Part 2 — CHAPTER I THE CHURCH’S YEAR

A. Easter, and the Sacred Seasons connected with Easter

1. Easter, its Name and History

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,[79] 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.[80] Other Fathers and the Roman martyrology call it the feast of feasts (festum festorum).

With regard to the name, the English word “Easter” comes from Eastre, in German “Ostra,”[81] the goddess of Spring worshipped by the ancient Saxons and Angles, whose name survives in many place-names, such as Osterode, Osterberg, etc. In her honour fires, known as the Easter fires, were kindled in spring. In Latin, we find at first dominica resurrectionis alone used in the liturgy, never Pascha. Pascha has no connection with the Greek πάσχω, but is the Aramaic form of pesach, to pass over, ‎‏פַּסְחָח‎‏ for ‎‏פֶּסַח‎‏. In Christian times, the similarity in the sound of the words easily suggested, by a sort of play upon the words, that which to Christians is the chief object of the Easter festival. In the Pentateuch, pascha is only found in the strict sense of transitus, phase.[82]

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.

With regard to Easter and its antiquity in early ecclesiastical literature, the Apostolic Fathers, owing to the questions dealt with in their writings, do not mention it. Only in the interpolated letter of Ignatius to the Philippians (c. 14) is Easter mentioned. The passage is directed against the Quartodecimans, which of itself is proof of its later date. Nothing is to be found in the Didaché or in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies. When we come to the apologists, we find no reference to Easter in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho (c. 40), and nothing in either of his Apologies. Clement of Alexandria speaks only of the Jewish passover, without referring to the Christian feast. Melito of Sardis, however, wrote an entire treatise on the festival of Easter, in the year when Servilius Paulus was Pro-Consul of Asia, for at that time a disagreement concerning Easter had broken out in Laodicea. Clement of Alexandria replied to Melito, who had written in defence of the Quartodeciman practice.[83]

In 198, when the difference between Asia and the rest of the Church concerning Easter came under discussion, an exchange of letters took place between the leading authorities of the Church, Pope Victor, Bishop Narcissus of Jerusalem, Polycrates of Ephesus, Bacchylus of Corinth, Irenæus, and others taking part. Irenæus composed a special treatise De Paschate, sometimes called De Schismate, unfortunately lost. In the fragments falsely attributed to him, Easter is referred to in the third and seventh.

References to Easter are frequent in Tertullian. With regard to the name, it is to be noticed that with him pascha denotes, not the single day of the Easter festival, but a longer period of time, in which a fast was observed and baptism administered,[84] in other words, Passion-tide and the Easter Octave.[85] Moreover, for the actual day of our Lord’s death, he uses the word, parasceve.[86] The festival of Easter, as he further relates, was kept in the first month (i.e. March),[87] and was prefigured by the Jewish Passover.[88] We possess a treatise on Easter, of the year 243 A.D., formerly attributed wrongly to St Cyprian, but, probably, a translation of work of Theophilus of Cæsarea. It is entitled De Paschate Computus, and was written elsewhere than at Rome, in the interest of the Easter cycle of sixteen years drawn up by Hippolytus. The remarks of Hippolytus on the Quartodecimans afford us important evidence for the Ante-Nicene period. “These,” he says, “agree with the Church in preserving all the apostolic traditions, but differ from her in one point, inasmuch as, out of contentiousness, wilfulness, and ignorance, they maintain that the Christian feast must always be kept on the 14th Nisan, no matter on what day of the week it falls.”[89]

If the Arabic Canons ascribed to Hippolytus, especially the twenty-second, are really his, it would appear that he held Easter might be kept in the same week as the Jewish Passover, but on the Sunday, and should be preceded by a week’s fast on bread and water.[90] This date coincides with the Easter cycle of sixteen years drawn up by Hippolytus, and which, after all, is only the Jewish cycle of eight years doubled.

The seventh and sixty-ninth of the so-called Apostolic Canons refer to Easter and its preparatory fast. The seventh is also important on account of what it says about the period within which Easter may fall: “Whosoever keeps Easter with the Jews before the vernal equinox, let him be anathema.” From which it appears that the Jewish Passover could fall before the vernal equinox. The last day of Nisan alone must never precede the equinox, and, consequently, the Passover must frequently have fallen before the 21st March, and may have done so in the year of our Lord’s death.

Of Eusebius’ treatise on Easter,[91] dedicated to the Emperor, only a portion remains and this contains nothing either about Easter or its date. Constantine gratefully accepted the dedication in a letter which Eusebius, not without vanity, incorporated in his Vita Constantini (4, 35). The Emperor’s encyclical,[92] communicating to the churches the conclusions concerning Easter arrived at by the Nicene Council, would have been more deserving of a place in the same work.

2. The Connection of the Christian Festival with the Jewish

The connection between the Christian and the Jewish feasts is both historical and ideal—historical because our Lord’s death happened on the 15th Nisan, the first day of the Jewish feast; ideal, because what took place had been prefigured in the Old Testament by types of which it was itself the antitype.

The Jewish Passover was a repetition of what had taken place on the evening of the exodus from Egypt. On that occasion, the children of Israel had killed a lamb and marked their doorposts with its blood in order that the destroying angel might pass over their houses. Then, dressed for the journey, they had consumed the lamb at a ceremonial meal. This last meal of which the Israelites partook in Egypt on the eve of their departure, i.e. on the 14th Nisan, was of a religious character, and was, on this account, to be repeated every year on the same day, and at the same hour, as a memorial feast, at which each father of a family had to instruct his household in the signification of the rites they were performing.[93]

The manner of celebrating the feast was minutely prescribed. Each householder, for example, had to choose a lamb without blemish of the first year, on the 10th of the first month, i.e. Nisan, as it came to be called later, or, if he had none in his own herd, he must procure one from elsewhere and keep it in readiness for the feast on the evening of the 14th Nisan. The lamb was to be killed, roasted, and eaten by the household, who remained standing, along with unleavened bread, and bitter herbs, nothing being allowed to remain over.[94] From this onwards to the 21st Nisan inclusive, unleavened bread was alone to be eaten, and hence the period from the 15th to the 21st Nisan was called the days of unleavened bread. The first and last days, the 15th and the 21st, were regarded as especially sacred, and servile work was forbidden on them.[95] During the whole week, holocausts, meat offerings, and sin offerings were offered daily in the Temple on behalf of the entire people, as well as offerings presented by individual believers on their own behalf. The 16th Nisan was marked by an offering of a special kind, that of the first-fruits of harvest, consisting of the presentation of a sheaf of ripe barley along with the offering of a yearling lamb.[96] This offering of the first ripe fruits served also to mark the time when the Passover was to be celebrated, for, owing to the fact that the Jewish year did not begin on a fixed date, this had to be in some way determined by a stated event in the order of nature. In Palestine the barley was already ripe by March.

Several of the actions prescribed at the offering of this lamb pointed forward to the atoning death of the Messias, such as the sprinkling of the doorposts with its blood, in order that the destroying angel might pass over the house, and the direction that none of the lamb’s bones were to be broken. There were also several other small particulars which emphasised and completed the ideal connection between the sacrifice of the Passover and that of the Cross, as certain Fathers perceived at an early date.

Isaias, speaking in his prophecy, of the sufferings of the Messias, calls Him the Lamb chosen by God, who bears the iniquity of others.[97] St John the Baptist pointed out Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and by the writers of the New Testament the same idea is frequently employed. St John the Evangelist expressly refers to the typical character of the Passover rites, when he applies the passage, “A bone of it shall not be broken,”[98] to Christ on the Cross, and sees its fulfilment in the fact that the soldiers refrained from breaking His limbs. St Paul declares in general that the sacrifice of Christ replaces the Passover, and sees a typical signification in the unleavened bread.[99] It appears, he had no objection to Christians holding a Passover supper, although, elsewhere he expresses himself strongly against their continuing to observe Jewish practices, such as Sabbaths and new moons.[100] As to the Fathers, it is sufficient, to quote Justin and Tertullian,[101] who in particular see in the fact that the Passover lamb was transfixed in two pieces of wood arranged cross-wise, a figure of the Cross in which Christ was stretched. Speaking generally, there is no doubt the Jewish Passover was taken over into Christianity, and thereby its typical ceremonies found their true fulfilment.

Apart from the relation of the sacrifice of Christ’s death to the Jewish Passover, and its dogmatic signification, sentiment and mere human feeling would have led Christians to regard with reverence the day on which our Lord, the Founder of the Church, died, and to keep the day sacred in each succeeded year on which He had offered the sacrifice of Himself. But for this it was necessary, in the first place, to know on what day exactly His death had taken place.

