was chosen, Wednesday would follow from mere considerations of convenience.

Other early authorities for week-day fasts are Hennas, Tertullian, Hippolytus, the Hippolytcan Canons, and Origen. Hennas (Sim. v. 1) does not mention the days on which it was usual to fast; but he says that he was fasting and seated on a certain mountain, giving thanks to the Lord, when he met the Shepherd, who asked him why he was there. He replies that he is keeping a station ( ), which he explains as being a fast. Tertullian expressly mentions Wednesday and Friday (de Jejun. 2 and 14: stationibus quartam et sextain sabbati dieamus, et jeiuniis parasceuena difficult phrase, since the sixth day and parasceue are one; perhaps the meaning is that Wednesday was a half-fast [de Jejun. 13] in Tertullians time, and Friday a whole one, or perhaps Tertullian means Good Friday here by parasceue). He says that the Eucharist was celebrated on those days (de Orat. 19). For Hippolytus, see below ( 3) on the Saturday fast. The Hippolytcan Canons, which, whether they represent Roman usage or Alexandrian, probably date from the first half of the 3rd cent., prescribe fasts feria quarta et sexta [et quadraginta], though it approves of individuals adding other fasts to these ( 154; the bracketed words seem to be an interpolation). Origen speaks of Wednesday and Friday as days quibus solemniter jejunamus (in Lev. Hom. x., but see II. 1 c, below).

But hereafter there is a break, except that Peter of Alexandria gives evidence for Egypt, and that in the Edessene Canons of the first half of the 4th cent. there are directions for the Eucharist on Sundays, for service on the fourth day, and for service on the eve [of the Sabbath] at the ninth hour (canons 2, 3). Apparently the observance of these two days was not universal, at any rate in the East, till towards the end of the 4th century. There is no mention of them in the Testament of our Lord (circa (about) 350 a.d.?), which alludes to the possibility of a fast day falling in the week (i. 22), but does not prescribe one. There is in this curious Church Order a regulation for bishops and presbyters to fast three days a week, perhaps only for one year from their ordination, but they are not tied down to any fixed days, and the rule is expressly said to be for the priests only. The Arabic Didascalia ( 38, circa (about) 380 a.d.?), which is probably based on the Testament, mentions explicitly Wednesday and Friday as the two fast days of the week, and says that when a festival falls on these days they shall pray and not receive the holy mysteries, and shall not interrupt the fasting till the ninth hour [see a German translation of these later chapters in Funks Apostol. Konstitutionen; the rest is not published]. There is abundant evidence towards the end of the 4th cent. for these days: Apost. Const. v. 15, vii. 23; Apost. Can. [Note: Canaanite.] 69 (68); pseudo-Ignat. ad Phil. [Note: Philistine.] 13; Epiphanius, Haer. lxv. 6 (ed. Dionysius Petavius, lib. iii. 6, p. 910), and Expos. Fid. 21. The Apostolic Constitutions are here (vii. 23) based on the Didache, and repeat its language about the change of day from those of the hypocrites. The Apostolic Canon makes it incumbent on all, under penalty, to keep these days, unless in sickness. Pseudo-Ignatius, who is probably the same as the author of the Apost. Constitutions [so Harnack, Brightman; but Lightfoot (Ignatius2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , i. 265 f.) thinks otherwise] re-echoes their language. Epiphanius says that these two days were observed everywhere ( ); he calls them and . Bp. J. Wordsworth conjectures that the restoration of these days in the East was largely due to Epiphanius (Min. of Grace, ch. vi. ii.). Probably in Egypt and in many parts of the West their observance was continuous.

Usually the Eucharist was celebrated on Wednesdays and Fridays; perhaps often (as the Arabic Didascalia may suggest) at a late hour, so that the fast might be preserved, though Tertullian speaks (de Orat. 19) of the service being during the hours of fasting on these days, and of scrupulous communicants reserving the elements in private so as not to break the fast. In Silvia (iv. 3, in Duchesnes Origines, Appendix) the observance of Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent is spoken of: Diebus vero quadragesimarum quarta feria ad nona in Syon [the traditional scene of the descent of the Holy Spirit, possibly the site of St. Marks house, called by Epiphanius and St. Cyril of Jerusalem the Church of the Apostles] proceditur juxta consuetudinem totius anni, et omnia aguntur quae consuetudo est ad nonam agi praeter oblatio. Sexta feria autem similiter omnia aguntur sicut quarta feria, which must mean that the Eucharist was usually celebrated on Mount Zion after none at 3 p.m. except in Lent, though Duchesne seems to invert this conclusion (p. 130 n. [Note: note.] 4, English ed.). Silvia says that on these days, unless a festival of the martyrs fell on one of them, even the catechumens fasted. In the 5th cent. an exception to the Wednesday and Friday Eucharist is mentioned by Socrates (Historia Ecclesiastica v. 22) in the case of the Wednesday and Friday before Easter.

These days were called half-fasts, semi-jejunia (Tertull. de Jejun. 13), because on them Christians broke their fast at 3 p.m. or even at noon; or more frequently station days as in Hermas (l.c., though he does not specify the days) and in Tertullian (de Jejun. 14). This is a military metaphor. Tertullian (de Orat. 19) says: If the Station has received its name from the example of military lifefor we are Gods military [cf. 2Co 10:4, 1Ti 1:18]certainly no gladness or sadness chancing to the camp abolishes the Stations of the soldiers; for gladness will carry out discipline more willingly, sadness more carefully. And St. Ambrose says: Our fasts are our encampments which protect us from the devils attack; in short, they are called Stations, because standing and staying in them we repel our plotting foes (Serm. 25, ed. of 1549, p. 716c).

3. Saturday.There was a considerable divergence of custom with regard to the observance of Saturday. In the East it was commonly regarded as a feast, while in many parts of the West it was a fast, that of Friday being continued to the Saturday, and the added fast being called a superposition (superpositio, ). Tertullian (de Jejun. 14) mentions and condemns the custom of fasting on Saturday: You [psychic Christians] sometimes continue your station even over the Sabbath, a day never to be kept as a fast except at the Passover season. St. Jerome writing to Lucinius in a.d. 398 (Ep. 71) discusses the question, and says that it had been treated by the eloquent Hippolytus and others; but he does not tell us what their opinions were. The Council of Elvira in Spain (circa (about) 305 a.d.) ordered superpositions each month except in July and August (canon 23); and in canon 26 says that the error is to be corrected ut omni sabbati die superpositiones celebremus, which may mean that superpositions were to be held every Saturday (Hefele), or that this weekly fast was henceforward forbidden (Bp. J. Wordsworth). The latter meaning would suit canon 23 better, but Hefeles construction suits canon 43. St. Augustine says that in his time they did not fast at Milan on Saturday (Ep. liv. ad Januar. 3). Writing in the 5th cent., Socrates (Historia Ecclesiastica v. 22) says that in his day almost all Churches celebrated the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath of every week [Saturday], yet the Christians of Alexandria and Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, had ceased to do this. This ancient tradition may probably go hack before the 4th century. Socrates goes on to say that the Egyptians near Alexandria and those of the Thebaid held synaxes on the Sabbath, but, unlike other Christians, after having eaten and satisfied themselves with food of all kinds [the Agape?], in the evening make the Offering ( ) and partake of the mysteries. Sozomen (Historia Ecclesiastica vii. 19) repeats Socrates statements.* [Note: Dom Leclercq (Dict. dArchcl. Chrt. s.v. Agape, col. 822) thinks that in Socrates and Sozomen there is no trace of an Agape, but only of a Eucharist. But it appears clear to the present writer that the words eating and satisfying themselves point to the Agape, and that the whole purpose of the custom described is to keep up the example of the Last Supper. For a full discussion of the origin and date of introduction of the Agape, see Hastings (forthcoming) Dict. of Religion, s.v.]

The Testament of our Lord (i. 23), according to our present Syriac text, prescribes Eucharists on Saturday or Sunday; but we must probably correct or into and, by the omission of Syriac letter ( into ), and the rule will then agree with the Arabic Didascalia, 38. In the Constitutions (ii. 59) Saturday and Sunday are specially appointed for Divine service; and we note that in this passage Saturday is the authors interpolation into his source, the old Didascalia mentioning only Sunday (Hauler, Fragments, p. 44). Pseudo-Ignatius forbids a Christian to fast on Sunday, save on Easter Even [the reading of the last words is doubtful, but the sense is clear], lest he be a Christ-slayer (). And so the same author in . Const. vii. 23 bids his hearers feast on the Sabbath and the Lords Day, except on Easter Even; and in v. 13, 15, he bids them leave off fasting on the seventh day, save on that Sabbath when the Creator was under the ground. The Canons strongly make the same prohibition as to fasting on ordinary Saturdays (Canon 66 [65]).

