Note 206 — Chapter XV
Reading edition
See the articles on Polycarp in the Dict. Christ. Biog., iv. 426, and on Martyrs of Lyons, iii. 764. As regards Polycarp, see also Lightfoot's Ignatius, vol. i., p. 436; and as regards the Martyrs of Lyons, see Rénan's Marc-Aurèle, pp. 329, 331. It is interesting to notice, in the writings of St. Paulinus of Nola written about the year 400 A.D., his complaints about the abuses, drunkenness and idleness, connected with the feasts and holy days observed in honour of his great patron and hero St. Felix the Martyr. A similar feeling of the moral dangers connected with religious holy days led to the abbreviation of the week's holiday following Easter and Whitsunday to Monday and Tuesday as at present.