For the Jews, this was easy; it was the 15th Nisan in their Calendar, but for Christians of other countries, it was very difficult. In the Roman Empire, to which they all belonged, different methods of reckoning time and different calendars were in use. Since 45 B.C., the Romans themselves used the revised Julian Calendar, leaving at the same time perfect freedom to subject nations either to adopt it, or continue their own methods.[102] Chief among the existing systems were the Egyptian, the Syro-Macedonian, and the Semitic, each with its own way of dating the year. The two first systems admitted of being brought into agreement with the Roman Calendar, with more or less difficulty, since, according to them, the year began on a fixed date, but with the Jewish Calendar it was not so, for its was based on the lunar year, and never synchronised with the solar year as to the beginning of months and years. The Egyptian year, at the commencement of the Christian era, began on the 29th August, and consisted of twelve months of thirty days each, and five additional days (ἐπαγόμεναι) belonging to no month. Every fourth year was a leap-year, namely the third, seventh, eleventh, fifteenth year, according to the Julian reckoning. The Syro-Macedonian Calendar commenced with the autumnal equinox. The Syrians, however, later on, partially adopted the Julian Calendar in a somewhat modified form.[103] The Egyptian system of introducing additional days was essentially the same as the Roman, except that their leap-year was always one year in advance of the Roman leap-year. To their usual five additional days, they added yet one more, making a total of six. Consequently the next year, i.e. the fourth, eighth, twelfth, sixteenth, etc., began on the 30th instead of the 29th August.[104] For reckoning years, the Egyptians made use of the years of the sovereign’s reign, but as they began the year with the 1st Thoth, preceding the proclamation of the sovereign’s accession, it often happened that more years than he was entitled to were set down to one sovereign, while another who had reigned for less than a year was simply passed over.[105]

It was extremely difficult for those nations, whose Calendars were arranged on a different system, to fix the day of Christ’s death by their own chronology, for the Jewish 15th Nisan might fall on widely different days, sometimes in March, sometimes in April. How difficult it was to discover, the days on which the death and resurrection of Christ ought to be commemorated, will become more obvious from what follows.

3. The circumstances which led to Easter being a movable Feast

To the real and historical connection between the Christian Easter and the Jewish Passover, is due the explanation of a striking peculiarity in the Church’s year, viz., the movable feasts, of which Easter is the starting-point. Easter falls on no fixed date, because the Jewish 15th Nisan, unlike the dates of the Julian and Gregorian Calendars, varied year by year. The extent and nature of this discrepancy are caused by the Semitic Calendar. At the commencement of the Christian era, this Calendar was not only used by the Jews, but also extensively followed in Syria, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Babylon, Armenia, Osrhoëne, and in a great part of Asia Minor, although other nationalities in these countries kept each to its own Calendar. Thus, for example, the Greeks in Antioch followed the Syro-Macedonian Calendar, and so on. Where a mixed population existed in any place, different Calendars would be found in use.

The special features of the Semitic, or Jewish Calendar, which concern us in this connection are the following:—

1. The Jewish day ended at sunset, and so the evening hours, from about six p.m. belonged to the following day. This caused difference in dates, for what happened according to Roman ideas at ten p.m. for example, was regarded by the Jews as happening on the following day.

2. The Jewish year was a variable lunar year, i.e. it consisted of twelve months, each of which began with the new moon, the full moon consequently falling on the 14th of each month. The moon completes her orbit round the earth in twenty-nine and a half days, or two orbits in fifty-nine days. The Jewish months, accordingly, varied from twenty-nine to thirty days alternately (Tischri and Nisan having thirty days), it being impossible to commence a month in the middle of a day. Thus the twelve months of the Jewish year make up 354 days. Eleven and a quarter days were required to make up the length of a solar year. Had this discrepancy not been rectified in some way, every Jewish month, and the new year as well, would, in the course of thirty years, have made the circle of the year. For, if in one year, the 1st Nisan coincided with the 1st March, in the next it would fall on the 12th, and so on.

The Semites brought about the necessary adjustment, not by leap-years, but by the insertion of an additional month. For example, eight solar years have a total of 2920 days, not counting the addition days of leap years. The same number of days make up ninety-nine lunar months, or, in other words, eight lunar years and three intercalary months, are equal to eight solar years. Thus, in eight years, three additional months must be introduced, making the number of days almost equal with the days of eight solar years, except for a small discrepancy, caused by the additional day in leap year. When these additional days had reached the number of thirty, they could be accounted for by the introduction of a further additional month. In regulating these points, the equinoxes were of the utmost importance, and, in the second place, the ceremonial oblation of the first fruits.

If it was evident that the month Nisan would terminate before the vernal equinox—its beginning and middle had to precede the equinox, as well as the quarta decima lunæ—and if the barley was not in ear by the 14th, then it was considered the discrepancy had to be set right. This was done by prolonging the last month of the expiring year, Adar, for twenty-nine days longer than usual. In other words, an additional month was added to the year, designated merely as Veadar. This was the intercalary month. This, happening thrice in eight years, brought the lunar and solar years into agreement by a very simple expedient. The equinox could be controlled by help of the Zodiac, for, on the 20th March, the sun enters Aries, and, on the 23rd September, Libra.

Had the Jews followed out this method scientifically, i.e., had the introduction of the intercalary months followed fixed laws and been ruled by astronomical observations and calculations, then, though still difficult, it would have been possible to make the Jewish Calendar synchronise with others. But the introduction of these additional days was, so to speak, arbitrary and dependent upon the good pleasure of the priests. Thus we can never say for certain that such and such a year was a leap year with the Jews, and accordingly no date in the past can with certainty be made to synchronise with a date in the Julian or any other Calendar.[106]

Until their dispersion after the Jewish war in A.D. 70, and even much later, the Jews reckoned their new moons and leap years, and also the beginning of each year, not by strictly astronomical data, but by the method just described. The rule was that the month began with the day on the evening of which the new moon first became visible, and also that the passover should be kept when the sun was in Aries.[107] Maimonides, agreeing with what we have said above, informs us that a second Adar was interposed if the vernal equinox fell on the 16th Nisan or later. But it would be a great mistake to think that a scientifically accurate system, founded on these principles, was employed for calculating the new moons and leap years, such as would make it possible to bring the dates of the Jewish year into certain correspondence with the Julian Calendar. Still we must not think no attempts were made to reduce the Calendar to order on the basis of some cyclic system, but the caprice of the Sanhedrin always succeeded in rendering these attempts unavailing. Ideler (i. 512) shows how the new moons were treated, and Maimonides tells us that the Sanhedrin was influenced by many considerations in the choice of leap years. The Talmud preserves a remarkable letter written by Rabbi Gamaliel, the teacher of St Paul, to the Jews of Babylon and Media, which may appositely be quoted here. “We herewith inform you that we, in conjunction with our colleagues, have deemed it necessary to add thirty days to the year, since the doves (to be offered in sacrifice) are still too tender, and the lambs (for the passover) too young, and the time of Abib (the barley harvest) has not arrived.”

This passage may well serve as a warning to those who, whenever they find a fixed date in ancient Jewish writings, forthwith, with the aid of lunar tables, transpose it into a date according to the Julian method of reckoning, and possibly flatter themselves they have found a fixed point which will form a basis for further calculations.

In consequence of what we have said, it seems natural that Jewish converts to Christianity in apostolic times in the East should have fixed the date of Easter by Jewish methods, without departing, in this respect, from Jewish customs, especially as they formed the majority in the Church. This was all the more natural since in Syria and in many parts of Asia Minor, a Calendar drawn up on similar principles to the Semitic, was in use alongside the Greek (i.e. Roman) Calendar. This custom, however, although retained by the Quartodecimans, was never widespread, and did not long survive. The principal consideration, which demanded a departure from Jewish methods, was, that from the Christian point of view, the Resurrection, and not the day of Christ’s death, formed the chief feature of the commemoration; the latter, although a day to be had in remembrance, could not well be kept as a joyous festival. But the Resurrection took place on the Sunday after the 15th Nisan, and so this Sunday came to be the chief day of the Christians’ feast.

Through the gradual spread of Christianity in non-Semitic lands in the West, the necessity must soon have arisen of fixing the day of the Resurrection by the Julian Calendar, and of deciding according to it the day on which Easter had to be celebrated. But, as we have said, it is very difficult to transfer a date from the Jewish to the Julian Calendar, and, in most cases, quite impossible when the date is that of an event already long past.

Let us apply all this to the point in question.

If it was asked, “On what day did Christ die?” the answer was, “On the 15th Nisan.” But if it was asked again, “On which day of the Roman Calendar does the 15th Nisan fall?” the reply must be, “Who can tell? In one year it may fall in March, in another in April; sometimes on one day of our Calendar, sometimes on another.”

The reply, “On the 15th Nisan,” conveyed nothing either to the Romans or to the Egyptians; it was intelligible to the Semites alone. Thus, where the Semitic Calendar was not understood, it was necessary to fix the day by some other method. In the choice of methods, the Church of Alexandria, and, most of all, the Church of Rome, took the lead. The simplest plan would have been to discover on which day of March or April the 15th Nisan had fallen in the year of Christ’s death, i.e. 782 U.C. But it was impossible to do this with certainty after a few decades had elapsed. Another starting-point had to be sought, and this was naturally given by the spring full moon, i.e. the full moon nearest to the vernal equinox, for the 15th Nisan must fall either on this full moon or thereabouts. Thus in Rome and Alexandria, all the principles which are in force at the present day were gradually adopted, i.e. Easter is to be celebrated on the Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. There is evidence that this rule for determining the date of Easter was followed in Rome from the time of Pope Sixtus I., possibly even earlier. The further developments do not concern us here.

Here and there in the West, there was a tendency to commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ on fixed days in the Julian Calendar—on the 25th and 27th of March, for example—but it never became general. For the most part, the data for the calculation of Easter were the same as those employed for calculating the Jewish passover; that is to say, the full moon on the one hand, and the vernal equinox on the other, Sunday being introduced as an additional factor in the calculation, since our Lord had risen on that day of the week. In this way the above rule was established, and so, in the date of Easter as determined at the present day, the variable Jewish lunar year has left a trace behind it, and, also, the connection in which Christianity stands to Judaism receives a practical expression deserving of being preserved to the end of time.[108]

4. The Final Settlement of the date of Easter and the Attempts made to commemorate the day of the Month on which Christ died

The manner in which the commemoration of our Lord’s passion and death admitted of being celebrated in agreement with the Jewish Calendar, is due to the minuteness with which the fourth Evangelist describes the events of Holy Week.