As we saw above, Alexandria did not celebrate the Eucharist on Saturday for some time before Socrates. St. Athanasius (Apol. con. Avian. 11) implies that it was celebrated on Sunday only. He replies to a charge against Macarius of breaking a chalice, and shows that the place alleged was not a church, that there was no one there to perform the sacred office, and that the day was not the Lords Day, and did not require the use of it [the sacred office]. This at least shows that there was no fixed day except Sunday for the Eucharist. And Brightman (Journ. of Theol. Stud. i. 92) thinks that the same is implied in the Sacramentary of Serapion (circa (about) 350 a.d.), which gives The first prayer of the Lords day (), without arranging for any other day. But this is hardly conclusive, especially as Thmuis was not Alexandria, and Socrates says that the neighbours of Alexandria did have a Saturday Eucharist. By a.d. 380 the latter was already established in Alexandria (Timothy of Alex. [Note: Alexandrian.] Respons. Canon. 13, see Brightman, l.c.). Cassian says that in his time there were no public services in the day among the Egyptians except on Saturday and Sunday, when they met at the third hour for Holy Communion (Inst. iii. 2). St. Augustine sums up the matter by saying that in some places no day passed without the sacrifice being offered; in others it was only on Saturday and the Lords Day, or, it may be, only on the Lords Day (Ep. liv. ad Januar. 2).

For Phrygia and Cappadocia we have no satisfactory evidence with regard to the observance of Saturday in the 4th century. The 49th canon of Laodicea in Phrygia (circa (about) 380?) says that during Lent the bread shall not be offered except on Saturday and Sunday, from which it may perhaps be inferred that these two days were liturgical all through the year. St. Basil in his 93rd Epistle, ad Caesariam (v.l. Caesarium; in the Paris ed. of 1618, Ep. 289), says that he communicated four times a week, on the Lords Day, Wednesday, Friday, and the Sabbath, and on other days if there were a commemoration of any saint (v.l. martyr); he refers to and defends the practice of private reservation, and says that in Egypt each layman kept the Eucharistic elements in his own house and partook when he liked. Thus the fact that Basil communicated on the days mentioned does not necessarily imply a Eucharist on those days.

It is noteworthy that Saturday and Sunday have remained in the Greek Church as the only liturgical days in Lent, as provided in the Laodicean canon; whereas the Nestorians provide Eucharistic lections for every day in certain selected weeks in Lent (called the weeks of the mysteries) with the one exception of Saturday.

II. The Christian Year.In addition to the weekly observances, there were annual commemorations of events in our Lords life, although their development was slow. Two of these, Easter and Pentecost, passed to the Church from the Jews; while others, such as Good Friday, Lent, Ascension, Christmas, Epiphany, Advent, are of purely Christian origin.

1. Easter

(a) The name.Pascha () was the common name for Easter at least from the 2nd cent. onwards in Greek and Latin Christianity; and it is of some importance to gather from the earlier writers the reasons for its use, as they will show us the exact meaning of the commemoration. is taken from the Aramaic (h), the equivalent of Heb. (h) the passover. Syrian Christians, however, have usually written the word in the form (sh) as if from to rejoice (see Payne-Smith, Syriacus, in loc.); though, in translating into Syriac from Greek, James of Edessa and others use the form (as in the of our Lord, passim); and the Lexicons give a verb to celebrate Easter. The meaning in Syriac literature is usually Easter, though the Nestorian writers, like their descendants to this day, use it in the sense of Maundy Thursday. The older Greek and Latin writers commonly derive it from , to suffer, and draw analogies from etymology between the paschal lamb and the suffering Christ. Thus, perhaps, Justin Martyr (. 40; he is showing how the lamb sacrificed as the passover is a type of the Passion); and most probably Irenaeus (aer. iv. x. 1: Moses foretold Him after a figurative manner by the given to the passover, and at that very did our Lord suffer, thus fulfilling the passover). (. Jud 1:19, Migne, vol. ii. col. 670): It is the Lords passover, that is, the Passion of Christ. Lactantius expressly adopts this etymology (. Inst. iv. 26, Migne, vol. i. col. 531): Pascha nominatur , quia passionis figura est. Augustine, on the other hand (. Leviticus 1, Januar., a.d. 400) denies this interpretation, while he proposes a scarcely better one: The word Pascha itself is not, as is commonly thought, a Greek word; those who are acquainted with both languages affirm it to be a Hebrew word. It is not derived, therefore, from the Passion because of the Greek word , signifying suffer, but it takes its name from the transition of which I have spoken, from death to life; the meaning of the Hebrew word Pascha being, as those who are acquainted with it assure us, a over or . To this the Lord Himself designed to allude when He said: He that believeth in me is passed from death to life.

The question then arises, What did these earlier writers mean by Pascha? Was it the commemoration of the Passion, or of the Resurrection? Irenaeus wrote a work, (quoted by pseudo-Justin, Quaest. et resp. ad Orthodoxos), which is probably the letter to Victor from which Eusebius gives extracts (Historia Ecclesiastica v. 24). In this he speaks of a festival preceded by a fast of varying duration (see below, e); and he may use the word of the festival or of the festival and fast combined. Bp. J. Wordsworth (Ministry of Grace, iii. 1) says that the Christian always in the first three centuries and often in the fourth means the celebration of the fast of Good Friday, extended no doubt by or superposition in most cases over Easter; and he adduces Tertullian, adv. Jud 1:10, as above (but this hardly shows it), and de Bapt. 19 (Pascha affords a more solemn day for baptism, when all the passion of the Lord, in which we are baptized [tinguimur], was completed). We may add de Orat. 18, where he says that they did not give the kiss of peace die paschae when there was a general fast. But in de Cor. 3 he seems to use the word of Easter Day; he says that the Christians did not kneel a die Paschae in Pentecosten usque; and in de Jejun. 14 he speaks of celebrating Pascha, and of the fifty ensuing (exinde) days being spent in exultation, which is suitable language if Pascha means Easter Day, but hardly if it means Good Friday. It may, however, in these passages, mean Easter and the preceding fast, and this would suit the remark which follows in de Jejun. 14, that Saturday was never a fast nisi in Pascha. Origen (circa (about) Cels. viii. 22) distinguishes from , and doubtless means Easter by the latter. He mentions the observance of the Lords Day, of the Preparation, of Pascha, and of Pentecost; and cannot here mean every Friday by the Preparation, for then he would also have mentioned Wednesday, as in Hom. in Lev. x. (see above, 1. 2).

One may conjecture that there was some divergence in the first three centuries both as to the name and as to the actual observance of this commemoration. It seems likely that in many cases the Resurrection and the Passion were observed on the same day. This must usually have been the case with the Quartodecimans, who observed the fourteenth day of the lunar month; but it was also apparently often the case with those who kept the Sunday, for, as we shall see below, the fast observed before the Sunday was often only of one days duration, and did not always include the Friday. Even well on in the 4th cent. we find a relic of this in the Testament of our Lord, where the Friday before Easter is not mentioned as the day of commemorating the Passion but as a preparation for the festival, and the Passion and Resurrection are apparently commemorated together, just as the Ascension and Pentecost were often joined (see below, 2 b). There is nothing a priori incongruous in commemorating and giving thanks for the Redemption of mankind on a day of rejoicing, especially when a severe fast of a day or two had just preceded. The probable conclusion, then, is that Pascha usually meant, before the 4th cent., the commemoration both of the Death and of the Resurrection of Christ, the festival with its preceding fast, and that the erroneous derivation from favoured a certain indefiniteness in the use of the word. This derivation, it may be observed, as well as the equally false Syrian one, probably explains why a name with such a very Jewish association became so popular. When, somewhat later, a distinction had to be made between Good Friday and Easter Day, the names and were invented (Ducange, s.v. Pascha).

Another use of the name Pascha is to be noted. In the Testament of our Lord (i. 28, 42; ii. 8, 11, 12, 18) it means the forty days before Easter, though of these forty days only the last two were fasts. Holy Week is called the last week of Pascha. The end of Pascha is to be after the Saturday at midnight. The forty days of Pascha are specially mentioned. Similarly in Apost. Can. [Note: Canaanite.] 69 (68) we find . But in the Testament, Pascha is used absolutely in this sense. In this work, however, we also read of the feast of Pascha (i. 42), when widows (presbyteresses) are to give alms and bathe. The bathing was on the Thursday before Easter.

