Passion Week
Passion week
Second week before Easter.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Passion Week
a name in Church language for the week preceding Easter, because with it, in strict sense; the commemoration of the passion of Jesus the Christ is observed by the Christian churches that observe holidays. The week was by the early Church called Hebdomas Magna, or the Great Week. St. Chrysostom says that it was so called, not because it consisted of longer days or more in number than other weeks, but because at this time great things were wrought for us by Christ; for in this week the ancient tyranny of the devil was dissolved, death was extinct, the strong man was bound, his goods were spoiled, sin was abolished, the curse was destroyed, paradise was opened, heaven became accessible, men and angels were joined together, the middle wall of partition was broken down, the barriers were taken out of the way. the God of peace made peace between things in heaven and things in earth. Many of the early Christians. were accustomed to fast much more strictly in this than in the other weeks of Lent. Epiphanius says that in his time the people confined their diet during that week to dried meats, namely, bread .and salt and water. Nor were these used during the day, but in the evening. In another place the same ancient writer says, Some continue the whole week, making one prolonged fast of the whole; others eat after two days; and others every evening. Chrysostom mentions that during this week it was customary to make a more liberal distribution of alms to the poor, and the exercise of all kinds of charity to those who had need of it. To servants it was a time of rest and liberty, and the same privilege extended to, the week following as well as to the week preceding Easter. The emperors, also, granted a general release to prisoners at this season, and commanded all suits and processes at law to cease.
The Thursday of the Passion Week, being the day on which Christ was betrayed, was observed with some peculiar customs. In some of the Latin churches: the communion was administered on this day in the evening, in imitation of Christ’s last supper, a provision being made for this in one of the canons of the third Council of Carthage. On this day the competentes, or candidates for baptism, publicly recited the creed in the presence of the bishop or presbyters in the church. Such public penitents, also, as had completed the penance enjoined by the Church, were then absolved. On this day, too, it was customary for servants to receive the communion. (The modern ritualists call it Maunday Thursday, q.v.) The Friday was called Good Friday (q.v.), or Pasch of the Cross, in opposition to Easter, or the Pasch of the Resurrection. From the canons of the fourth Council of Toledo it would appear that a general absolution was proclaimed to all those who observed the day with fasting, prayers, or true contrition. The Saturday, or Sabbath, in Passion Week, was commonly known by the name of the Great Sabbath. It was the only Sabbath throughout the year that the Greek churches, and some of the Western, kept as a fast. The fast was continued not only until evening, but protracted till cock-crowing in the morning, which was supposed to be the time of Christ’s resurrection. The previous part of the night was spent in religious exercises of various kinds. Eusebius tells us that in the time of Constantine this vigil was kept with great pomp; for he set up lofty pillars of wax to burn as torches all over the city, and lamps burning in all places, so that the night seemed to outshine the sun at noonday. Gregory Nazianzen also speaks of the custom of hanging up, lamps and torches both in the churches and in the private houses, which, he says, they did as a forerunner of that great Light the Sun of Righteousness arising on the world on Easter-day. This night was famous above all others for the baptism of catechumens. The fifth Sunday in Lent is sometimes called Passion Sunday, that name being applied to it in reference to Christ’s prediction on that day of his approaching passion. Some persons call the week, of which Passion Sunday is the first, Passion Week, to distinguish it from the real Passion Week, which they call Holy Week.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Passion Week (2)