On the 9th Nisan our Lord arrived at Bethania. The next day, the 10th, took place the triumphal entry into Jerusalem[109]—Palm Sunday.

11th Nisan, Monday. Curse pronounced on the barren fig-tree, and second, cleansing of the Temple.

12th Nisan, Tuesday. Conferences between our Lord and the Pharisees and Sadducees; the widow’s mite; attempts of the Greeks to see our Lord.

13th Nisan, Wednesday. Judas betrays our Lord to the Chief Priests.

14th Nisan, Thursday. The Last Supper and the Betrayal.

15th Nisan, Friday. Condemnation and Death of Jesus.[110]

16th Nisan, Sabbath. The body of Jesus in the sepulchre.

17th Nisan, Sunday. The Resurrection.

In this way, these events could be annually commemorated on the same days in the Jewish Calendar, the day of the week, however, varying, as it does in the case of the Jewish passover. That this was actually done is recognised by Isidore of Seville, when he says,[111] “Formerly the Church kept Easter with the Jews on the fourteenth day of moon, no matter on what day of the week it fell.” But where the Julian, or even the Egyptian, Calendar was in force, if a man wished to proceed accurately in this way, without being tied down to fixed days of the week (i.e. Friday for the day of our Lord’s death, and Sunday for the Resurrection), he would nevertheless have to learn on what day of his own Calendar the 15th Nisan of the Jews fell in the year of our Lord’s death. For it was quite impossible for him to look for it at one time in March, at another time in April, according to his own Calendar.

Hence arose a striking divergence at the very beginning, which did not admit of being adjusted. Obviously, another method for fixing the date of Easter had to be devised for Gentile converts and for those districts where the Julian, or, at any rate, a non-Jewish, Calendar was in force. At the same time, it is also quite credible, because resting on clear proof, that in Syria and Asia Minor, the Apostles fixed the date of Easter on Quartodeciman principles, while at Rome and Alexandria another method obtained from the beginning. Granted that the Roman Church, during the Apostle’s lifetime, consisted only of converts from Judaism, still the Jews as a whole were such a small minority in Rome that they must have conformed to the Roman method of reckoning time, and were probably, most of them, unfamiliar with the Jewish Calendar. It was different in Asia Minor where the Jews were very numerous and free to follow their own customs, and where a Calendar closely allied to the Jewish was used by the native population.

When the Christians of Asia Minor claimed for this practice the ordinance of the Apostles, especially St John and St Philip,[112] their appeal is as much deserving of credit as the claim of the Romans to base their practice on the ordinance of St Peter. That they actually did so, we learn from the Festal Letters of St Athanasius,[113] who says: “The Romans lay claim to a tradition from the Apostle Peter, forbidding to go beyond the 26th Pharmuthi (the 21st April), on the one hand, and the 30th Phamenoth (the 26th March), on the other.” Here we have also the limits of the period within which Easter at that time fell, the 25th March being reckoned as the day of the vernal equinox.

The Churches which had never followed the Quartodeciman practice, surpassed the others in number and influence, so much the more as Egypt, where the Church had been organised by a disciple of St Peter, and also Greece, were among their number. When strife arose over this point, the numerically weaker party ought to have yielded, but rather than this, they separated from the Catholic Church under the form of Ebionitism. Irenæus traces the opposition of the Roman Church to the Quartodeciman Easter back to Sixtus I. (116-125). “The Roman Bishops,” he says according to Eusebius,[114] “neither observed the Passover in this way themselves, nor allowed those under their authority so to observe it.” Should the thought here arise in the mind that the Roman practice came into existence first under Sixtus, it is contradicted by the letter of Polycrates to Pope Victor where it is said that Rome appealed to the Apostles Peter and Paul in support of her custom.

The chief reason why the Jewish Quartodeciman practice of the other Churches finally succumbed, was that Christians desired to commemorate not merely the day of our Lord’s death alone, which was linked to the 15th Nisan, but also His Resurrection. The Resurrection had a close connection with His death in point of time, and its commemoration was already firmly established in apostolic times in the form of Sunday (see above, p. 5). It was thus impossible to pass over the Sunday, and so practically an entire week was occupied by the commemoration. The events of Holy Week given above could not be separated from each other; they must be kept in connection. The Jews, as Epiphanius[115] remarks in his polemic against the Audians, keep their passover on a single day, while the Christians required a whole week for their Easter commemorations. And so, although they took the date of the Jewish passover as the basis of their calculations, they nevertheless did not limit the duration of their feast to that one day. Finally, another point which had weight, was that the Christians of the fourth century had a fixed idea that the 14th Nisan must not fall before the vernal equinox.[116]

Along with this generally observed custom of commemorating in the Church the passion and death of our Lord, repeated attempts were made to discover and establish a fixed date for the solemnity. Already in the third century it was thought this had been successfully achieved, and in Tertullian we find 782 U.C. given as the year of Christ’s death, and the 15th Nisan identified with the 25th March. This date would be incorrect in any case, even if 782 were really the year of Christ’s death, for in that year, the Jewish passover could only have fallen on either the 19th March or the 17th April of the Julian Calendar. Nevertheless the 25th March met with no small acceptance, being accepted, amongst others, by Hippolytus, Augustine, and Perpetuus of Tours, who accordingly marked the 27th March in his Calendar as the true day of the Resurrection. It appears also in the spurious acts of Pilate. In the Carolingian period this date constantly occurs in the martyrologies, as, for instance, in the Gellonense of 804, in that of Corbie of 826, in Wandelbert of Prüm, in the different recensions of the so-called martyrology of Jerome, and others. Whether this day was liturgically observed, or had merely an historic interest, cannot be decided from the Calendars, but the former is probable.

Finally, it may not be without interest to observe how in subsequent centuries attempts were made to explain the fact that Easter, unlike other festivals, was movable. It is conceivable that in course of time, the true explanation, viz., the connection of the Christian with the Jewish feast and its consequent dependence on the Jewish Calendar, was forgotten, and attempts began to be made to account for the fact on other grounds, typical or otherwise.

After the observance had everywhere become well established, it must have struck people that the day of our Lord’s death was very differently commemorated in the Church from the day of His birth, viz. as a movable feast. Among the questions which Januarius submitted to St Augustine, there was one bearing on this point. Augustine[117] replied that our Lord’s birthday was merely a commemorative festival, while Easter had a mystical connection with the Jewish passover, as also its name is of Hebrew, not Greek, origin. Easter is the fulfilment of our redemption which consists in an inward renewal of mankind, and with this idea of renewal, the first month of the Jewish and ancient Roman year corresponds. Afterwards, however, Augustine forsakes this safe path and loses himself in the symbolism of numbers and in forced astronomical interpretations.

Shorter and more to the point is the explanation given by Martin, Bishop of Dumio (561-572), who died Bishop of Braga in 580. In his treatise De Paschate,[118] he says many people only add to the confusion by their unsuccessful attempts to explain why the date of Easter is fixed by the moon, after the Jewish custom. So, too, the attempts recently made by many bishops of Gaul to celebrate the Resurrection on a fixed day (the 25th March) cannot be approved. Now the passion of Christ is the redemption of the creature. The creation of the world took place in Spring (c. 4), and, consequently, the renewal of the world must also take place in Spring, in the first month of the year. Two things had to be taken into consideration with regard to this festival—the day of the week and the phase of the moon. In order to be right in both, ecclesiastical antiquity had appointed that Easter should not be kept before the 23rd March or after the 21st April (c. 7).

The most important passage in this treatise bearing upon the history of Easter is the remark that many Gallic bishops about 570 commenced their celebration of the festival on the 25th March as an immovable feast. This is also confirmed by Bede,[119] who had a distinctly clearer insight into the nature of the question, and thus expresses himself concerning the dispute about Easter. “Originally the Apostles kept Easter on the full moon in March, on whatever day it fell. After their death different customs prevailed in different provinces. The Gauls kept the festival on the 25th of March. In Italy, some fasted twenty days, others seven, but the Easterns remained faithful to the custom of the Apostles.” To remedy this state of things, Pope Victor put himself in communication with Theophilus of Cæsarea, who held a Synod which decided that the Resurrection should be commemorated on a Sunday, so fixing the day of the week on which it was to be kept.

5. The Liturgical Celebration of Holy Week and Easter

The Christian passover, as originally limited to Holy Week and Easter Week, was consecrated in the first place to the remembrances of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, and to this the religious ceremonies, in so far as they differed from the ordinary services, owed their special character. But, in the second place, it is to be observed that so long as the Catechumenate remained in existence, and even to some extent afterwards, Easter was the only season regularly appointed for baptism. At Easter, the labours of the Catechists came to an end, the course of preparation was finished, the Catechumens received the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist. To this fact, in the second place, the Easter services owe much of their special character, and even now, long after the practice of the Church has changed, rites connected with the administration of baptism are to be found in the ritual of the Easter festival. Thus, the consecration of the font on Holy Saturday, first of all, and then the consecration of the Holy Oils on Maundy Thursday, must be owing to the fact that they were required for the administration of Baptism and Confirmation. On this ground, as well as because of the importance of the feast in itself, it is obvious that Easter, from the liturgical point of view, is conspicuous among all the other festivals, and that a number of rites are then performed which are not repeated in the course of the whole year.[120]

To these rites belong the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday, and on the Tuesday and Wednesday in Holy Week, the procession on Palm Sunday, the Consecration of the Holy Oils on Maundy Thursday, the missa præsanctificatorum on Good Friday. More than the others, Holy Saturday is conspicuous for a number of rites peculiar to itself, viz.:—

1. The blessing of the fire from which the other lights in the Church are lit, and the blessing of the five grains of incense for the pascal candle: both ceremonies being performed outside before the door of the Church.