Pascha was sometimes used for Holy Week. Thus in Apost. Const. v. 18 we read: Fast in the days of Pascha beginning from the second till the Preparation and the Sabbath, for they are days of sorrow, not of feasting. And so perhaps Can. [Note: Canaanite.] Hipp. 195 ff. (below, d).

Other names for Easter were: among the Latins, Dominica gaudii (Bingham, Ant. xx. v. 5); among the Greeks, ; while the common Syrian name was and is the feast of the Resurrection.

(b) Early observance of Easter.The Apostles, no doubt, continued to keep the Jewish Passover (Act 20:6); but it is uncertain if the first Gentile Christians observed it in any way, or whether they were content with the weekly commemoration. It is not even certain if the Jewish Christians kept it in any way as a Christian festival. Yet the phrases and (1Co 5:7 f.) would be specially appropriate if the Christians at Corinth were at the time when St. Paul wrote from Ephesus, namely, before Pentecost (1Co 16:8), observing an Easter festival. But it is significant that there is no mention of Easter in the Apostolic Fathers or in Justin Martyr; and its absence in the Didache is specially noteworthy, since that Church Order mentions the Lords Day, the fast before baptism, and the Wednesday and Friday fasts. We can, however, trace the observance of Easter at Rome back to the time of Pope Xystus, circa (about) 120 a.d., for Irenaeus tells us (ap. Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica v. 24) that Xystus and his immediate successors, while not observing the Quartodeciman practice themselves, yet were at peace with those who did; and from what follows it is clear that Irenaeus means that Xystus observed the Sunday as Easter Day. In Asia Minor the observance can be traced back still further; for Polycarp, as Irenaeus says (ib.), traced his custom of keeping Easter to St. John. The conclusion may probably be, either that Easter was not universally observed as an annual commemoration early in the 2nd cent. or, more probably, that it had not then the great importance which it acquired later in the century, from the disputes as to the day when it should be kept.

(c) The Quartodeciman Controversy.A brief summary only of this question is necessary for the purposes of this Dictionary; for more detailed accounts of it, reference may be made to the works mentioned at the end of this article. The controversy arose in the 2nd cent, and came to a head in the last decade of it; it was concerned with the question whether the Paschal commemoration should follow the day of the week or the day of the lunar month on which the events commemorated originally occurred. Those who upheld the former practice no doubt laid chief stress on the Resurrection of our Lord, since they fixed on Sunday for their commemoration; while the latter, who were called Quartodecimans or (Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica v. 22, Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica vii. 19), probably at first emphasized our Lords death, as they adhered to 14th Nisan, the day on which He died, or was thought by them to have died; whereas, on no calculation did He rise on that day. The theory has, indeed, been advanced by the Tbingen school that the Quartodecimans commemorated the Last Supper rather than the Passion or Resurrection. According to the Synoptists, the Last Supper appears to have taken place on the evening of 14th Nisan, and the Crucifixion to have been on the 15th; while, according to the Fourth Gospel, the Death of our Lord would appear to have been at the time of the killing of the Paschal lambs, and the Last Supper therefore to have taken place at the end of 13th Nisan. We are not here concerned with the seeming contradiction between the Gospels except in so far as the Tbingen school deduced from the known facts that the Quartodecimans could not have accepted the Fourth Gospel, because their practice rather agreed with the Synoptists. Western readers need, however, to be reminded that in the ordinary Eastern reckoning, at any rate the ecclesiastical reckoning, then as now, the Last Supper and the Crucifixion fell on the same day; for the day began at sunset. Thus, if the Quartodecimans observed 14th Nisan, it must have been because they thought that our Lord both celebrated the Last Supper and also died on that day. It is a pure assumption that their Paschal commemoration began at the moment when the lambs were killed. In that case they would have been rather Quintodecimans. It is generally agreed that the lambs were killed, at any rate in ancient Jewish times, in the afternoon of 14th Nisan, i.e. when that day was drawing to a close. The inference, then, is that the Quartodecimans made their Paschal commemoration coincide with the day which began at the Last Supper and ended soon after our Lords death, and that they thought that that occurred at the time of the killing of the lambs. The deduction is the exact opposite of that drawn by the Tbingen school, and is that the Quartodecimans followed the Fourth Gospel (as they, perhaps rightly, interpreted it) rather than the Synoptists. The supposition that they commemorated the Last Supper in particular has, moreover, no basis of fact. And the view given above is further supported by the fact that in the time of Melito (a.d. 170) the Quartodecimans clearly accepted the Fourth Gospel. Melito, in one of his fragments, speaks of our Lords three years ministry, which he could never have gathered from the Synoptists (de Incarn. Christi, in Rouths Reliquiae sacrae, vol. i.).

It has been thought by some (as by Hefele) that the Quartodecimans kept their commemoration of the Resurrection on the third day after 14th Nisan, i.e. on 16th Nisan, or even on the Sunday after. But this is very improbable. If it were so, why should they have broken off their fast on 14th Nisan? It is much more likely that they commemorated the Passion and the Resurrection together.

The history of the controversy is given by Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica v. 23, 24), who takes up the question at its third and most acute stage, namely, at the dispute between Victor and Polycrates at the very end of the 2nd century. He tells us that synods held in that century unanimously decided that the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord should be celebrated on no other but the Lords day, and that we should observe the close of the paschal fast on this day only. These synods were held in Palestine, Rome (under Victor), Pontus, Gaul (under Irenaeus), and Osrhone in N.-W. Mesopotamia. Perhaps the last-named synod was held at the famous Edessa or Ur-hai, which is in that district. There were also personal (i.e. not synodical) letters of Bacchylus, bishop of Corinth, and many others, all of whom concurred in the decision mentioned above. On the other side Asia (i.e. probably the Roman province, though the Quartodeciman practice extended to other provinces alsoeven to Antioch), led by Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, maintained that the paschal commemoration should take place on 14th Nisan, on whatever day of the week it should fall. Polycrates, who is very highly praised by St. Jerome (de Viris Illustr. 45) and by implication by Eusebius, who preserves his letter (l.c.), privileges the example of Philip, one of the twelve Apostles, who fell asleep in Hierapolis, and his two aged virgin daughters, and another daughter who lived in the Holy Spirit and now rests at Ephesus; also of John who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest wore the [sacerdotal] plate ( ). He fell asleep at Ephesus. He also adduces Polycarp, Melito, the martyr Sagaris, and others, who all agreed with his practice.

Victor attempted to excommunicate all Asia; are Eusebius exact words. But Socrates (Historia Ecclesiastica v. 22) declares that he did actually excommunicate them. He probably issued a letter of excommunication, but it was not effective. For Eusebius goes on to say that Irenaeus, bishop of Gaul, intervened in the dispute in the interests of peace, and he who was truly well named became a peacemaker in the matter. Part of Irenaeus letter is preserved by Eusebius, and it is specially interesting as mentioning that the presbyters before Soter who presided over the Church which thou [Victor] now rulest, Anicetus and Pius and Hyginus and Telesphorus and Xystus, neither themselves observed [the fourteenth day] nor permitted those after them to do so; and yet they were at peace with those who did observe it; and also that when Polycarp went to Rome in the time of Anicetus (bishop of Rome), the two bishops disagreed a little about certain other things, but immediately made peace, not caring to quarrel over this matter; nor did it interfere with their remaining in communion with one another, or with Anicetus allowing Polycarp to celebrate the Eucharist in his church at Rome, manifestly as a mark of respect ( ). It has been suggested that these words mean only that the two bishops communicated together; but in that case they are mere repetitions of what had just been said, and there would be no special mark of respect.

Eusebius here does not mention the intervening dispute in which Melito, bishop of Sardis, figures. But in iv. 26 he speaks of him, and from the account we gather that he was a prolific writer; a list of his books is given. In the quotation from Polycrates in v. 24 we find the name of Melito appearing as a Quartodeciman, but it is not said that he was a writer. From the earlier passage we learn that he wrote a book , from which a quotation is given: While Servilius [Rufinus gives Sergius] Paulus was proconsul of Asia, at the time when Sagaris suffered martyrdom, there arose in Laodicea [in Phrygia] a great strife concerning Pascha, which fell according to rule in those days ( ), and these things were written [sc. because of the dispute]. So McGiffert [Eusebius in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers] renders these words, though it is not obvious what they mean; for when did not Pascha fall according to rule? For other explanations see Salmon in Smith-Wace, Dict. of Chr. Biog. s.v. Melito. Eusebius goes on to say that Clement of Alexandria refers to Melitos work, and himself wrote one with the same title, on occasion ( ) of Melitos treatise, i.e., probably, in opposition to it, though Hefele thinks that Clements book was meant to supplement Melitos.