(or Holy Week, as it is often called, though incorrectly; for Passion Week, by the proper rubrical usage, is that which precedes Holy Week) is observed with great pomp in the Romish Church. The ceremonies of the season commence on Palm-Sunday (q.v.), when the commemoration takes place of the Savior’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. On Wednesday of this week, in the afternoon, there is the service of the Tenebrae, a kind of funeral service, which is repeated at the same hour on the Thursday and Friday. The ceremonies of the Thursday consist principally of a representation of the burial of our Savior. This is followed, in Rome, by the ceremony of the pope washing the feet of thirteen pilgrims, in imitation of our Savior’s washing the feet of his disciples; this ceremony being followed by the same pilgrims being served by his holiness at dinner. A singular ceremony takes place on the Thursday at St. Peters at Rome the washing of the high-altar with wine. On Good Friday the ceremony of uncovering and adoring the cross is observed, at the close of which a procession is marshalled to bring back the host from the sepulcher in which it was deposited on the previous day. The pope and cardinals also adore the three great relics, which are glittering caskets of crystals, set in gold and silver, and sparkling with precious stones, and which are said to contain a part of the true cross, one half of the spear which pierced the Savior’s side, and the Volto Santo, or holy countenance. On the Saturday of Passion Week, at Rome, converted Jews and heathen are baptized. after holywater has been consecrated for the purpose. Young men are also ordained to various sacred offices. The chief employment. of the day, however, consists of services in honor of the resurrection. For the ceremonies of Easter Sunday, SEE EASTER. The Great Week closes usually with an illumination and fireworks. See Wheatley, Commentary on Book of Common Prayer; Schaff, Church History, vol, 1; Procter, Commentary on Book of Common Prayer. For monographs, see Volbeding, p. 120; Hase, p. 177 sq. For the events, SEE JESUS CHRIST.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Passion Week
PASSION WEEK.What origin can we assign to the sacred institution known variously as Holy Week, Passion Week, or the Silent Week? What documentary evidence have we for the belief that the Triumphal Entry took place on a Sunday, so that exactly a week elapsed between that event and the discovery of the empty tomb?
1. Investigators of the Life of Jesus find a fulcrum in Joh 12:1. Even Keim, who puts no faith in the narratives of the Fourth Gospel, least of all in its chronology, accepts its testimony in this particular passage (see Jesus of Nazara, v. 274). It is there stated that Jesus six days before the Passover ( ) came to Bethany; and (Joh 12:12 f.) that He went to Jerusalem next day. But it is a little difficult to understand what the narrator means by the six days in question. The idiom of (cf. LXX Septuagint , Amos 1 :1 ), which bears a resemblance to the Latin formula ante diem tertium kalendas (cf. Inscr. Insularum Mar. aeg. iii. 325, ), is genuine primitive Greek (Moulton, Gram, of NT Greek, i. 100 f.). The question is, then, whether the Passover day, the 14th Nisan, on which the Passover was eaten, is or is not included in the number six. If it is included, Jesus must have arrived in Bethany on the 9th Nisan; if not, then on the 8th. The latter alternative is the more natural, since the six days are spoken of as coming before the Passover; and on this assumption Jesus must have entered Jerusalem on the 9th Nisan. Now, since according to Joh 19:31 the 15th Nisan was a Sabbath, the 8th must likewise have been a Sabbath, and the day of the Triumphal Entry a Sunday. It is to these Johannine data that we trace our Passion Week.
2. Now the Johannine reckoning appears to be corroborated by at least one of the Synoptics, viz. Mk. For one thing, Mk. assigns the death of Jesus to the (Mar 15:42, cf. Mat 27:62, Luk 23:54), His repose in the sepulchre to the Sabbath, and the finding of the empty tomb to the Sunday (Mar 16:2, cf. Luk 24:1, Mat 28:1), and consequently the Last Supper to the Thursday evening. Further, it is obviously the design of our Mk. to number the days in proper order, as may be seen in its striking succession of morning and evening, thus:
Mar 11:11 Evening of 1st day (the Triumphal Entry): , , .
Mar 11:12 Morning of 2nd day: .
Mar 11:19 Evening of 2nd day: , .
Mar 11:20 Morning of 3rd day:
Mar 13:1 Evening of 3rd day (?):
To this point the enumeration is quite clear. We may ask, indeed, whether the various colloquies of Mar 11:27 to Mar 12:44 all took place on a single day. But in view of the care with which Mk. distinguishes the previous days, we can only infer that the absence of time references in the disputations is likewise a matter of design.
We must now inquire, however, how Mar 14:1 is connected with what precedes. Are the words meant to imply that the foregoing discourse of Jesus on the Mt. of Olives was spoken two days before the Passover, i.e. on the very day the religious authorities held their conference? And must we suppose the Anointing at Bethany (Mar 14:3 ) to have taken place that day also, i.e. on the evening of the third day, and after the Parousia discourse? Again, on what day does Mk. place the betrayal by Judas (Mar 14:10 f. )? On the day following, i.e. the fourth? In truth, the Evangelists chronology in these passages is as vague as in Mar 11:11-12; Mar 11:19-20 it was unmistakable.