2. The procession thence into the Church.

3. The blessing of the pascal candle by the singing of the Exsultet or præconium paschale.

4. The reading of the prophecies from the Old Testament.

5. The blessing of the baptismal font, in which the pascal candle is employed.

6. The baptism of catechumens, if there are any.

7. The chanting of the Litany of the Saints during the humi prostratio.

8. The mass of Holy Saturday without introit, and with the threefold Alleluia, i.e., instead of Vespers.

9. In many places Easter festivities take place on the evening of Holy Saturday, but these are not liturgical.

10. On Easter morning, the lifting up of the Crucifix from the sepulchre; procession, opening of the doors, and entry into the church. The gospel being St Mark xvi. 1-7.

In the Middle Ages other special ceremonies and forms of rejoicing took place.

That Easter was the special season for the baptism of those catechumens whose preparation had extended over the whole of the preceding year, is made prominent only at a comparatively later date, in special laws, when the catechumenate was already dying out, as, for example, in the seventh canon of the Roman Synod of 402, the fourth Canon of Gerunda, the eighteenth Canon of Auxerre, where it is expressly laid down that outside the Easter season, baptism must be given to none save the sick. By the time of the Second Synod of Maçon (585), the custom of baptising all the year round on any day had already become very common. This Synod, however, endeavoured to reinstate the ancient custom and also prescribed rest from work for the whole Easter week.[121] However, as late as the seventh and eighth centuries, Easter continued to be the regular season for baptism, at least in Rome, as the so-called scrutinies[122] show, and even the Synod of Neuching (772), in its eighteenth canon, wished to restrict baptism to only two dates in the year.[123]

At an early date, Holy Week had already received a special name, septimana major, which appears already in the fourth century,[124] and which it still retains in liturgical books. The German name (Karwoche) comes from the old German chara or kara, sadness or lamentation, and served to mark the character of the time, always and everywhere regarded in the Church as a time of sadness.

The description of the liturgical ceremonies of Holy Week is best introduced by the account of a pilgrim from Gaul in the fourth century. To the account of her travels, written between 383 and 394, at the end of a pilgrimage extending over three years, she added a description of all that took place during Holy Week in Jerusalem at that period. There, the Holy places themselves suggested devotional practices which were imitated throughout the Church, and have partially survived to the present day, as, for example, the procession of palms and the adoratio crucis. Liturgical scholars, being ignorant of this source of information, formerly sought the origin of these practices in a wrong quarter: it is now beyond doubt that they originated in Jerusalem.

To begin with, students of the liturgy used to be divided over the question when and where the palm procession originated, and various conjectures were put forth. Binterim thought Bishop Peter introduced the blessing of palms at Edessa in 397, while Martène, attributed its origin to the eighth or ninth century. As a matter of fact, not a trace of the blessing of palms is found in the Gregorian sacramentary.[125] We shall certainly not be mistaken if we look for the origin of the palm procession in Jerusalem, for the Gallic pilgrim gives us the following account: On the Sunday, at the beginning of Holy Week, the usual Sunday morning services were held in the larger church on Golgotha, then called the Martyrium, but at the seventh hour of the day (about one P.M.) all the people assembled on the Mount of Olives, where was the cave in which the Lord used to teach. There for two hours, hymns and antiphons were sung and lections from the Scriptures were read. At the ninth hour, they ascended to the summit, whence the Lord ascended to heaven. Here again, hymns were sung, lections suitable to the place and day were read, and prayers were offered up. At the seventh hour, when the gospel account of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem had been read, all rose up, and with branches of palm or olive in their hands, and, singing Benedictus qui venit, proceeded from the hill down into the city, and continued their procession until they reached the Church of the Anastasis where vespers were sung, and an oratio ad crucem offered up.[126]

It was quite in keeping with the dramatic character of Catholic worship to represent, in some marked way, Christ’s memorable entry into Jerusalem at the last passover. On the very scene of the event especially, one was, so to speak, drawn on to do so without any special exercise of the inventive faculty being required.

However, we must follow the pilgrim’s description to the end. On Tuesday, there was another procession to the Mount of Olives, where the Bishop read the gospel, St Mark xxv. 3 et seqq. On Wednesday, the account of the treason of Judas was read as the gospel, and during it, the people wept and lamented. On Maundy Thursday, the psalmody began at cock-crow; at four P.M.,[127] mass was said in the Martyrium by the Bishop, at which the people communicated. Towards seven o’clock in the evening, the people assembled in the Eleona, as the church which then stood on the Mount of Olives was called, and, towards eleven o’clock, ascended to the summit of the mount, praying and singing. This lasted until cock-crow the following day. Then, about three A.M., the assembly broke up and a start was made for the Garden of Gethsemani, where they found the beautiful church lit up by two hundred lamps. Here the bishop said a prayer; a suitable psalm followed, and then the reading of the gospel, St Matt. xxvi. 41 et seqq., which narrates the capture of Christ in Gethsemani. Then the procession slowly descended the mount into the city, and passed on until it reached the place of the crucifixion. Here the gospel narrative of Christ’s trial was read: the bishop addressed the people and dismissed them with an exhortation to return about seven o’clock, for the adoration of the Holy Cross. Whereupon, the people proceeded to Mount Sion to pray at the column of the flagellation, and then returned to their homes.

At seven o’clock, the bishop took his seat on his throne in the chapel of the Holy Cross. Before him was placed a table covered with a white linen cloth, round which the deacons took up their position. Then the silver shrine containing the wood of the Holy Cross was brought in. It was opened and the Holy Cross itself, along with the inscription (titulus) laid upon the table. The faithful and catechumens approached, knelt, kissed the Cross, and touched it with their forehead and eyes, but not with their hands. In this way, they passed by, one by one, while the deacons kept watch. Then the deacons exhibited also to the people Solomon’s ring and the horn with which the Jewish kings used to be anointed: these also were kissed.

At the sixth hour, noon, the service proceeded in the following manner. The people assembled in the open court between the chapel of the Holy Cross and the Church of the Anastasis; the bishop took his seat on the throne, and then lections from the Scriptures were read continuously, until the ninth hour. These related to the passion, and were taken from the Old Testament, from the psalms and prophets, as well as from the New Testament. At the ninth hour, the passage from St John xix. 30, which speaks of the death of Jesus, was read and the assembly was dismissed. The service was then immediately resumed in the chief church (the Martyrium), and continued until the reading of the passage (St John xix. 38), describing the descent from the Cross, and then again a prayer was recited and the blessing of the catechumens took place. With this, the service for the day concluded and the people were dismissed. The younger clerics, however, remained throughout the night watching in the church.

With regard to the liturgy for Good Friday, the pilgrim found that the ceremonies she saw in Jerusalem differed not at all from what she was familiar with in her own country. She only observes that the baptised children were conducted by the bishop first to the Church of the Resurrection and then to the principal church (the Martyrium).[128]

This is the earliest complete description of the ceremonies of Holy Week which we possess. We now pass to the usages of a later date.

Palm Sunday

The Sunday next before Easter is commonly called Palm Sunday (Dominica in ramis palmarum, Gr. κυριακὴ τῶν βαΐον). At an earlier date it was also called Dominica competentium, because on it catechumens requested baptism. In some sacramentaries it is called in capitilavio,[129] from the washing and shaving of the head in preparation for baptism.

Among the characteristic ceremonies of this day, is the procession, at which branches of palm, or of some other similar tree, are carried. In the Middle Ages, this was fairly common; not so, however, the blessing of the palms.[130] In the Roman ritual, this blessing is performed with much ceremony. It resembles in form the ordo missæ, consisting of an introit, collect, epistle, gospel, another prayer and a preface, followed by the actual blessing comprising five more prayers, sprinkling with holy water and incensation. Upon this, the procession starts, which passes out of the church, the doors of which are then closed. They are reopened when the deacon has knocked with the staff of the processional cross, and the procession enters, recalling the entry of our Lord through the gates of Jerusalem. In the Mass which follows, the Passion according to St Matthew is read or sung.

In the oldest Roman sacramentaries, however, nothing is found relating to the blessing and procession of palms, but the ritual for them is minutely described in the Ordos, xii. c. 9 (of Cencio Savelli), and xv. c. 53 et seq. These clearly belong to the Middle Ages. The first trace of the practice of holding palm-branches during divine service, as far as the rituals of the Roman Church are concerned, is found in the later recension of the Gregorian sacramentary used in Gaul in the ninth and tenth centuries. Among the prayers for the day is found one for the blessing, not of the palms, but of those who carried them. In the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries, the Sunday is at any rate called Dominica in Palmas, but only in the title. It seems as if people were satisfied at first with holding palms during the Mass, and that the palm procession only took shape later. In the Gotho-Gallican missal, the Sunday has no special name and no mention is made of palms. On the other hand, the name appears in the lectionaries of Silos and Luxeuil. Everything points to the blessing of the palms, and, probably, also the procession, having become customary in the second half of the ninth century.[131] Isidore of Seville[132] is familiar with the name dies palmarum, but not with the procession. Amalarius,[133] on the contrary, mentions the custom of carrying palm branches through the church and of shouting Hosanna.