The Paschal Chronicle mentions that Apolinarius, bishop of Hierapolis, of whom Serapion, bishop of Antioch (circa (about) 200 a.d.), is the first to speakbut he was then deadwrote a book , and preserves two fragments of it. It is disputed whether Apolinarius was a Quartodeciman. If so, he was not an extreme partisan; he certainly wrote before the discussion became acute, as in the time of Polycrates. He held (the Paschal Chronicle states) that our Lord, being the true Paschal Lamb, was slain on the day of the Passover feast. Some have asserted that there were two parties of Quartodecimans, the one Judaizing and the other not. But it is perhaps unnecessary to divide them, with Hefele, into Ebionites and Johanneans. Eusebius (iv. 27) mentions Apolinarius writings, but not the work in question.

There were thus three stages in the controversy: (1) the discussion between Polycarp and Anicetus, circa (about) 150 a.d., when they agreed to differ, and parted amicably; (2) the dispute at Laodicea about a.d. 170; (3) the bitter contest between Victor and Polycrates about a.d. 190.

The other Churches, as a rule,those outside Asia,agreed with Victor in his practice, but disapproved of his excommunicating the Quartodecimans. The Roman Pascha gradually prevailed, and was affirmed by the Council of Nicaea in 325, in whose decision the bishop of Asia acquiesced. Thenceforward the Quartodeciman practice was confined to a few communities which were considered heretical. It lasted till the 5th cent., and Sozomen (Historia Ecclesiastica vii. 19) speaks of it as still going on in his day, circa (about) 443 a.d.

(d) Determination of Easter: Paschal cycles.The defeat of the Quartodecimans did not ensure that all should keep Easter on the same day, for different calculations were in use for determining the paschal full moon. This had long been the case. For a time the Christians were dependent on the Jews for the date of their festival. The Hippolytcan Canons ( 195, ed. Achelis) say that the week when the Jews celebrate Pascha is to be observed by all with the utmost zeal as a fast. And the older Didascalia, according to Codex Sangermanensis (Gibsons Didasc. 1903, p. 97), bids the Christians keep your fast with all care, but commence when your brethren of the Nation keep Pascha; the Verona Fragments are wanting here. And in the 4th cent. pseudo-Pionius, in his Life of Polycarp ( 2; for the date see Lightfoots Ignatius, iii. 429), says that the Apostle [Paul] plainly teaches that we ought neither to keep it outside the season of unleavened bread, as the heretics do, especially the Phrygians, nor yet, on the other hand, of necessity on the fourteenth day; for he said nothing about the fourteenth day, but named the days of unleavened bread, the Passover, and the Pentecost, thus ratifying the Gospel.

On the other hand, the Apostolic Constitutions (v. 17) expressly say: Be no longer careful to keep the feast with the Jews, for we have now no communion with them; and the Jews are said to have erred in their calculations. [The passage inserted before this in Dr. Donaldsons translation in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library, taken from Epiphanius, belongs to the older Didascalia, and is not part of the Apostolic Constitutions at all].

And long before this Hippolytus had made an elaborate calculation, so that it might be no longer necessary for the Christians to follow the Jews, who had gone wrong in their computation through lax calculations of the lunar year. Hippolytus follows the system adopted by the Greek astronomers to harmonize the lunar and solar years. He makes the lunar year to be 354 days of twelve months, which alternately have 30 and 29 days. To supply the difference of 11 days between the lunar and solar years, he interpolates three months of 30 days each in every eight years (8 11 = 90). He also puts two eight-year periods together, for convenience of determining the day of the week as well as the day of the year, and he thus makes a cycle of 16 years. But, as a matter of fact, the lunar year is longer by nearly nine hours than Hippolytus reckoned it, and this error made the cycle very soon to be obviously wrong. Calculating backwards on this cycle, he fixed on Friday 25th March a.d. 29 as the day of the Crucifixion, and this computation, though quite erroneous, has ever since been the basis of a large part of the Church Calendar (see on Christmas below, 3). The same date, March 25, is also found in the Acts of Pilate, which probably was written after Hippolytus, and was indebted to him. Epiphanius (Haer. l. 1, contra Quartodecimanos, lib. ii. tom. 1) says that some, following the Acts of Pilate, always kept Pascha on March 25. These Christians, who thus anticipated a reform much desired in modern times, were not strictly Quartodecimans, for they abandoned 14th Nisan, although they observed Pascha on any day of the week, and so were separated from the Catholics. A slight modification on Hippolytus system was made (circa (about) 243) by pseudo-Cyprian in his de Pascha Computus (see Dr. Salmons article, Chronicon Cyprianicum, in Smith-Wace, Dict. of Chr. Biography).

The Alexandrian Church is thought by Dr. Salmon to have used the Metonic cycle of nineteen years, which, somewhat modified, is still in use. Anyhow, the Alexandrians and Romans frequently kept Easter on different days. Another source of error was the determining of the vernal equinox, which at Rome in the 3rd cent. was thought to fall on 18th March, at Alexandria from circa (about) 277 a.d. onwards on 19th March (the calculation was made by Anatolius of Laodicea). The date was changed to 21st March (as it is now) in the reign of Diocletian.

The later disputes in Britain between the Columban and Augustinian missionaries were due to the former using a cycle which had been employed at Rome itself about a.d. 300, but had long been given up. The Columban missionaries were in no real sense Quartodecimans, though they professed to follow St. John.

(e) The fast before EasterIn the ancient literature we find two aspects of this fast. In the first it is a preparation, whether for the paschal commemoration itself or for baptism, whether (moreover) the former emphasized the Death or the Resurrection of our Lord. In the second it is designed to mark the sadness of Christians in the days when the Bridegroom is taken away namely, the days when our Lords body was in the tomb. In this case it must be looked upon as a Good Friday fast, extended by superposition to the Saturday. As the normal time for baptism was Easter, usually early on Easter morning,a fact which the discovery of so many Church Orders has lately made abundantly clear,it follows that the resultant fast would be the same, whichever account of its origin is the more primitive.

For the first aspect we have the Didache. This Church Order, as has been said, does not mention Easter. But it gives what seems to be an exhaustive list of the fasts known to the writer at the beginning of the 2nd cent., and says ( 7): Before the baptism let him that baptizeth and him that is baptized fast, and any others also who are able; and thou shalt order him that is baptized to fast a day or two before. It then prescribes the Wednesday and Friday fasts. We thus have the curious result that a fast of one or two days is mentioned earlier than the festival which at that time, or at any rate soon after, followed it; and the fast is connected not with the death of our Lord, but with baptism. It is significant that in the Didache not only the baptized and the baptizer fast, but also any others who are able. And the silence of the Apostolic Fathers and Justin Martyr about Easter makes it not impossible that early in the 2nd cent. the pre-baptismal fast was emphasized more than the paschal festival. Irenaeus also speaks of the fast before Easter Sunday in a way which seems to exclude the idea of a Good Friday fast extended to Saturday. His words are thus given by Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica v. 24): Some think that they ought to fast for one day, others for two days, others even for several, while others reckon forty hours both of day and night to their day. And this variety in its observance has not originated in our time but long before, in that of our ancestors ( …). Some have put a stop after (among others Rufinus, who translated Irenaeus into Latin), making the writer say that some fasted forty days. But a forty days fast, as we shall see, was an invention of the 4th cent., and Rufinus is interpreting Irenaeus by the practice of his own day. Moreover, this punctuation makes no sense of the words that follow, for no one can suppose that there was an absolute fast, night and day, for forty days, and, if not, the reference to night and day has no point. Irenaeus seems clearly to mean that the fast lasted, variously, for one day, for two days, for several days, while some made a continuous fast of forty hours. The words, especially several days, seem definitely to determine his point of view, that the fast was a preparation for the festival rather than an extension of Good Friday. The Church Orders definitely speak in the same sense. Baptism is described as taking place before the Easter Eucharist, and the directions for the paschal fast and solemnities generally follow immediately after the directions for baptism. The arrangement suggests that in the mind of the author of the lost ancestor of so many of these manuals,for most of them are of one family and follow the same outline,the preparation for baptism was the original object of the Lenten fast. The Canons of Hippolytus ( 150152; but these are bracketed by Achelis as probable interpolations) speak of a baptismal fast of the newly baptized, and those who fast with them. In 106 a fast of the candidates on the Fridays is mentioned; on the Saturday they are exorcized ( 108) and keep vigil all night, and are baptized at cock-crow ( 112). The Egyptian Church Order (Sahidic Eccles. Canons, 45) prescribes a Good Friday fast. The Verona Latin Fragments are wanting in the parallel passage, but make the fast a two days one in a later chapter (Hauler, p. 116). The Testament of our Lord (ii. 6) says definitely: Let them fast both on the Friday and on the Saturday; and this is not improbably also the meaning of both the Hippolytean Canons and the Egyptian Church Order. The latter, at least, in a later section ( 55) speaks of the fast as a two days one. Now the Egyptian Church Order and the Verona Fragments say that if a sick person cannot fast on the two days, he is to fast on the Saturday. The Testament of our Lord (ii. 20) implies the same thing. But this puts the idea of a Good Friday fast extended over the Saturday out of the question. Even the Apostolic Constitutions, which exhibit a later stage and a longer fast, speak of the two days absolute fast, and say that if any one cannot fast on the two days he is at least to observe the Saturday (v. 18). It is a characteristic of this last named Church Order to retain ancient features even when somewhat inconsistent with its own later point of view.