Nor is Mk.s enumeration of the days between the decision of the Sanhedrin and the Last Supper quite explicit. If we regard Mar 14:12 , as referring to the 14th Nisan, then in all probability Mar 14:1 synchronizes with the 12th Nisan, and Mar 14:10 f. with, say, Mar 14:13. But this is not said in so many words. Nevertheless, the writer possibly had in his mind some such synopsis as follows:
1st day, Mar 11:1-11 : Sunday, 10th Nisan.
2nd day, Mar 11:12-19 : Monday, 11th Nisan.
3rd day, Mar 11:20 to Mar 14:9 : Tuesday, 12th Nisan.
4th day, Mar 14:10 f.: Wednesday, 13th Nisan.
5th day, Mar 14:12-72 : Thursday, 14th Nisan.
6th day, Mar 15:1-47 : Friday, 15th Nisan.
7th day, Mar 16:1 a , Saturday, 16th Nisan.
8th day, Mar 16:1 b: Sunday, 17th Nisan.
It is also possible, however, that there is an interval between Mar 13:1 to Mar 14:1, so that the Anointing would fall on the day after the Parousia speech. This would so far dislocate the above scheme by making the first day coincide with Saturday, 9th Nisan (as probably in Jn.), the second day with Sunday, the third with Monday, and the anointing with Tuesday. If this be so, we must allow for a period of nine days between the Entry and the Resurrection. In point of fact, we cannot solve the difficulty from Mk.s data; its mode of reckoning still leaves a residuum of doubt. In particular, we are at a loss regarding what Jesus does and where He is during the day previous to the Anointing. But, notwithstanding these obscurities, it is an unmistakable fact that Mk. makes an attemptthough by no means an entirely effective oneto distinguish and enumerate the days between the Triumphal Entry and the Resurrection. Especially does the sequence of chronological references seem to postulate a definite calendar of the interval in question.
3. We turn now to Mt. and Lk. Mt. indicates a clear break only at the close of the Triumphal Entry day (Mat 21:17 ). The second day runs without interruption from Mat 21:18 to the end of Mat 21:25. In passing to the narrative of the Passion proper, Mt. exhibits the same ambiguity as we found in Mk. We cannot decide whether the words of Jesus in Mat 26:1 f. were spoken on the second day, or whether we must assume an interval between chs. 25 and 26.
Possibly, however, we err in looking for chronology at all in this section of Mt. We can understand the narrative quite as well on the hypothesis that the writer was not in the least concerned to tabulate the days, but simply joined incident to incident without regard to time. We find a similar uncertainty in Lk.: the writers own words in Luk 20:1 clearly imply that he had no distinct idea of the number of days between the Triumphal Entry and the Passover (cf. also Luk 21:37 ). This lack of precision admittedly extends also to the story of the actual Passion. Instead of the two days (Mar 14:1, Mat 26:2), Lk. says only (Luk 22:1), and in place of the precise reference of Mar 14:12 , , Lk. simply has it that the day of unleavened bread came (Luk 22:7). This loose way of indicating time in Mt. and Lk. strikes us as strange in view of the generally accepted theory of their common dependence upon Mk., which designedly and explicitly gives an all but complete diary of the time. How are we to explain the fact that the two Evangelists who make use of the oldest Gospel are here less precise in details than their common source?