There was, however, a rite, universally observed on Palm Sunday, which had reference to the administration of baptism. As is well known, the catechumens in primitive times were instructed in Christian doctrine during Lent, and even for a longer period. The instruction of catechumens and the solemn administration of baptism took place only once a year. The former began eight weeks before Easter, and ended with the baptism which was administered on Easter Eve. The concluding part of this course of instruction was composed of the so-called mystagogical instructions treating of the sacrifice of the Mass, and the three sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist. The words of the Creed, so the disciplina arcani enjoined, were the last, not the first thing to be imparted. The catechumens learnt the Creed for the first time on Palm Sunday. This was the custom in Spain,[134] Gaul,[135] Milan,[136] probably also in Rome. There seems, however, to have been divergences as to the choice of the day, for it was necessary, at any rate in Gaul, to enjoin uniformity, since the Synod of Agde (506) prescribes in its thirteenth canon: In every diocese, the Creed shall be imparted in church to the catechumens on one and the same day, i.e. eight days before Easter Sunday. This ceremony was called the traditio symboli.

The manner in which this was done is fully described in the Gelasian sacramentary, although at that date the catechumenate, strictly speaking, no longer existed. After some introductory remarks from the priest, an acolyte rehearsed the Creed to the candidates for baptism, who were exhorted to impress it on their minds and hearts.[137] The rite, at all events, was the same as in earlier times. In the Gregorian sacramentary these practices are already omitted. A similar practice was followed with regard to the Our Father. It was first taught verbatim to the baptised after their baptism.[138] This ceremony formed the chief characteristic of the Sunday next before Easter, in service-books in which the name Palm Sunday was as yet unknown. Accordingly, in the Gallican missal the Mass for the day is called, Missa in Traditio Symboli.

During the Middle Ages, in various places, and especially in Germany, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem was represented in a somewhat naïve manner by carrying round in the procession a wooden figure representing the Saviour seated on an ass. Afterwards it was brought into the Church and placed in a conspicuous position. While suitable hymns were being sung, the clergy and people venerated it on their knees, and there it remained for the rest of the day. Figures of the so-called “Palmesel” are still numerous in museums, as, for example, at Basel, Zurich, Munich, Nürnberg, etc.

Maundy Thursday

The fifth day of Holy Week, the day on which Christ partook of the last Passover with His disciples and instituted the memorial of His Passion, is generally called Cœna Domini in service-books. The Greeks, however, call it merely ἡ ἁγία καὶ μεγάλη πέμπτη, the Great and Holy Thursday.

In the Calendar of Polemius Silvius is found, under the 24th March, the remarkable note Natalis Calicis. This is owing to the fact that at that period the 25th March was regarded as the day of Christ’s death, and the 27th as the day of His resurrection. The day of the institution of the Holy Eucharist and of the Sacrifice of the Mass was not passed over in even such an imperfect list of the Church’s festivals as that contained in this Calendar. The day had something of a festival character belonging to itself. Indeed, among the Copts it appears as a regular festival.

The name Natalis Calicis seems to have been common in southern and western Gaul, for it is found in Avitus of Vienne, and in Eligius of Noyon, in the sixth and seventh centuries. The same writers mark the day as a festival, sollemnitas, on which those who had been put to public penance were everywhere received back into the Church, and on which the Chrism was consecrated.[139]

The most unlikely of the many attempts to explain the German name for the day is that which connects it with St Luke xxiii. 31, and makes the name, Green Thursday, signify that the withered branches, sinners, by their reception again into the bosom of the Church once more grow green.[140] Apart from the fact that this interpretation is far-fetched, it savours too much of the study to have ever given rise to the name among the common people. The fact is that red vestments were worn at the reception of the penitents on Maundy Thursday, but green vestments at the Mass, and this gave rise to the name.[141] The older service-books, however, drawn up before liturgical colours had been introduced and their use had become regulated, do not specify the colour for the vestments, but content themselves with prescribing the use of festal vestments (vestes sollemniores) in general. Later on, the Roman custom of wearing white vestments on this day became general.[142]

It was only to be expected that the Church should keep with special solemnity the day on which Christ had celebrated the last passover with His apostles, and had instituted the mystery of His Body and Blood. In fact, Holy Saturday alone of the days of Holy Week can vie with it in this respect. It frequently ranks as a Church festival, and is expressly called a sollemnitas.[143]

The ritual directions for Maundy Thursday, of which we possess a considerable number dating from the Middle Ages, naturally begin with the Psalmody. This began at midnight, and its distinguishing feature was, that the lights lit at its commencement did not remain burning, but were extinguished, one at a time, after each psalm, until, at the concluding prayers, the church was in total darkness. The number of candles varied in different places, between fifteen, twenty-four, thirty, and thirty-four.[144] Such was the “dark mattins,” tenebræ.

The second characteristic ceremony of the day was the reconciliation of the penitents. These had to remain prostrate on the ground while the Miserere and other prayers were recited over them and their absolution pronounced. On this occasion, as we have remarked above, red vestments were worn. The reconciled penitents were admitted to communion with the rest of the congregation at the Mass which followed.

This Mass was of a festal character, and, in many places, in primitive times, two Masses were celebrated, one at the usual hour in the morning, and the other towards evening at the time of vespers. In other places, on the contrary, there was only one Mass, at which all the faithful communicated.[145] These different customs in course of time became a cause of astonishment and offence, and so Bishop Januarius enquired of St Augustine what ought to be done. The reply was, that each ought to follow the custom of his own diocese. In Rome also, at the period when the Gelasian sacramentary was in use, two Masses were still celebrated, for the sacramentary gives a Missa ad Vesperum.[146] The same authority notices only the reconciliation of penitents and the consecration of the Holy Oils among the other ceremonies performed on Maundy Thursday. The Gregorian sacramentary gives only the latter, as also does Ordo I., the earliest of the sixteen ancient Roman ordos.[147] In liturgical writings relating to our subject which belong to the Middle Ages, especially in the pseudo-Alcuin, the consecration of the Holy Oils is given at considerable length.[148] St Cyprian had already spoken of the consecration of oil required for ritual purposes without saying on what day it took place.[149]

At the conclusion of the Mass, the altar was washed by the bishop or officiating priest, and, in the afternoon, the washing of the feet was performed, at which the Superior washed the feet of his subjects, or the bishop the feet of twelve old men representing the twelve apostles. In the Middle Ages, the usual name for this ceremony was Mandatum.[150] The washing of the altar and the consecration of the Chrism is spoken of by Isidore of Seville.[151] In the later Middle Ages, to these ceremonies was added the reading of the Bull in Cœna Domini, containing a list of errors condemned by the Church under pain of excommunication. The reading of this Bull continued from the fourteenth to the end of the eighteenth century.

Finally, in some countries, the public ceremonial recitation of the Creed by the catechumens (redditio symboli) was prescribed for Maundy Thursday, as by the forty-sixth canon of the Synod of Laodicea, and by the sixty-eighth Trullan canon. This, however, in Rome, was done on Holy Saturday by each person in turn from some conspicuous place in the church.[152]

Good Friday

The day of our Lord’s Passion was universally regarded as a day of mourning—“dies amaritudinis,” St Ambrose calls it, “on which we fast.”[153] A fast day, on liturgical principles, can never be a festival, though, vice versâ, a festival can fall on a fixed day of fasting or abstinence, as, for example, the Annunciation.

When, at an early date, the Roman emperor made a law forbidding the Courts to sit on Good Friday, this did not make it a festival. On the contrary, the Church Order of the period of Constantine expressly declares that “both it and Holy Saturday are days of sorrow, and not feasts.”[154] Accordingly, there was enjoined upon all whose health enabled them to observe it, an unbroken fast lasting over the two days, directly based upon St Mark ii. 20. For, as the eighth canon of the fourth Synod of Toledo says, “The whole Church is wont to spend Good Friday in fasting and sorrow, on account of our Lord’s Passion.” There is scarcely any other point on which such liturgical agreement exists in all lands and in all periods of Christian antiquity as on this. The above-named Synod mentions with reprobation a mistaken expression of grief, i.e. in many places the churches were shut up for the whole day, and no services, neither divine office nor sermon, were held (seventh canon). The Synod does not blame the omission of Mass, for this was universal. This sentiment of sorrow was outwardly manifested, after the introduction of liturgical colours, by the fact that on Good Friday, black vestments were worn.[155] In the Middle Ages, discussion arose over the question why the days of the saints’ deaths were kept as festivals, but Good Friday as a day of mourning. The monk Helperich, who lived at St Gall at the end of the ninth century, replied; Christ, unlike the saints, attained to no higher degree of glory through His death. He died not for His own sake but for us. The Jews, His enemies, rejoiced over His death, but the apostles bewailed and lamented.[156]

It may be observed here that in Würtemburg, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Reuss ä. L., Altenburg, and Lippe, Good Friday is one of the days of penitence and prayer, but, on the other hand, wherever Calvinism is in the ascendent, the dogmatic significant of the day, as the day of our redemption has been partially changed. There it ranks as a Church festival, and in other respects is given up to excursions and entertainments, just as if someone would pass the day of his father’s death in rejoicings, because a rich inheritance had fallen to him.