The other aspect, namely, of a Good Friday fast extended, is found in Tertullian. He speaks of the Psychics,i.e. the Church at large, from which he had now separated,thinking that those days were definitely appointed for fasts in which the Bridegroom was taken away. The same language is found in the chapter of Apost. Const. just quoted, which thus combines the two ideas. It may not improbably be gathered from the evidence that the former point of view is the original one, and that the Lenten fast originated in the preparation for baptism, and that the second point of view was an afterthought.

The length of the fast was originally, as we have seen, one day, or two days, or forty hours. But it was an absolute fast. Another custom grew up in some countries in the 3rd cent. of observing the whole week before Easter, not as an absolute fast, but as a time of severe abstinence from food. It was called the week of xerophagy (for the name cf. Tertullian, de Jejun. 2, 9). This is mentioned in the Hippolytean Canons ( 197), which allow bread and salt and water only, and by Dionysius of Alexandria in his Epistle to Basilides (Song of Solomon 1). He says that all do not carry out the six days of fasting either equally or alike; but some pass even all the days as a fast, remaining without food through the whole; while others take but two, and others three, and others four, and others not even one. It is possible, as many think, that Dionysius is the author of the Hippolytean Canons, and that they represent Alexandrian usage, not Roman. The Montanists observed a two weeks fast, a custom which they kept up till the 5th cent., when, as Sozomen tells us (Historia Ecclesiastica vii. 19), they were distinguished by fasting less than their neighbours; formerly they had fasted longer, when Holy Week had been the maximum (cf. Tertullian, de Jejun. 15, when he says that the Montanists offered to God two weeks of xerophagies in the year, Saturday and Sunday being excepted). Epiphanius says that the Catholic Church observed a whole week, as opposed to the Quartodecimans, who observed only one day (Haer. l. 3, lib. ii. tom. 1).

Fasting for forty days was unknown till the 4th century. To maintain this proposition we must, with Achelis, eliminate et quadraginta from Can. [Note: Canaanite.] Hippol. 154 (the canons having obviously suffered interpolations), unless these words could refer to the forty hours absolute fast mentioned by Irenaeus; and similarly we must, with almost all scholars, reject the words in Origens tenth Homily on Leviticus: Habemus enim quadragesimae dies jejuniis consecratos, which come just before he speaks of the Wednesday and Friday fasts. We have the homily in Rufinus translation only, and Rufinus was notoriously lax in interpolating and altering Origens words. These eliminations will be generally agreed to, for we can see the forty days fast growing before our eyes in the 4th century. We find mentioned in the fifth canon of Nicaea, a.d. 325, but as a season only (the holding of synods is the subject), doubtless as a solemn time, but without any reference to fasting. Duchesne seems to have overlooked this point, which adds to his argument (Origines, viii. 4). In the Testament of our Lord (ii. 8) the forty days of Pascha are spoken of as a time of vigil and prayer, specially used for the preparation of catechumens for baptism, but it is not a fast. On the other hand, in the Apostolic Canons (69 or 68), circa (about) 400 a.d., we read of as a compulsory fast. This is one of the indications of a comparatively early date for the Testament. Duchesne (l.c.) has traced in Athanasius Festal Letters the growth of the fast. At first we read of the time of Lent and of the week of the fast, but later on of the fast of Lent and the Holy Week of Pascha.

In the Edessene Canons (Song of Solomon 7; see Syriac Documents in the Ante-Nicene Christ. Libr. p. 39) a forty days fast is prescribed; and then celebrate the day of the Passion and the day of the Resurrection: because our Lord fasted forty days, and likewise Moses and Elijah. Can this be a relic of the observance of the Passion and the Resurrection on the same day?

In Apost. Const. v. 13 the forty days are exclusive of Holy Week, and so in pseudo-Ignatius (Philipp. 13), and in St. Chrysostom (Hom. 30 in Gen. 1). In the Testament of our Lord they include Holy Week.

Socrates (Historia Ecclesiastica v. 22) says that the fasts before Easter differed in his day. At Rome they fasted for three continuous () weeks, save on Saturday and Sunday; in Illyricum and Greece and Alexandria for six weeks, which they called ; others, beginning their fast seven weeks before Easter, fasted three periods of five days only, but still called it . A difficulty is seen in this passage because Socrates had just said that every Saturday was a fast at Rome. Duchesne proposes to emend Socrates as far as the word continuous is concerned, and supposes that the three weeks were the first, fourth, and sixth weeks of Lent. He justly remarks that the divergence of fasting, while the same name was kept, points to the fact that the forty days were introduced for another purpose than that of fasting. In fact, the prevalence of forty days is due largely to the fact that catechumens were under instruction for that time. The catechumenate was indeed often longer, though St. Jerome (Ep. 61) says that in his time forty days was the usual period. We find two years at Elvira, three years in the Egyptian Church Order and the Testament of our Lord, though a good deal of discretion was allowed. But in any case, at the beginning of the forty days the selected candidates for baptism (competentes) were put apart and went through special instruction, with prayers, benedictions, and exorcisms, as is described at length in the Church Orders.

(f) Palm Sunday appears for the first time in the Pilgrimage of Silvia. Formerly we had only known of it as being kept at the end of the 5th cent., a hundred years later; it is mentioned in the life of Euthymins ( 472). The appearance of the festival at Jerusalem is significant. It was doubtless due to the desire to commemorate our Lords entry into Jerusalem on the spot where it happened. Silvia says: On this day, at the seventh hour (1 p.m.) all go to the church on the Mount of Olives, where service is held; and at 5 p.m. they read the Gospel story of the events of the day, and all proceed on foot to Jerusalem, the people crying, Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord; some bearing palm branches, some olives; and so the bishop, after the type of our Lord, is conducted to the Holy City very slowly. The palms and olives are an instructive comment on the Gospel account.

(g) Maundy Thursday is not in early times mentioned as being observed in commemoration of the Last Supper. Duchesne (Orig. viii. 3) seems to think that it was so observed at Rome at least, in the primitive ages, but there is no evidence for it. The earliest authority for an Eucharist on this day is the Testament of our Lord (circa (about) 350?), which in a very difficult and apparently corrupt passage prescribes it (ii. 11); probably, as a comparison of the Copto-Arabic translation of the work with James of Edessas Syriac shows, in the evening (see Cooper-Macleans note, p. 226). On this day also the deacon offered a lamp in the temple (ib.). Silvia, at the end of the same century, describes the Eucharist in the church called The Martyrium or Golgotha, in the afternoon; it was over by 4 p.m., and then there wason this occasion alone in all the yeara celebration of the Eucharist in the little chapel of the Cross, to the east of Golgotha. The bishop celebrated, and all communicated. In Africa at the same time there was an evening Eucharist on this day, and the people were exempted from the customary fast before Holy Communion on this occasion by the Third Council of Carthage, a.d. 397 (can. 29: excepto uno die anniversario quo cna domini celebratur, Mansi-Labb, iii. col. 885). It will be seen that, strictly speaking, these Eucharists, if celebrated after sunset, were at the beginning of Good Friday rather than on the Thursday. St. Augustine (Ep. liv., see below) says that there were in his time two Eucharists on the Thursday, one for the sake of those who could not fast till evening, and would not receive the Eucharist otherwise.

