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SECT. PAGE

PART I

THE CHURCH'S FESTIVALS IN GENERAL

PART II

THE MATERIAL UPON WHICH THE HISTORY OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR IS BASED

CONCLUSION 419

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 449

INDEX 457

HEORTOLOGY

PART I

THE CHURCH'S FESTIVALS IN GENERAL

The entire number of ecclesiastical holy days and seasons is actually codified for us in the different Church Calendars. Their contents fall into two essentially different divisions, each possessing an entirely different origin and history. The first division consists of festivals of our Lord, distributed over the year, regulated and co-ordinated in accordance with certain laws. The second division consists of commemorations of the saints in no wise connected with the festivals of our Lord or with one another. Occupying to some extent an intermediate position between these two chief divisions come the festivals of our Blessed Lady, which have this in common with the festivals of the saints, that they fall on fixed days, but, on the other hand, they are to a certain extent connected with each other, and with some feasts of our Lord. This is carried out in such a way that they are distributed throughout the entire Church's year, and are included in each of the festal seasons.

The former of these two divisions is the most important, and its chief feasts are also the oldest. The festivals of our Lord, Easter and Pentecost especially, compose what is called the Church's year in the stricter sense, and, if they coincide with a saint's day, they take precedence. The Church's year is built upon a single basis and according to one plan, which did not originate in the mind of any one person, but developed out of the historical conditions resulting from the connection of Christianity with Judaism.

Every religion has its festivals, but none has so rich and so carefully thought out a system of feasts as the Catholic Church. If we may compare it to some artistically constructed edifice, we can regard the festivals of our Lord as forming the piers which support all the rest, the lesser feasts as contributing the decorations, and the Sundays, with their attendant weeks, as the stones of which the walls are built. Naturally all this did not exist at first, but, like many other things in the Church, has grown up into its present proportions from small beginnings.

The outline of the ecclesiastical year was prefigured in the Old Law, while the synagogue furnished the fundamental elements in its festivals, the Sabbath in particular, and in the division of the year into weeks. This renders a glance at the religious year of the Jews necessary, for, apart from it, it is impossible to understand the essential character of the Christian year.

The Jewish festivals in the time of Christ were instituted either in commemoration of events connected with the divine covenant, such as the Passover, or they were of an agrarian character or commemorated some national event, as the dedication of the Temple, Purim, Jom Kippar, etc.

According to the dates of their origin they fall into two classes:--

The more recent festivals instituted by the Synagogue, such as the Dedication of the Temple on the 25th Chisleu; Purim, or the Feast of Haman, on the 14th Adar. To these were added four fast days as days of national humiliation.

Consequently, since the death of Christ took place on the first day of the feast of the Passover , and since the Descent of the Holy Ghost followed on the day of Pentecost, the chief Jewish feasts served as the foundation of the Christian ecclesiastical year, and the Apostles could join with the Jews in their Passover celebration. Certainly the object of their feast was very different from that of the Jews, yet, outwardly there was no separation from the synagogue.

The Sabbath and the week of seven days, by their appointment in the ancient Law, formed already a necessary element of the ecclesiastical year and maintained their position in the Church. The division of the year into weeks is not specifically Jewish, but rather Semitic, since we find it in existence in ancient Babylon, though there a new week began with the first day of every month, and the first, seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the month were always days of rest. This system of dividing time into weeks received a religious consecration among the Jews, inasmuch as the Sabbath rest was enjoined by the Law under the severest sanctions. All servile work of whatsoever kind must be laid aside on the Sabbath, according to the Jewish law. It was not even permitted to light a fire or prepare food. Important as was the place given to rest, it was, however, only one part, and that a subordinate part of the Sabbath festival. The most important part was the performance of the acts of divine worship God enjoined upon the people, that is to say the sacrifice of a holocaust, consisting of two yearling lambs, along with "flour tempered with oil and the libations."

Besides Sunday, at least in Tertullian's time, the liturgy was performed on Wednesday and Friday, the so-called Station Days. In the East, on the other hand, it was performed only on Saturdays, at least in many places. To put on one's best clothes for attendance at worship was a custom of the heathen, which the Christians retained, and which has survived to the present day.

As to the grounds for celebrating Sunday, the Fathers are unanimous from the earliest times--it was kept as a festival because Christ rose again on the first day of the Jewish week. A clear indication of this is given by the practice observed in Jerusalem in the fourth century of reading at the psalmody on each of the Sundays in Quinquagesima, the Gospel of the resurrection of Jesus.

