Note 32 — Chapter III
Reading edition
The copy of this letter, which Gregory sent to the Abbot Mellitus (a.d. 601), will be found in Bede, Eccles. Hist., lib. i. ch. xxx. It is not to be supposed that Pope Gregory originated such an ordinance. Festivals or dedications, called encænia, were well known to the early Church, e.g. Sozomen (ii. 26) gives an account of the dedication festival in memory of Constantine’s Church at Jerusalem. Cf. also Hospinianus: De festis Christianorum, p. 113.