In the preparation for baptism this Thursday played an important part. The candidates were bidden to bathe on this day, apparently as a ceremonial washing (Hippol. Can. 106; Egyptian Church Order, 45 [so Lagarde rightly]; Test of our Lord, ii. 6; Augustine, Epp. liv. 10, lv. 33 ad Januarium). Bathing at Pascha was not confined to the competentes; in the Testament the widows (presbyteresses) are bidden to bathe on that day (i. 42). There appears also to have been on that day the custom in some places of washing the feet of the competentes in memory of the pedilauium of Joh 13:4 ff.a custom which afterwards gave the name to Maundy Thursday (from the new commandment, mandatum, Joh 13:34). Elsewhere the pedilauium took place after baptism. The council of Elvira (can. 48) forbade priests or clergy to wash the feet of the newly baptized. Pseudo-Ambrose (de Sacramentis, iii. l) says that this was the custom at the place where he wrote (not Milan?), but that it did not obtain at Rome. In the Gallican Church also it was common (Hefele, Councils, i. 158, English translation ).

(h) Easter Week.The observance of the days after Easter is mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions (the great week [Holy Week] and that which follows it, viii. 32). This fortnight was to be a time of rest for slaves, that they might be instructed. St. Chrysostom (Hom. 34 de Res. Chr.) also mentions Easter Week. In Silvia, Easter, as well as Epiphany [Christmas] and the Dedication, has an octave during which stations are held at the various churches in and near Jerusalem. But, with this exception, octaves outside Easter Week are Western and not Eastern.

2. Pentecost and Ascension

(a) The name Pentecost had in the first four centuries two meanings, the fiftieth day after Easter, and the whole season of fifty days after that festival.

() It is used as a day in NT: Act 2:1 (the day of Pentecost), Act 20:15 (id.), 1Co 16:8 (until Pentecost); the Jewish nomenclature was continued in the Apostolic age. We find the same sense in succeeding ages, though perhaps not so frequently as the other. A fragment of Irenaeus, quoted by pseudo-Justin (Quaest. et Respons. ad Orthodoxos, 115) seems to speak of the day: Irenaeus in his treatise makes mention of Pentecost also, on which ( ) we do not bend the knee because it is of equal significance with the Lords Day. Pseudo-Justin in the corresponding question has . The 43rd canon of Elvira (circa (about) 305 a.d.) has: ut cuncti diem Pentecostes celebremus. Silvia (vi. 1) has a Pascha usque ad Quinquagesima, id est Pentecosten, and ( 3) Quinquagesimarum die, id est dominica.

() On the other hand, the use of the name for the whole season is also common. Tertullian (de Bapt. 19) says that after Pascha, Pentecost is a very extensive (latissimum; v.l. laetissimum) space for conferring baptisms, wherein, too, the Resurrection of the Lord was repeatedly proved among the disciples, and the hope of the Advent of the Lord indirectly pointed to, in that at that time, when He had been received back into the heavens, the angels told the Apostles that He would so come as He had withal ascended into the heavens, of course at Pentecost. But he goes on to say that Jeremiah signified the day of the Passover and of Pentecost, which is properly a feast day. In de Cor. 3 he has from Pascha to Pentecost. In de Idol. 14 he says that the Jews would not have shared with Christians the Lords Day, nor yet Pentecost. Thus he uses the word in both senses. Origen talks of living in the season of Pentecost in the same passage (circa (about) Ccls. viii. 22) in which he talks of observing certain days, as, for example, the Lords Day, the Preparation, the Passover, or Pentecost. He refers to the Descent of the Spirit. The 20th canon of Nicaea forbids kneeling in the days of Pentecost, as on the Lords day. This is unlike St. Pauls usage; he knelt at this season (Act 20:36; Act 21:5). The Testament of our Lord speaks of the days of Pentecost (i. 28, 42, ii. 12); it forbids any one to fast or kneel then, for these are the days of rest and joy. St. Basil speaks of the seven weeks of the holy Pentecost (On the Spirit, ch. 27, aliter 66).

The quotations given above show that Pentecost as a Christian festival goes back at least to Irenaeus. It is rather curious that there is no reference to it between the NT and that Father; and with this fact we may compare the silence of the earlier writers about Easter; but, as Duchesne remarks (Orig. viii. 4), Pentecost is implied rather than explicitly mentioned in early Christian writings.

(b) The Ascension.The fortieth day after Easter was not, so far as we know, observed as a commemoration of our Lords going up to heaven until at least the middle of the 4th century. In the Edessene Canons (can. 9) the Ascension is observed with Pentecost: At the completion of fifty (v.l. forty, but this is clearly a later correction) days after His Resurrection, make ye a commemoration of His Ascension. And so in Silvia on the day of Pentecost there is a station at the Mount of Olives, at the church called Imbomon, that is in that place whence the Lord ascended into heaven, where the lection of the Ascension is read. This station is held after another in Syon, where the lection of the Descent of the Holy Ghost is read. Thus in this account both events are commemorated on the same day. The curious thing is that in Silvia there is also an observance of the fortieth day after Easter; but then the station is at Bethlehem, and there is no mention of the Ascension. The coupling together of the two events, which has its parallel in the joining together of Good Friday and Easter, as mentioned already, is illustrated by the passage from the Epistle of Barnabas cited above (I. 1); the writer thought that the Ascension fell on a Sunday. Compare also Tertullian, de Bapt. 19 (see above, 2 a).

Ascension Day is not found in the Testament of our Lord (circa (about) 350 a.d.?) or in any of the earlier Church Orders, but it is found in the Apostolic Constitutions, the author of which made it his aim to increase the festal cycle (v. 19, viii. 32). Sermons preached on this occasion are found in the 4th cent., by Eusebius of Emesa (?) circa (about) 350 a.d., Epiphanius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Chrysostom. The title of Gregorys sermon calls the festival , which apparently means an extra festival. It does not appear certain, however, that these Fathers kept it on the fortieth day after Easter. St. Augustine (Ep. liv. 1, ad Januar.) treats it as universal in a.d. 400: They are held as approved and instituted either by the Apostles themselves or by plenary councils for example, the annual commemoration by special solemnities of the Lords Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, and of the Descent of the Holy Spirit from heaven.

3. Christmas and Epiphany.

(a) Their origin.These festivals are of much later date than Easter and Pentecost, and were probably unknown till nearly a.d. 300. They were both, in their origin, one festival, and both were meant to commemorate the Nativity of our Lord; but the East fixed on one day and the West on another as the date of the birth of Christ, and so in course of time two separate festivals emerged.

Before we consider the evidence for the observance of 25th December and 6th January as festivals, it will be desirable to investigate the reason why these two days were chosen. The most probable solution of the matter, in the light of our present knowledge, is that of Duchesne (Origines, ch. viii. 5), whose theory is followed here. The date 25th December was first arrived at apparently by Hippolytus. Other calculations had fixed on 18th or 19th April or 29th May (Clement of Alexandria, Strom, i. 147, ed. Potter, Oxford, 1715, p. 407: on the 25th day of the month Pachon; see the whole passage); and about a.d. 243 the treatise de Pascha Computus of pseudo-Cyprian (see above, II. 1 d) named 28th March. The calculations of Hippolytus, which were his mature results (for he had formerly fixed on 2nd January), prevailed all over the West. They are found in his Commentary on Daniel (iv. 23, p. 244, ed. Bonwetsch; aliter iv. 9). They depend on the assumption that the earthly life of our Lord, from His conception to His death, lasted an exact number of years. The upholders of symbolical systems of numbers treated all fractions as imperfections. Acting on this idea, Hippolytus fixed on 25th March for the Annunciation, because he had, as he thought, discovered that the Crucifixion took place on that day (see above, 1 d); he reckoned the Saviours life as thirty-two years, from b.c. 3 to a.d. 29. Adding nine months, he arrived at 25th December as the day of the Nativity.* [Note: Other Patristic assumptions were that the ministry of our Lord lasted one year only, the acceptable year of the Lord (Luk 4:19; see, e.g., Clem. Alex. l.c., It was right for Him to preach for one year only), and that Jesus was baptized on His thirtieth birthday (Luk 3:23 ). This last idea accounts for the baptism of Christ being commemorated on 6th January.]