4. The recognized explanation, viz., that the later writers did not trouble about such matters of detail, is most unsatisfactory, as all investigation of the growth and progress of the Evangelical record goes to show a constantly increasing interest in such minutiae as time and hour, place and number, name and personality; witness, e.g., the NT Apocrypha. In fact, had we not other grounds for deeming Mk. the oldest of the Gospels, its ostensible precision in such things would lead us to regard it as the latest.The present writer is of opinion that we can best explain Mt.s and Lk.s omission of the time references of Passion Week, by the hypothesis that the recension of Mk. used by them did not itself contain these references (Ur-Markus Hypothesis). Or, in other words, our Mk.s enumeration of the days is the work of a later hand, a redactor, the Deutero-Mark. This view is so far confirmed by the presence of a certain artificiality in the arrangement. It would seem as if a definite scheme had been forcibly stamped upon the material. The first trace of this appears in Mar 11:11. While Mt. and Lk. quite simply and naturally make the Cleansing of the Temple succeed the Triumphal Entry, upon the same day, Mk. has it that Jesus, having come to the city, spent the rest of the day in seeing the sights (as if He had not been often enough in Jerusalem during His thirty years), and that then, as it was late in the day (too late, i.e., to begin His great work), He went out to Bethany with His disciples. This apparently so exact piece of information really strikes us as utterly trivial and pedantic. What interest could Mark suppose his readers to have in such a petty detail? or what concern had he himself, so indifferent, in general, to all chronology, in such exactitude at that particular point? There is, as it seems to us, but one explanation of the anomaly, viz., that the writer of Mar 11:11 was anxious to intercalate one day more than the facts naturally allowed; that is to say, he figured to himself a delinite number of days, and must distribute them somehow in the material before him. A second trace is found in the circumstance that Mk. divides the incident of the Barren Fig-tree between two days (Mar 11:13 f., Mar 11:20 f.). Here, too, Mt. gives the more natural account. For, granting the miracle of judgment upon the ill-starred tree, it is much more in harmony with popular views that the blight should instantly follow the curse (Mat 21:18 f.). In Marks report, according to which the word of Jesus takes a day to work its effect, we seem to discern a rationalizing tendency. The Evangelist, with all his belief in the miraculous, can more easily grasp the phenomenon by allowing for some sort of natural process.* [Note: A similar tendency emerges in the two miracles of healing reported by Mk. alone, in which the spittle of Jesus comes to the aid of His omnipotence (Mar 7:33, Mar 8:23); in the healing of the blind, the narrator pictures to himself a gradual advance towards perfect vision (Mar 8:24-25).] Further, the partition of the Fig-tree incident enables the redactor of Mk. to give a sharper distinction to the two days (Mar 11:12-19 and Mar 11:20 to Mar 13:1) by means of the two morning walks from Bethany to Jerusalem (Mar 11:12; Mar 11:20). A third indication of the artificiality of Mk.s arrangement is seen in Mar 14:49, where Jesus speaks in such a manner as to imply that He had taught in the Temple for several days. But according to the said scheme, again, the whole of the teaching at this time occupies but a single day (Mar 11:20 to Mar 12:44), or, at most, two days if we include also the day of the Cleansing. Hence we are justified in inferring that the diary is not only not organic to the events, but actually at variance with them. In fact, the sayings and discourses at Jerusalem, as set down in Mk., give no hint whatever of a chronological order. They are as exempt from time references as are the five controversies of Mar 2:1 to Mar 3:6. The true design of either series is to illustrate the antagonism between Jesus and the hierarchy, and they may have been uttered either on one day or on several successive days.
We would therefore hazard the suggestion that our Mk.s tabulation of the interval under consideration, and notably the passage Mar 11:11-12, is due to the redactor, and that the latter was imbued with the Johannine tradition. For our own part, indeed, we have been able to collate a mass of evidence in support of the theory that the text of Mk. has been very thoroughly revised from the Johannine standpoint, that a host of Johannine characteristics were inserted into it at some period subsequent to its use by Matthew and Luke. It is, of course, impossible here to submit the detailed proof of such a theory, and we can but invite the reader to test it for himself. The design of the present article does not carry us beyond the advocacy and proof of the thesis: As originally the Synoptic tradition neither contained a complete diary of our Lords last visit to Jerusalem, nor implied that His stay covered exactly one week, it is in the last resort to Jn. that we must trace the order of our Passion Week. See also art. Dates.
Literature.J. Weiss, Das lteste Evangelium, 1903; C. A. Briggs, New Light on the Life of Jesus (1904), 101 ff.; A. G. Mortimer, Meditations on the Passion (1903); R. Winterbotham, Sermons in Holy Trinity Church (1900), 140184.
J. Weiss.