The Good Friday services began at night with mattins, at which the lights were extinguished in the same manner as on the previous day. In addition, the low tone in which the devotions were pitched, and the omission of the Gloria Patri at the end of the psalms, gave outward expression to the sentiment of sorrow.

The liturgy proper to Good Friday, according to the rite now in use, begins with the prostration (humi prostratio) of the celebrant on the steps of the altar. Then, without their title being given out, follow lections from the prophets, in which the death of the Messias and its virtue were foretold. These sufferings themselves are described in the words of the Passion according to St John, which are said or sung immediately afterwards. Then follow the general intercessions, at the conclusion of which, the Host, consecrated on the previous day, is brought to the altar from the place where it has been reserved. The paternoster is then sung followed by the elevation of the Host and the communion of the celebrant. This missa præsanctificatorum is nothing more than an elaborate rite of communion. It is preceded by the Adoratio Crucis, and followed by the laying of the Cross in the sepulchre, which dates from about the tenth century.

At an earlier period, the ceremonies were simpler, and even restricted to psalmody, for Innocent I., says,[157] that in his time, generally speaking, Mass was not celebrated on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. This is still the custom among the Greeks and Russians. Their Good Friday service consists of the singing of psalms and the veneration of a representation of our Lord on the Cross, similar to our adoratio crucis. At the evening service, that is, a painted, not carved, representation of the dead Christ is brought in and venerated.[158] These expressions must be taken quite literally, in the sense that on Good Friday not even the missa præsanctificatorum was celebrated, nor the now usual Mass on the morning of Holy Saturday. For the Gelasian sacramentary gives no Mass for either of these days but only the various prayers, so too the old Gallic missal,[159] and the same must be understood when we hear of the Churches in parts of Spain not being opened on Good Friday. Sermons, however, were preached on Good Friday, for we possess several of Leo I., and Gregory the Great preached on this day. It is difficult to say what was the custom as to Holy Communion. In France, the people seem to have communicated, but not in Rome or in Germany; at least Rabanus Maurus is silent on the point.[160]

According to the evidence afforded by the ancient service-books, it may be conjectured that the adoption of the missa præsanctificatorum, as well as the striking insertion of the Greek passages in the Reproaches, is due to Greek influence. That alterations were made at a considerably later date in these parts of the rite will be noticed elsewhere.

With regard to the service-books of the Roman Church in particular, we find a rubric in the Gelasian sacramentary, directing that the Holy Cross be placed on the altar, and then that the priests and attendant clerics take their position at the altar in silence and begin the solemn intercessions for the whole Church, for all estates of men, etc.; the intercessions being prefaced by the summons to kneel (flectamus genua). The genuflection seems at that time to have been made also before the prayer for the Jews, for the rubric directs the deacon to proceed “ut supra.”[161] The prayers are the well-known Good Friday prayers. There is no mention at this point of the Adoratio Crucis, but at the conclusion of the intercessions, the sacred Species, in both kinds, which had been consecrated the previous day were brought from the sacrarium by the deacons and placed on the altar. The priest consumed them, having first adored and kissed the Cross. Whereupon all present adored the Cross and communicated. It must not be forgotten, in this connection, that the Gelasian sacramentary does not represent the Roman rite in its purity, but embellished with numerous Gallican additions, which probably owe their origin to Alcuin or his contemporaries. The same is true of the edition of the Gregorian sacramentary employed in France.

In this last we find the general intercessions recurring twice in Holy Week, on Wednesday and again on Good Friday,[162] but they are not placed at the beginning of the liturgy, as they are in the Gelasian sacramentary. After the bishop has taken his seat, the tract, Domine audivi, a lection from the Scriptures, and then another tract followed in succession. The Passion according to St John came next, and then the prayers in question. At their conclusion the altar was stripped. The solemn adoration of the Cross before the altar by clergy and people took place at the time of vespers, and, during it, the antiphon, Ecce lignum crucis, was sung. The missa præsanctificatorum proceeded in essentially the same manner as at present, except that the elevation is not expressly mentioned. The altar remained bare from the afternoon of Maundy Thursday until Good Friday morning. The Gregorian sacramentary in its original form knew nothing of these rites. It proscribed nothing more for Good Friday than the nine prayers still in use and a blessing of the catechumens.

A full description of the whole ritual for Holy Week is to be found in the first of the ancient Roman Ordos edited by Mabillon, which gives both the psalmody and the special ceremonies. Mabillon attributes this ordo to the ninth century.[163] According to it, the psalmody began at midnight. As on the previous day, the candles were gradually extinguished, and the sad character of the service was indicated by the low tone taken for the prayers and by the omission of the Gloria Patri. The consecrated Host was brought back from the place where it had been reserved the day before, and the missa præsanctificatorum commenced. This consisted of preface, Our Father, the prayer Libera me, the pax, and communion of the people. This last is omitted from the existing Roman rite. The adoration of the Cross preceded the Mass, as at present. In monasteries a procession took place within the cloister. The ceremonies of the Mass here described agree in all essential points with the Frankish edition of the Gregorian sacramentary, as, for instance, in the recitation of the orationes sollemnes on both Wednesday and Good Friday. Thus the earlier liturgical services for Good Friday were replaced in the ninth century by an elaborate ritual, which agrees in all important respects with that in use at the present day.[164]

Holy Saturday

This too is a day of mourning, as appears also from the fact that, in the Eastern Church, it is numbered among the fast days, although originally in the East no Saturday was kept as a fast. But the sadness of the day is already modified by the approach of the Resurrection, and the Alleluia, which has not been heard since Septuagesima, is sung again at the Mass.[165]

The solemnity begins, as on the preceding days, with the night office, at which the lights are again extinguished. This custom is very ancient, but the use of the triangle with the lumen Christi is of later introduction.[166]

Mediæval writers begin their description of the other ceremonies with the blessing of the fire, which, even then, was performed early in the morning. Concerning the origin of this rite, it has been held that it took place not only on Holy Saturday, but every evening at Vespers.[167] Still the evidence for this is not sufficiently strong, and, on the other hand, this rite harmonises in an especial way with Holy Saturday as the appointed date for the administration of baptism, for which a favourite name was illumination (illuminatio, φωτισμός). The name illuminandi was common also for those about to be baptised.

To the same association of ideas, the Paschal candle certainly owes its origin. It is not yet clear where we are to look for the origin of this custom. In Spain, there is evidence to show that the blessing of a candle or lamp (lucerna) on Easter night was common. The fourth synod of Toledo (633), in its ninth canon, recommends the adoption of this practice to the churches of Galicia. The Paschal candle is a symbol of Christ, and is blessed through the chanting of the præconium paschale or Exsultet, a grand song of triumph, said to have been composed by St Augustine. This candle, placed in its own candlestick near the altar, is lit at High Mass throughout Eastertide. Two prefaces for its blessing are found in the writings of Bishop Ennodius of Pavia († 521), and mediæval liturgical writers generally attribute the blessing of the Paschal candle to Pope Zosimus.[168]

At an earlier period, the special ceremonies of Holy Saturday commenced in the afternoon, the forenoon being devoted to decorating the church and preparing for the festival.[169] These ceremonies are, the blessing of the Paschal candle, the lections from the Old Testament, and the blessing of the baptismal font, all of which are only preparatory to the solemn administration of baptism. As has been said, these ceremonies only commenced towards evening and continued into the night, which was observed as a vigil (pervigilium paschale). When they were concluded, the neophytes were baptised, and then, also in the night, followed the Mass of the day. To this the newly baptised, along with the people and clergy, proceeded in a solemn procession from the baptistery, when there was one, to the principal church. The Emperor Constantine allowed the streets and squares of the capital to be illuminated on this night. He himself as a catechumen passed the night in prayer in his private chapel, and hallowed the Easter festival by the bestowal of rich alms. The Mass is entitled in the service-books, in vigilia paschæ. Since it came after midnight, the Alleluia could be sung at it. This arrangement as regards the time of the Mass still held good in the eleventh century, for Rupert of Deutz (De div. Off., 7, 11) still speaks of it as being the established practice, and only later on were the above-mentioned ceremonies and the Mass transferred to the afternoon of Saturday, the Alleluia thus coming before its time. Upon this followed the psalmody of Easter, which had to be made as short as possible on account of the length of these ceremonies. Sermons also were usually short at Easter, for the same reason.[170]

In the early centuries, the Roman rite was much simpler. The festival commenced with the recitation of the creed by the candidates for baptism and a prayer by the Pope over them. Then followed the other preparations for baptism, the renunciations, four lessons from the Old Testament, the singing of Psalm xli., two prayers, the blessing of the baptismal water, the baptism itself, and the confirmation of the baptised. The Mass concluded the function.[171]

We must now see what special features the other liturgical documents contained. In the missale Gallicanum,[172] we find, after the prayers for each of the hours, the Exsultet, and the blessing of the Paschal candle, then the general intercessions for all estates of Christian men, concluding with intercessions for the neophytes and competentes. Upon this follows the baptismal rite (opus ad baptizandum), viz., the exorcisms, the blessing of the baptismal water, the washing of the feet, and the baptism itself. Then come the prayers for the Mass. The rite in the Missale Gothico-Gallicanum is exactly the same.[173]

The Gelasian sacramentary prescribes the following rite for Holy Saturday: Early in the morning, the exorcisms shall be made over the catechumens, and, after they have made their solemn renunciations, they shall repeat the creed (redditio symboli). About the eighth hour, the clergy shall assemble in the sacrarium, commence the litanies there, and proceed to the altar; at the Agnus Dei, the Paschal candle is to be lighted and blessed, but without the chanting of the Exsultet. Then the lections from the Old Testament are read, each with a prayer, and after them takes place the blessing of the font and the baptism of the neophytes.