The first Christian Emperor did his best to promote the observance of Sunday and to show it all respect as a day of prayer. He gave leave to the Christian soldiers of his army to be absent from duty in order that they might attend divine service. The heathen soldiers, however, had to assemble in camp without their arms, and offer up a prayer for the Emperor and his family. Eusebius, in his "Life of Constantine," mentions in detail these pious endeavours of the Emperor, yet his information must have been incomplete, since Sozomen informs us that Constantine also forbade the law-courts to sit on Sunday. It has been attempted to throw doubt on the veracity of this information because of the silence of Eusebius; but Sozomen was an advocate, and must have been better up in the existing legislation than Eusebius, and, moreover, a clear grasp of the point at issue along with a lucid representation of all the facts concerned is not one of the excellences of Eusebius. The information given by Sozomen is further supported by the fact that a law of Constantine's directed to the same end is in existence.

The prohibition of the transaction of legal business on Sunday was frequently renewed by his successors, and extended so as to suspend the courts of arbitration, and to prohibit summonses for debt.

As regards working on Sunday, the Church very carefully avoided the adoption of a pharisaical observance of the day; but, from the beginning, there was a consensus of Christian opinion against the continuance of all work which rendered the attendance of the faithful at divine worship impossible--as, for instance, the labours of slaves or the work of servants. In course of time this was extended so as to exclude all kinds of work out of keeping with the dignity of the day. As to details, different views prevailed to a great extent in different places and times. The first Christian Emperor had already, according to Eusebius, made a law prescribing throughout his Empire rest on Sundays, and even on Fridays as well. Ecclesiastical legislation on its part maintained that slaves must have sufficient free time to attend divine worship and receive religious instruction in church. Attendance at this was regarded as the duty of all grown up Christians. For the rest, the prohibition of work on Sunday was not always regarded in antiquity as of general obligation. Thus, for example, the Council of Laodicea forbade Christians on the one hand to celebrate Saturday in the Jewish manner, and, on the other, enjoined rest from labour only "in so far as it was possible."

That the establishment of rest from labour had special reference to slaves is shown by the so-called Apostolic Constitutions. In them we have the days on which slaves were to be free from labour once more enumerated in detail, and the limits of the earlier legislation considerably extended.

Days of rest for slaves were to be: Saturday and Sunday, Holy Week and Easter Week, the Ascension, Whitsunday, Christmas, Epiphany, all festivals of Apostles, St Stephen's Day, and the feasts of certain martyrs. Naturally the object of this ordinance was not to make all these days festivals in the strict sense of the word.

In his anxiety to do honour to the holy days of the Church, the first Christian Emperor went still further. He desired to make Friday, the day of Christ's death, a day of rest and devotion as well. We have no information as to how far this regulation took practical effect during his life. No trace of such a custom exists at a later date except among the Nestorians. How earnest he was in securing the execution of these decrees is shown by the fact that he commanded the prefects of the provinces not only to observe Sundays, but also to celebrate the commemorations of the martyrs, within their jurisdictions.

It has been already observed that Saturday as well as Sunday had its liturgical observance. In certain Eastern countries it attained to a position almost equal to that of Sunday. For, in the Apostolic Constitutions, it is laid down that the faithful shall attend divine service on this day also, and abstain from servile work, although the rank of Sunday was acknowledged to be higher. The Council of Laodicea forbade indeed, as we have observed above, the abandonment of work on Saturday, but it enjoined the reading of the Gospel as on Sunday . Traces of this pre-eminence of Saturday among the week-days exists at the present time in the Churches of the East.

According to the points of view taken, festivals may be divided into different classes:--

The saints whose feasts are celebrated are either Old Testament personages--although these do not appear in the Roman Calendar as they do in others, especially those of the Oriental Churches--or Apostles, martyrs, virgins, confessors, angels, and, finally, the Mother of our Lord.

Since the number of festivals altered much in the course of centuries, and their objects are so various, they are distinguished from one another by differences of rank and a whole series of gradations has arisen.

In the first place there are purely ecclesiastical festivals whose celebration is confined within the four walls of the Church , and festivals which have their bearing upon the common life of the people, chiefly on account of the rest from labour which is conjoined with them .

The different rank of feasts is not so elaborate among the Greeks and Russians, for they divide their festivals simply into greater, intermediate, and lesser, which are marked in their Calendars by special signs.

It is a recognised fact in history that the festivals of the Church in the course of centuries considerably increased in number, and that, when this increase had reached its highest point, their number began again to diminish. This was partly effected by means of legislation and without disturbance, but partly by the violent proceedings attendant upon the French Revolution. The stages in this process will be best understood from an account of the secular and ecclesiastical legislation by which they were brought about.