The other date, 6th January, is not so easily accounted for. But Duchesne mentions a coincidence which increases the probability of his theory as to 25th December being correct. Sozomen (Historia Ecclesiastica vii. 18) says that the Montanists who are called Pepuzites and Phrygians celebrated the Passover on 6th April. They reckoned that the world had been created on the ninth day before the kalends of April, the vernal equinox, and that the sun was created on the fourteenth day of the moon occurring after the ninth day before the kalends of April; and they always celebrated the Passover on this day, when it falls on the day of the Resurrection, otherwise they celebrated it on the following Lords day. They probably, then, thought that our Lord died on 6th April; and, as Duchesne remarks, that the Passover of Christ, being the true Passover, must fall clue at typical maturity reckoned from the origin of all things. But reckoning nine months from 6th April, on the same reasoning as that of Hippolytus, we arrive at 6th January.

We do not read of either of these days being observed as festivals in the 3rd century. The first mention of such a commemoration on 25th December is in the Philocalian Calendar (see below, 5), which was copied in 354 a.d., but represents the official observances at Rome in a.d. 336. We find the entry: viij kal. Jan. Natus Christus in Bethleem Judae. It is not indeed absolutely certain that 25th December was at that date observed as a feast; but it is highly probable that this was so, as the other days, commemorations of bishops of Rome and martyrs, seem to be noted in order that they might be observed. This was more than a century after Hippolytus.

It will be observed that the theory given above of the choice of 25th December takes no account of the heathen festival of the sun held on the same day. But it is quite possible that when, in the 4th cent., the Christians began to observe the Nativity as a festival, they seized on the coincidence between the day as calculated by Hippolytus and the heathen feast-day, and Christianizing the latter as the Birth of the true Sun of Righteousness, showed a good example to the pagan world by making the day a true holy day.

The Eastern festival of 6th January may be traced to about a.d. 300 among the orthodox. Clement of Alexandria, indeed (Strom. l.c.), says that the followers of Basilides celebrated the day of Jesus baptism, spending the whole preceding night in lections. But the earliest orthodox mention of the day is in the Passion of Philip of Heraelea, in the Diocletian persecution, a.d. 304. Philip says: Epiphaniae; dies sanctus ineumbit (Ruinart, Act. Mart. Sine. p. 410). That it was of recent introduction when the Testament of our Lord was written (circa (about) 350?), appears from there being no regulations for it as there are for Pascha and Pentecost. It is only just mentioned in that work (Epiphany, Syriac ). And during the greater part of the 4th cent., and in some countries even later, 6th January was the only day observed in the East. The sixth Edessene canon prescribes the Epiphany of our Saviour, which is the chief of the festivals of the Church [this is significant], on the sixth day of the latter Kanun, i.e. 6th January. Epiphanius knew of no other day. In Haer. li. (the Alogi, lib. ii. tom. 1) he speaks of a.d. vi Id. Nov. as being 60 days before the feast of the Epiphanies, when Christ was born according to the flesh ( 16), and of the day in which He was born, that is, of the Epiphanies, which is the sixth of January. Cassian, at the end of the 4th cent., speaks of Epiphany, which the priests of that province [Egypt] regard as the time both of our Lords baptism and also of his birth in the flesh, and so celebrate the commemoration of either mystery not separately as in the Western provinces, but in the single festival of this day (Conferences, x. 2). Even later, Gennadius (de Vir. Illustr. 59) says that Timothy the bishop wrote on the Nativity, and that this work was thought to have been composed at Epiphany. Only 6th January was observed at Jerusalem in the time of Silvia, when there was a station at Bethlehem at night. As the manuscript is defective, we do not know whether there was a celebration of the Eucharist there, but it is probable that there was one, and this nocturnal station may have been the origin of the Christmas midnight Eucharist of later days. The name of the Eastern festival was the Epiphanies or Theophanies. Traces of the older custom in the East of observing 6th January only are found in the 6th cent. at Jerusalem, where Cosmas Indicopleustes mentions it. He says that the Nativity and the Baptism were observed on the same day (Migne, Patr. Gr. vol. lxxxviii. 197). The Armenians still observe only that day.

The Easterns, however, even at the end of the 4th cent., began to adopt the Western day in addition to their own; and probably soon afterwards the Westerns adopted the Eastern day as a separate festival. And thereafter on 25th December the Church commemorated the Nativity, and on 6th January other manifestations of our Lords Divinity and glory. In the East the Baptism, I with its manifestations, was and is alone emphasized on 6th January. In the West, as St. Augustine says early in the 5th cent. (see below), the coming of the Wise Men was the great commemoration. The Calendar of Polemius Silvius (a.d. 448) combines it with our Lords baptism and the miracle at Cana (Wordsworth, Min. of Grace, viii. 1; Migne, Patr. Lat. xiii. 676). In the present day all three events are commemorated.

St. Chrysostom in a.d. 386 tells us that Christmas, as distinct from Epiphany, had been only lately introduced at Antioch, less than ten years before (in Diem Natalem, ed. Montfaucon, Paris, 1718, ii. 355 A). In de Bcato Philogonio (i. 497 C) he speaks of Epiphany, Easter, and the other festivals taking their origin from Christmas; for, if Christ had not been born, He would in no wise have been baptized, for that is the feast of the Theophanies. In the Apostolic Constitutions both Christmas and Epiphany are mentioned (v. 13), and this is one of the chief factors in determining the date of that Syrian document. At Alexandria both festivals were observed before the year 432; for Paul, bishop of Emesa, preached there on his mission of peace after the Council of Ephesus on the Sunday before Christmas, on Christmas Day, and on the following Sunday, New Years Day 433 (Smith-Wace, Dict. Chr. Biog. iv. 261, s.v. Paulus 30),

In the West, St. Augustine tells us that both days were observed in his time; he says that the Epiphany was kept per universum mundum, but that the Donatists would not accept it. He implies that it had been introduced from the East, and says that the Donatists did not love unity, and did not communicate with the Eastern Church where that star [of the Magi] appeared (Sermon 202 in Epiphania Domini, iv.; see also Sermons 199204. The six Sermons are almost entirely taken up with the coming of the Wise Men).

(b) Advent.The first trace of this season is in the canons of Saragossa in Spain (Concilium Caesaraugustanum), circa (about) 380 a.d. (Mansi-Labb, iii. 633), which provide that from xvi kal. Jan. to the day of Epiphany, which is viij Id. Jan. all are sedulously to attend church (Song of Solomon 4). We notice here that 25th December is apparently unknown to this council, and that the preparatory season before 6th January is a solemn season of prayer and churchgoing, but not of fasting; much as the forty days of Pascha are in the Testament of our Lord. The latter work speaks of the days of Epiphany, which may mean the days after Epiphany, or possibly the days before it, just as the days of Pascha mean in this work the forty days before Easter, and the days of Pentecost mean the fifty days before Whitsunday. But the reference to Advent is too uncertain to be built on.

4. The Presentation of Christ in the Temple.For this commemoration Silvia is our earliest authority. On this day, she says, all the presbyters preached, and last the bishop himself, on the events of the day, when Joseph and Mary bore the Lord into the temple, and Simeon saw Him, and Anna the prophetess, the daughter of Samuel (sic). Then the Eucharist was celebrated. Silvia calls this day Quadragesima de Epiphania, i.e. 14th February. The assembly was at the Church of the Anastasis. Here we have a clear indication of the way in which festivals at Jerusalem increased out of a desire to commemorate Gospel events in the holy places. From Jerusalem this festival spread elsewhere; but we do not hear of it, except in Silvia, till the 6th century. Its name then was or the Meeting [of our Lord and Simeon]a name still retained by the Greeks.

Although Hippolytus had fixed 25th March as the date of the Annunciation, no trace of any observance of the day as a festival is found in the first four centuries, nor indeed for long after. Possibly its frequent concurrence with the Paschal solemnities or the Lenten fast prevented this. The Nestorians keep neither the Presentation nor the Annunciation.