According to the edition of the Gregorian sacramentary used in France, the clergy and people assemble in the church about the eighth hour, i.e. about 2 P.M., according to present reckoning. Two candles were then lit, which were held by notaries, one on the right, the other on the left of the altar; while a lector from the pulpit read the Old Testament lections, each of which concluded with a prayer. Thereupon the clergy and the bishop proceeded in procession, the notaries with the candles leading the way, to the baptistery, where the baptismal water was blessed. After the blessing of the water, which was the same as that now in use, the baptism followed, at which it is to be observed a distinction is made between children and those who are grown up. The former were confirmed also immediately after baptism, the ritual and significance of confirmation being here clearly shown.[174] After the baptism, the litanies are sung in the church by singers, who then intoned the Gloria in Excelsis. The Mass of the day brought the function to a close.

Just as the Church marked the anniversary of the dedication of a church and of ordination by a special festival, so was the anniversary of their baptism a day of joy and thanksgiving for the baptised. It was also a day for renewing their baptismal vows, and for serious self-examination. The Church provided for this inasmuch as she was accustomed to celebrate this anniversary, and appointed a special Mass for it. It was called the pascha annotina.[175] A festival of this nature had a raison d’être only so long as it was customary to baptise people when they were grown up. When it became general to baptise little children immediately after their birth, this festival fell out of use. The pascha annotina, however, appears in the Homilarium compiled by Paul the Deacon by command of Charlemagne, about 785-90, and in the Sacramentary of Essen, composed between 850 and 874.

Easter and the Easter Octave

If one wishes to form a correct idea of the festival of Easter, one must always bear in mind its close connection with the solemn administration of baptism. The preliminary ceremonies began on Saturday afternoon and lasted throughout the night. When the number to be baptised was very large, the administration of baptism and the Easter festival could be combined. This connection was lost at only quite a late date, in days when all remembrance of the grounds for it had died out, and people had no longer any idea of the catechumenate. The chief and most striking ceremonies were then transferred to the forenoon, and it is much to be regretted that, in those centuries, no creative force was forthcoming to form something in keeping with the altered conditions of the time. Owing to the alteration in the hour, many of the ceremonies are rendered meaningless.

The interval thus produced was occupied by the festival commemoration of the Resurrection, and by a great procession. The latter can easily be traced back to the solemn procession of the catechumens and clergy from the baptistery to the cathedral, which took place in primitive times after baptism. It was probably ignorance of this custom which led later writers to trace the origin of this procession to the words of Christ to His disciples: “I will go before you into Galilee” (St Matt. xxvi. 32; xxviii. 16),[176] directing them to go to Galilee after His resurrection.

The Easter ceremonies varied in different countries and in different dioceses. The earliest mention of them appears in the Ordo Romanus belonging to the thirteenth century which goes by the name of Cardinal James Cajetan.[177] It would lead us too far from our subject to describe them and the other customs formerly observed on Easter Day; besides, such special points of ritual are better dealt with in connection with the liturgy itself. We shall here only mention the blessing of food, especially those kinds of food which, after having been forbidden in Lent, again become lawful, such as flesh meat in particular, eggs, cheese, butter, and other things as well. The original object of this blessing of food was plainly to check the tendency to over-indulgence which might assert itself after a prolonged period of self-denial.[178]

We must now return to the account of the Gallic pilgrim. She speaks of processions to the different churches and to the Mount of Olives as having taken place in Jerusalem not only on Easter Day, but on the other days of the octave as well. She finds no other points to notice in which the customs at Jerusalem differed from those observed at her own home. On the Saturday and Sunday after Easter, the narrative of St Thomas’s unbelief formed the Gospel, as at the present day.[179]

With regard to the Easter octave, the two first days rank as festivals of the first class. On Monday, the supper at Emmaus is commemorated, the Gospel being St Luke xxiv. 13-35; on Tuesday, the appearance of our Lord and His apostles, narrated in St Luke xxiv. 36-47; on Wednesday, His appearance by the Sea of Tiberias to Peter and the others, as they were fishing, St John xxi. 1-14; on Thursday, His appearance in the garden to Mary Magdalen, St John xx. 11-18; on Friday, His appearance on the mountain in Galilee, St Matt. xxviii. 16-20; on Saturday, the Gospel contains the account of the first appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalen immediately after His resurrection, St John xx. 1-9.

The following Sunday forms the conclusion of the Easter octave, and, accordingly, was formerly called simply octava paschæ, or pascha clausum, later it was called White Sunday, dominica in albis, scil. deponendis, because the neophytes wore their white baptismal garments until this day. When Easter ceased to be the day for baptisms, it was appointed, as being in harmony with White Sunday, that children should receive their first communion, and renew their baptismal vows. Rabanus Maurus[180] further observes that in his time confirmation was given on White Sunday. The prayers during the Easter octave contain references to the two great sources of festal gladness, the resurrection of our Lord and the increase in the number of the faithful. The prayers for the third, fifth, and sixth ferias are specially concerned with the latter, while the Gospels throughout are occupied with the appearances of our Lord after His resurrection to His disciples. The Epistles, however, are either for the most part taken from the Acts, or describe that spiritual renewal of mankind which follows upon the work of redemption. The prayers for the whole octave, with the exception of two on Monday, are the same at the present day as those in the Gregorian sacramentary.[181] For the following Sundays, until Whitsunday, they only occasionally agree with the prayers of this sacramentary, being taken bodily, with two unimportant exceptions, from the Gelasian. The Sundays lead up to the fulfilment of Christ’s redemptive work and His return to the Father. The Gospels from the third to the fifth are accordingly taken from the sixteenth chapter of St John.

Right in the middle of the period anciently called quinquagesima, that is to say on the twenty-fifth day after Easter, or, in other words, on the Wednesday of the fourth week after Easter, the event recorded in St John vii. 1 was formerly commemorated in certain churches. In the midst of the feast of Tabernacles, Christ went up into the Temple and taught (St John vii. 14). On the last day of the feast, He stood in the Temple and cried, referring to the usual libation of the Jews on this day,[182] “If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink” (v. 37). On this day, in the Eastern Churches, the rite of blessing the waters still takes place, which is not to be confused with that which is performed on the 6th January, in honour of the baptism of Jesus in Jordan (missa aquæ). This commemoration is called by the Greeks μεσοπεντεκοστή, festum mediæ pentecostes. The name, as we have already observed, belongs to the oldest ecclesiastical terminology, according to which Pentecost meant not Whitsunday but the whole period from Easter to Whitsunday.[183]

6. The Preparation for Easter—Quadragesima and the Fast

The chief festivals are usually preceded by a time of preparation, consisting in many cases of only a single day, the vigil, but the preparation for Easter extends over nine weeks, and is composed of two parts, Lent, the more immediate preparation, and the three preceding Sundays, as a more distant and merely liturgical preparation.

In Lent, it is the fast which plays the chief part, and presents itself as the essential feature of the whole time of preparation. From it, also, the other developments take their rise.[184]

There are indications that, in the earliest times, Christians fasted on all Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year. This pious custom seems to have been so generally observed that, without having been enjoined by any formal enactment, it had, so to speak, the force of law. It is mentioned in the Didaché, in Hermas, and by Tertullian.[185] The latter calls these fasts “station-fasts,” and mentions that the fast lasted until 3 P.M. The custom had possibly been adopted from the Jews, for the Pharisees and Jewish ascetics in the time of Christ were wont to fast twice a week, on Monday and Thursday.[186]

With regard to the East, Clement of Alexandria mentions[187] Wednesday and Friday as fast days, and, which is especially remarkable, these days were also so observed in the period after Constantine, at least for a great part of the year. The Didascalia enjoins that these days be kept as fasts in the time after Whitsunday. The preceding season, the fifty days between Easter and Whitsunday, was a season of unmixed gladness, and so, according to the Didascalia, in Whitsun Week, these days were not fasts. We are led to the conjecture that this custom fell out of use in proportion as fasting became otherwise regulated, and the fast of forty days before Easter became a general law.

That fasting should form an essential feature in the commemoration of Passion-tide had already been indicated in our Lord’s words (St Matt. ix. 15): “Can the children of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them?” To which question He Himself replied, “The days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast.” The days when the Bridegroom was taken away were held from the first to be those in which He lay in the grave, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. In the earliest times, these days were everywhere kept as fasts, and were observed by all, with exception of the quartodecimans, as obligatory fasts of the strictest kind.[188]

This fact is supported by a remark of St Irenæus, in an official letter addressed to Pope Victor (189-99), on the occasion of the second dispute about Easter. It is given, for the most part, by Eusebius in his history of the Church.[189] This is the earliest evidence for the fast before Easter. It shows that the practice had not yet received a fixed and special form. Some, for instance, thought only one day ought to be kept as a fast, Good Friday; others fasted for two days, Good Friday and Holy Saturday—the two days, as Tertullian says, on which the Bridegroom was taken away. Others again fasted for more than two days (unfortunately, it is not said for how many), and others reckoned as their fast day, forty consecutive hours. That is to say, they kept a continuous fast for forty hours night and day, and regarded this as their fast day.[190] Which these forty hours were is easy to say, for our Lord lay in the grave for about forty hours, from the afternoon of Good Friday until Easter morning, or from Good Friday morning to the evening of Saturday.