Tertullian is the first ecclesiastical writer who enumerates the feasts celebrated among the Christians. The only festivals known to him, and to Origen after him, are Easter and Pentecost. His statement is all the more noteworthy, because the exigencies of his controversy with Celsus required he should specify all the festivals by name. These are, besides Sundays, the Parasceve, Easter, and Pentecost. Tertullian and Origen are witnesses respectively for the East and West, and since their evidence coincides, it is certain that in the third century only the first germs existed of that Church-life which subsequently was to reach so rich a development. The cessation of persecution removed those hindrances which up to then had stood in the way of its evolution.

When a day became recognised as exempt from legal business, this did not at once render it a festival or holy day, otherwise, according to the law of 389, there would have been fifteen consecutive holy days. The prohibition of legal proceedings in the courts on a given day, had regard, in the first place, to the removal of all hindrances which might interfere with attendance at divine worship on the part of those employed therein. In the second place, however, it must be remembered that in those days the sittings of the criminal courts almost always implied the application of torture; and such proceedings on holy days seemed especially out of place. This must also have been the reason why Valentinian and his colleague forbade prosecutions in the criminal courts throughout the whole of Lent. He certainly did not aim at changing all the days of Lent into feast-days. This law was renewed by Justinian.

A list of the festivals celebrated at Tours and in the neighbouring Abbey of St Martin's during the fifth century, is given us by Perpetuus , the sixth bishop of the see. In this is shown the days on which the principal service is held in the cathedral, and those on which it is held in other churches in the town:--

The Council of Mainz in 813, and the statutes of Bishop Rudolph of Bourges and Bishop Walter of Orleans in the same century, prescribe eight days for the festival of Pentecost, as well as for Easter, and mention in addition the Nativity of our Lady and St Remigius as festivals. The Council of Ingelheim in 948 retained the Easter octave but reduced the festival of Pentecost to four days, which were finally reduced to three by the Council of Constance. A few additions to these festivals are given in the collections of canons put out at a subsequent period by Burchard of Worms and Ivo of Chartres.

In the Byzantine Empire the number of days exempt from legal proceedings was even more considerable than in the West. A distinction was made between whole holidays and half holidays. The Emperor Manuel Comnenus reduced their number by a constitution, dated March 1166. According to this, the first-class comprised no fewer than sixty-six days, not including Sundays, and the second comprised twenty-seven.

From the Calendar of Calcasendi, we learn what were the festivals observed by the Copts in Egypt, in the eighth century, under Mahomedan rule. They distinguished between greater and lesser festivals, and kept seven of each.

The greater festivals are:--

The lesser festivals are:--

For the Egyptian Christians, Good Friday was not a festival of either the first or second class. In this it stood in marked distinction from the preceding and following days--Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday, which were regarded as festivals of the second class.

The fact that formerly the bishops enjoyed the right of introducing festivals into their dioceses, or of excluding them, must constantly be borne in mind, because, if it is left out of sight, the institution and development of even a single festival cannot be understood, much less the historical development of the whole festal cycle. When we realise that this principle was acted upon from the beginning, and for more than a thousand years, during a period remarkable for its rich development in many directions, the wonder is that the result is as harmonious and systematic as it is. No departure was made from the natural basis upon which the whole was built up, and the attempts of the Councils were all in the direction of uniformity.

PART II

THE CHURCH'S YEAR

A. EASTER, AND THE SACRED SEASONS CONNECTED WITH EASTER

Were it our object to deal with the Church's year as affording material for a series of doctrinal instructions, we should begin with Christmas, the festival of Christ's birth, for, so viewed, the ecclesiastical year becomes chiefly a compendium of the chief acts in the drama of our salvation, and recalls in orderly succession the principal events in our Saviour's life. But if we make the Church's year in itself the object of our studies, especially if we deal with it historically, we are bound to commence with Easter, because, in order of time, it existed from the first and formed the natural starting-point for all the rest. It did not, as other festivals, come into existence gradually, but formed a connecting link with the Old Testament, and was, in the strictest sense of the words, the appointment of a Higher Power, providentially ordering all things according to Its good pleasure. Easter owes its origin not to human wisdom, or piety: it comes to us with higher sanctions.

Easter is the chief festival of Christendom, the first and oldest of all festivals, the basis on which the Church's year is built, the connecting link with the festivals of the Old Covenant, and the central point on which depends the date of the other movable feasts. At an early date, the Fathers mention Easter as the most important of the festivals, as, for example, St Leo the Great, on the grounds that the incarnation and birth of the Son of God served as a prelude to the mystery of the Resurrection, and that Christ had no other purpose in being born of a woman than that He should be nailed to the Cross for us. Other Fathers and the Roman martyrology call it the feast of feasts .

The points to be dealt with regarding Easter are its antiquity, and its connection, in point of view of time and of signification, with the Jewish Passover, with which it is connected by the death of Christ, as well as by the day on which that death took place. Then, the character and duration of the feast, the preparatory solemnity of Lent, and the subsequent Octave must be dealt with.

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