5. Commemorations of Saints, etc.These can be glanced at only briefly in a Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. They were originally of local origin, and did not at once become popular except in the places where they began. The earliest known collection of local saints days is the Philocalian Calendar of a.d. 354, which may be conveniently seen in Ruinarts Acta Martyrum Sincera et selecta, p. 617, and in Mignes Patrologia Latina, vol. xiii.; reference may also be made to Bishop Lightfoots essay in his Clement (i. 246, on The Liberian Catalogue). It is the only extant calendar which is certainly older than a.d. 400, though portions of a Gothic calendar remain which may be dated shortly before that year. The so-called Hieronymian Martyrology is much later than St. Jerome. The Christian section of the Philocalian Calendar (for it has also a heathen section) is a Roman list. It has two parts: the Depositio (burial) episcoporum, and the Depositio martyrum. Under the first head it contains twelve names: Dionysius, Felix, Sylvester, Miltiades, Marcellinus, Lucius, Caius, Stephen, Eusebius, Marcus, Eutichianus, Julius. Julius and Marcus come out of their calendrical order (not Marcus in Ruinart), and are probably later additions (Lightfoot). The second part begins with Christmas (as above, 3), and contains no other festival of Christ. It is, no doubt, the official list of martyrs commemorated at Rome at the time. Its names are all local, except Cyprian and Perpetua and Felicitas, which are African. In all there are 37 entries, as given by Ruinart; but some have more than one name. The first part begins at vi kal. Jan., and its latest date is vi Id. Dec. Of the second part viii kal. Jan. is the beginning and Id. Dec. is the end. The beginning of the year must therefore have been reckoned as Christmas Day (25th December), or at least some day between 13th and 25th December. It is interesting to note in this early calendar iii kal. Jul. [i.e. June 29] Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Ostiense Tusco et Basso Coss., that is the translation of the bodies of these Apostles.

A Syriac Martyrology published in 1866 by Professor Wright must also be mentioned, as, though the copy in the British Museum dates from 411, it gives (if careful examination be applied to it) earlier lists still. It is an Eastern Martyrology translated into Syriac and abridged at Edessa about 400 a.d. from a collection made in Greek out of local calendars. It has two Roman entries, one African, and the rest are Eastern; it must have been originally Arian, as it does not contain the name of Athanasius, but has that of Arius (at Alexandria, Arius the presbyter). Analysis shows it to have been made up of the local lists of Nicomedia, Antioch, and Alexandria. The two latter appear to have contained, at about a.d. 350, 24 and 26 entries respectively. This shows the limited numbers of commemorations in the 4th century. The lists, however, speedily grew to large dimensions. For other early calendars reference may be made to the works mentioned below.

The observance of the death-days (natales) or burial days (depositiones) of martyrs may be traced back to the 2nd cent., circa (about) 155 a.d.; the letter of the Smyrneans on the martyrdom of St. Polycarp speaks ( 18) of his burial-place where the Lord will permit us to gather ourselves together to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom for the commemoration of those that have already fought in the contest, and for the training and preparation of those that shall do so hereafter. This letter was written soon after the martyrdom (see Lightfoots Ignatius and Polycarp, iii. 353 ff.). St. Cyprian says that the death-days of the martyrs were to be carefully noted, that they might observe such commemorations with Eucharist (Ep. 12, to his presbyters and deacons). The 18th Edessene Canon orders commemorations of the martyrs. And such commemorations are mentioned by St. Basil (Ep. 93, as above, I. 3).

For the purposes of this Dictionary, the observances of the days following 25th December are of interest, as being closely connected with the Nativity of our Lord. These observances date from the 4th century. St. Gregory of Nyssa, preaching the funeral oration of his brother St. Basil (who died 1st January 379), says that they were then celebrating these saints days, which were convenient (he remarks) because Apostles and Prophets were first constituted and ordained, and after that pastors and teachers. He first mentions the commemoration of the Apostles and Prophets after Christmas, namely, Stephen, Peter, James, John, Paul; and then Basil (in Laudcm Fratris Basilii, ad init., ed. Paris of 1638, p. 479). It does not necessarily follow that the saints mentioned were commemorated on different days. The Apostolic Constitutions mention a commemoration of the martyrs and blessed James the bishop [the Lords brother], and the holy Stephen our fellow-servant (v. 8; so viii. 32). The Syriac Martyrology mentioned above gives St. Stephen on 26th December, St. James and St. John on 27th December, St. Peter and St. Paul on 28th December. With this we may compare two later usages, the Armenian and the Nestorian (East Syrian), as these separated Christians have retained many early customs which others have dropped. The Armenians, who do not observe 25th December as Christians, commemorate St. David and St. James the Lords brother on that date, but follow the Syriac Martyrology for the other days, save that they transpose 27th and 28th December (Duchesne, Orig. viii. 5. 2). The Nestorian usage is somewhat different. That Church keeps its saints days according to the movable Christian, year rather than according to the month, and most of them fall on Fridays. The Fridays after Christmas (25th December), if there are sufficient before Lent, are (1) St. James the Lords brother, (2) St. Mary, (3) St. John Baptist, (4) St. Peter and St. Paul, (5) Four Evangelists, (6) St. Stephen; and other festivals of later origin follow (Maclean, East Syrian Daily Offices, p. 264ff.). Duchesne conjectures that the Four Evangelists is a transformation of St. James and St. John, the latter having attracted to him the three other Evangelists, and the former being omitted. The Orthodox Easterns now commemorate St. James the Lords brother on the Sunday after Christmas.

Silvia has not, like the Apostolic Constitutions, a general martyrs festival; nor yet have the other Church Orders. But considering the great development of festivals in Silvia, it is not improbable that she did describe such a general commemoration; only the manuscript breaks off suddenly in the middle of the account of the Dedication festival, and we cannot be sure of what was in the lacuna.

Speaking generally, we note a difference between these commemorations and the festivals of our Lord. The former were at first local only, and of inferior importance. The Nestorians to this day keep up a sharp distinction between the two, calling the former commemorations, the latter festivals, or festivals of our Lord; and the distinction is ancient.

Dedication festivals were common in the 4th cent,, though they are not mentioned in the Church Orders, even in those, like the Testament of our Lord, which describe the church buildings minutely. These festivals concern us here only as contributing to the calendar Holy Cross Day, which was the commemoration of the dedication in 335 of the churches built by Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary, and of the alleged discovery of the true cross by St. Helena, Constantines mother. Silvia says that the anniversary was observed with great ceremony in her time, many pilgrims from distant lands attending, and the churches being adorned as at Easter and Christmas. This day (14th September, but among the Nestorians 13th September) passed from Jerusalem to Constantinople; at Rome it was not introduced till the 7th century.

Of the other days of Apostles, Martyrs, or Confessors, most of which are of later introduction than the 4th cent., it may be observed that the majority, at least, are due to the local dedication of a church named after the saint at Rome, Constantinople, or elsewhere. See Duchesne, Orig. ch. viii. passim.

Recapitulation of festal cycles

Fathers of the first three centuries: Pascha and Pentecost.

Testament of our Lord: Pascha, Pentecost, and Epiphany.

Apostolic Constitutions: Ascension, Pentecost, Pascha, Christmas, Epiphany, Apostles days (plural), St. Stephen and All Martyrs day (singular)viii. 32 Lagarde (aliter 33). Add St. James the Lords brother, v. 8. [The sections of the Apost. Const. mentioned in this article are all Lagardes].

Pilgrimage of Silvia: Epiphany with octave, Presentation, Palm Sunday, Easter with octave, Fortieth day after Easter, Pentecost (including Ascension), Dedication (Holy Cross Day).

Cappadocian Fathers and Syriac Martyrology: Add St. Stephen, St. Peter and St. Paul, St. James and St. John.

The account of the Christian calendar is thus brought down to about a.d. 400. For festivals introduced after that date reference may be made to the various works on Christian history and antiquities.

Literature.(1) General: Duchesne, Origines du culte chrtien (English translation from third ed. entitled Christian Worship, its Origin and Evolution); Bp. J. Wordsworth, Ministry of Grace.(2) Calendars: Achelis, Die Martyrologien, 1900; Dom Butler, notice of Achelis book in Journ. of Theol. Studies, ii. 147; and Duchesne and Wordsworth as above.(3) On the Lords day: Zahn, Skizzen aus dem Leben der Alten Kirche, 1894, ch. vi.; Hessey, Bampton Lectures, 1860; Trevelyan, Sunday, 1902.(4) Christmas: Salmon, paper on Hippolytus Commentary on Daniel in Hermathena, vol. iii. Dublin, 1893; and Duchesne and Wordsworth as above.(5) The Quartodeciman Controversy: Salmon, Introduction to NT, Lect. xv.; McGifferts note on Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica v. 22, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers; Schaff, Church History, ii. 209 f.; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, i. 298 ff. (2nd English ed.); Schrer, Die Paschastreitigkeiten in Zeitscrift fur hist. Theol. 1870, p. 182 ff.(6) Paschal Cycles: Hefele, Concilieng. i. 317 ff.; Salmon, article in Smith-Wace, Dict. Chr. Biog. on Hippolytus.

A. J. Maclean.

Fuente: A Dictionary Of Christ And The Gospels