Irenæus and Tertullian know nothing as yet of the fast of forty days, although in their days it was the universal custom to fast, and that very strictly, on the two last days of Holy Week. About the middle of the third century, a week’s fast was customary in many places—the entire Holy Week being fasted on water and bread and salt, while on the last two days nothing whatever was eaten. The Didascalia describes the fast in the same way, and also the Apostolic Constitutions (5, 15). After this manner, accordingly, the fast was observed in Syria, and Dionysius witnesses to the same practice in Alexandria.[191]

However the words, “The fast shall be broken when a Sunday intervenes,”[192] found on the well-known statue of Hippolytus in Rome, show that already, by the middle of the third century, the fast extended over several weeks. The fast here alluded to must have extended over fourteen days at least. The disputed canons of Hippolytus (the twentieth and twenty-second) receive some confirmation from this passage.

In the fourth century, many witnesses to the fast of forty days are forthcoming, both writers, such as Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, etc., as well as ecclesiastical enactments, e.g., the sixty-ninth of the Apostolic Canons. The Fifth canon of the First Council of Nicæa, in particular, mentions Lent as an observance already established. Nevertheless it clearly was not as yet uniformly observed in all parts of the Church, as the Festal Letters of St Athanasius bear witness.

These letters are in any case the most important evidence for the fast of forty days before Easter. The first of them, for the year 329, is satisfied with appointing “a holy fast of six days” from the Monday to the Saturday in Holy Week;[193] the second, however, for 330, and all the following require a fast of forty days, beginning on the Monday of the sixth complete week before Easter.[194] The Festal Letters give no direct explanation of how, and for what reason, the six days’ fast was changed into a fast of forty days.

However, the covering letter which Athanasius sent along with his eleventh Festal Letter, written from Rome in 339, throws some light upon the process. He writes, namely, to Serapion, first Abbot and then Bishop of Thmuis, that he may announce the fast of forty days to his brethren and impress upon them the necessity of the fast, “lest, when all the world fasts, we only who live in Egypt be derided for not fasting.” This warning is repeated with still greater emphasis: Serapion is to instruct those under him that they must fast forty days,[195] which seems to show that the custom of fasting for forty days was not yet in force in Egypt, though elsewhere it was universally observed, and especially in Rome. At the conclusion of the nineteenth Festal Letter is found a sharp reproof of those who disregarded the fast.[196] This is the forty days’ discipline (ἄσκησις) observed during the six weeks before Easter according to Eusebius.[197]

The Gallic pilgrim, already so often quoted, gives the following minute information concerning the manner in which the fasts were observed in Jerusalem in the fourth century. The preparatory period before Easter lasted eight weeks, not forty days, as in Gaul, and all the days of the week, Saturday and Sunday excepted, were fasted. Holy Saturday was an exception to this rule, being kept as a fast. Thus there were in all forty-one fast days, which were called in Greek ἑορταί; in Latin, feriæ. On Wednesday in Lent, the Psalmody was performed as on Sunday, and the bishop read the appointed Gospel, but the Mass (oblatio) was offered only on Saturday and Sunday. On certain days processions were also made to different churches which lasted until eleven o’clock.

The fare on fast days consisted of water and broth made with flour; fruit and oil and bread were also eaten. The catechumens also fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays. Among the faithful, there were some who ate nothing from their repast on Sunday until the following Saturday, i.e. for five days, and who all the year round took only one meal a day. Others abstained in Lent from all food for two consecutive days, but others fasted by taking nothing to eat all day until the evening.[198] This last recalls the practice described by Irenæus. Here one may observe that the custom of not fasting on the Saturdays in Lent existed also in Milan in the time of St Ambrose.[199] The fast must have commenced on the Monday after Sexagesima Sunday, since it had to extend over forty days.

With this agrees the directions given in the so-called Apostolic Constitutions (5, 13-20). In these, the fast of Holy Week is called distinctively the fast of Easter (νηστεία τοῦ πάσχα), and is distinguished from the fast of Lent.[200] From Monday to Friday in Holy Week, the fast is to be kept on bread, salt, vegetables and water, flesh meat and wine being forbidden. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday, the days when the Bridegroom was taken away, those who are able are to eat nothing whatever until early on Easter Sunday, while the usual fast lasted until 3 P.M., or sunset.[201] On Saturday, people are not to fast, because it is the day on which the Creation was complete, with the exception of the Saturday on which the Lord lay in the earth.[202]

Leo the Great in his sermons teaches us the objects and significance of the fast before Easter. According to him, Lent was appointed in order to prepare souls for a fruitful commemoration of the mystery of Easter. It was to be a time for inner purification and sanctification; a time, first of all, of penance for past sins, and of breaking off sinful habits, a time also for the exercise of all virtues, especially almsgiving, reconciliation, and the laying aside of enmities. It was in correspondence with the spirit of Lent that the Christian emperors pardoned criminals.[203] Fasting was to form only a part of this penance and preparation, though the most essential part, and Leo declares it to be incumbent upon all, not only the clergy, but all the faithful as well.[204] Leo regarded this fast of forty days before Easter as an apostolic institution.[205]

When the duration of the fast became generally fixed at forty days, a reason for this was not far to seek—the length of the fast of Jesus. From the beginning, however, a difference became apparent, according as Holy Week was either included in Lent or regarded as something distinct in itself. The ante-Nicene practice afforded a precedent for this. The latter practice is adopted in particular in the Apostolic Constitutions, and prevailed in a great part of the East. But in the East, Saturday was exempt from fasting, and so the number of fast days was, as a matter of fact, not greater than in the West, where the other practice obtained. Later, it was expressly set forth that Lent should be a quadragesima, not a quinquagesima, as by the first and fourth councils of Orleans in the sixth century.[206] In some quarters, our informant unfortunately does not say where, Thursday was also exempted from fasting.[207]

Originally, it appears, the fast of forty days, quadragesima, was taken to mean the days before Easter as a whole, Sundays included. This gave for a period of six weeks only thirty-six fasting days, and, where Saturday was not kept as a fast day, only thirty. To rectify this, the number of fast days was increased actually to forty, with the result that in the West, the beginning of Lent (caput jejunii) was put back four days; but in the East, where only five days in each week were fasted, it was put back further still. In the West, especially in Rome, this alteration, by which the fast began on the Wednesday before the sixth Sunday before Easter, had not yet been accomplished by the time of Gregory the Great.

In the East, too, the tendency to make up the full number of fast days to forty was apparent also at an early date. There, owing to Saturday not being a fast day, the beginning of Lent had to be thrown further back than in the West, and Lent began eight weeks before Easter, and since the Saturdays, Holy Saturday excepted, were not fast days, extended actually over forty-one days instead of forty. Abstinence from flesh meat began on the Monday after the eighth Sunday before Easter, corresponding to the Latin dominica sexagesima, which is called the Sunday of Abstinence from Flesh Meat (κυριακὴ ἀπόκρεως). From the following Sunday, called the Sunday for Eating Cheese (κυριακὴ τοῦ τυροφάγου), lacticinia are forbidden. The following Sundays are reckoned as merely the first to the fifth Sundays in Lent, and only the first of them has the additional designation of Orthodox Sunday, in commemoration of the settlement of the Iconoclastic controversy. Later on, the Easterns attached great importance to the question whether Saturday ought or ought not to be kept as a fast day. As early, indeed, as the Apostolic Canons, it is expressly forbidden to fast on Saturday under threat of ecclesiastical penalties.[208] At a later date this difference became one of the points of dispute between the Greeks and Latins.

The assertion of Socrates[209] that in Rome the fast lasted only three weeks is now regarded on all hands as erroneous, all the more so as Socrates adds—also incorrectly—“Saturdays and Sundays excepted.” In Rome, Saturday was always kept as a fast. His statement cannot be accepted against the clear evidence of Leo I. concerning Lent, even although Valesius and Baillet wish to defend it.

That the fast of forty days was not originally observed in all parts of the Church, and only gradually came into force, can probably be explained by the fact that there were already fast days enough. There are, for instance, many indications that the custom of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays all the year through—the period between Easter and Pentecost excepted—was fairly generally observed. Wednesday was kept as a fast, because on that day our Lord had been betrayed to the Jews; Friday, because it was the day of His Passion. At Carthage, where we find reliable evidence for the practice, they were called the fasts of the stations.[210] Even in the East, the custom was apparently general.[211] The Apostolic Constitutions are acquainted with it; the so-called Apostolic Canons prescribe it;[212] the Canons of Hippolytus[213] refer to the fast of the fourth and sixth feria as well as the fast of Lent. As these fasts are never mentioned in the literature of a later date, and altogether disappeared from practice, one is driven to the conclusion that, as the Lenten fast became more widely observed, these others fell out of use. However, the weekly fast-days continued to be observed for a long time together with the Lenten fast, and, among the Greeks, are observed even to the present day.[214] Not only Augustine mentions that, at the end of the fourth century, in Rome, Wednesdays, Fridays, and also Saturdays were fasted, but Innocent I. regarded it as a duty to fast on Saturday all the year round, and Prudentius also alludes to it.[215] In the Syrian Church the three weekly fasts appear to have been obligatory on Bishops and Priests alone.[216]