[1] Less costly works are Giry’s admirable Manuel de Diplomatique (1894), Sir Harris Nicholas’ Chronology of History, and Mr J. J. Bond’s Handy-Book of Rules and Tables for verifying dates.
[3] The view that St John is here representing himself as rapt in vision to the time of judgment spoken of by St Paul (1 Cor. i. 8; 2 Thess. ii. 2) is the only other interpretation which deserves serious consideration. (For the view mentioned see Hort, Apocalypse, p. 15.) But it does not, as it seems to the present writer, dislodge the commonly accepted view.
[4] The Italian ‘Domenica’ and the French ‘Dimanche’ follow the language of the Latin Church in designating what we call ‘Sunday.’ In the Greek Church ‘the Lord’s Day’ is still the term employed.
[14] Canon XXVI. ‘Errorem placuit corrigi, ut omni sabbati die superpositiones celebremus.’ On superpositio jejunii see D.C.A. It would seem that once a month (except in July and August, ob quorumdam infirmitatem) the added fast of Saturday was to be observed; Canon XXIII.
[15] Tertullian (de Jejuniis 2) speaks of ‘stations’ being held on the fourth and sixth feria.
[30] Lietzmann has printed the text in The Three Oldest Martyrologies. See also Ruinart, Acta Martyrum, pp. 541 f.
[31] [From the mention of Eugenius, bishop of Carthage († 505), Lietzmann concludes that the Kalendar received its present form shortly after the death of Eugenius. Edd.]
[34]Liturgia Romana Vetus, Muratori I. 38-40. See as to the date of the Sacramentary, Duchesne, Chr. Worship, E. tr. pp. 137-139. It has been edited by C. L. Feltoe (Sacramentarium Leonianum, Cambridge, 1896).
[35] [‘Georgii’ is a conjecture of Muratori. The MS. has ‘Gregorii.’ See Feltoe’s note, op. cit. p. 177. Edd.]
[36] [But Feltoe reads ‘iiii. non. aug.,’ which corresponds with the ordinary date, Aug. 2. The actual prayers, however, in the LeonineSacramentary refer to St Stephen the protomartyr, whose ‘Invention’ the Roman Kalendar still keeps on Aug. 3. See Feltoe, pp. 85 f., with notes. Edd.]
[37] Gregorius disappears from this day in the Gregorian Kalendar.
[39] It will interest English students to know that the synod of Worcester, under Cantilupe, in A.D. 1240 appointed this day, with three others, St Margaret’s, St Lucy’s, and St Agatha’s, to be free from labour for women.
[42]Topograph. Christ. v. 194 (Migne, P. G. lxxxviii. 197).
[43] See the late Dr George Salmon’s masterly article ‘The Commentary of Hippolytus on Daniel’ in Hermathena, vol. VIII. 1893, and Bishop J. Wordsworth’s exposition in the Ministry of Grace, pp. 393-398.
[45] There are unfortunately some grave doubts as to the correct text of Sozomen, and as to the accuracy of his computation. See what is said by Ussher in his Dissertation de Macedonum et Asianorum anno solari, c. 2. Compare also Jerome’s Commentary on Ezekiel where the time of the prophet’s vision (thirtieth year, fourth month, fifth day, I. 1) is set forth as corresponding to the day of the Lord’s baptism and Epiphany. Jerome makes the fourth month ‘of the orientals’ correspond to the January of the Romans.
[46] This view (fanciful though it seems) should not be summarily dismissed; see Kellner, pp. 101-2.
[47] [According to Clement of Alexandria (Strom. i. 145, 146) the Basilidians kept Jan. 6 as the festival of the Baptism, and it was preceded by a Vigil. Edd.]
[48] It may interest the English student to be given a sketch of the principal features of the Sarum Breviary and Missal in relation to the subject of the festival. At Mattins the first three lessons are from Isaiah (lv. 1-5, 6-12; lx. 1-7), speaking of light, and the calling of the Gentiles. The versicle after the 1st lesson is ‘and the nations, shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising.’ The response and versicle after the 2nd lesson touch on the gifts of gold and incense from Saba; ‘the kings of the Arabs and of Saba shall bring gifts’; and this note is sounded again and again. The 4th, 5th and 6th lessons are from a sermon of St Leo, and the responses and versicles relate to the visit of the Magi. In the response and versicle to the 7th lesson the baptism of Christ is recounted; and subsequently there are several references to the baptism. The collect is solely confined to the thought of the revelation of God’s only begotten Son to the Gentiles by the guiding of a star; and this is the dominant (though not exclusive) feature of the rest of the service. During the octave the baptism is given greater prominence; and on the octave itself the miracle at Cana has an important place, as well as the baptism. In the Missal the propers are confined to the revelation to the Gentiles and the visit of the Magi. But on the octave and the Sunday within the octave the baptism of Christ forms the leading thought.
[49] Duchesne, Chr. Worship, E. tr., 266 f., where certain variations in the Armenian and Nestorian Kalendars are exhibited.
[50] Possibly ‘the Baptist’ is a bungle of the transcriber.
[51] [On these commemorations of St James and St John see further C. L. Feltoe in J. Th. St. x. 589 f. Edd.]
[52] The Hieronymian Martyrology is a mechanical and unintelligent piecing together of Eastern and Western lists, to which African additions were made as late as A.D. 600. Its origin has been investigated by De Rossi and Duchesne, V. de Buck and Achelis: see Wordsworth’s Ministry of Grace, p. 66.
[58] This is so as regards the text printed by Muratori; but in Menard’s text there is a benediction that in its language is not unlike the collect in the Book of Common Prayer.
[60] In Dom Cabrol’s Les Origines liturgiques (Appendice C.) will be found an interesting collection of liturgical passages illustrating the Church’s protest against idolatry on the Kalends of January.
[63]Ep.LIV. 7, ad Januarium. The well-known passage in Socrates (H.E. v. 22) seems to indicate that he believed that, excluding Alexandria, the Egyptians and the inhabitants of the Thebais ordinarily partook of the mysteries in the evening after a full meal.
[64] Spelman (Glossarium Archaeologicum, s.v.) derives our Maundy from maund, ‘a basket,’ because gifts for the poor were carried in baskets; and this derivation has attained some popularity. But there is little to support it. In Germany from the later mediaeval period Der grÜne Donnerstag (Green Thursday) has been the popular name of the day. No entirely satisfactory explanation of the term has been offered. There is no question that in several German churches green vestments were worn by the priest and his ministers at the Mass of Maundy Thursday.
[65]Chr. Worship, E. tr., p. 248. See also Cabrol, Les Origines liturgiques, pp. 173 f.
[69] In 1892 the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America introduced into its Prayer Book the Transfiguration (Aug. 6) as a red-letter day with proper Lessons, Collect, Epistle, and Gospel.
[78] In the printed Sarum books the Assumption was a ‘principal double’; the Purification and Nativity ‘greater doubles’; and the Annunciation a ‘lesser double.’
[79] For these, and varieties as to the day of observance, see Grotefend, Zeitrechnung des deutsch. Mittelalters u. der Neuzeit.
[87] [See the prayer in Feltoe’s edition, p. 46; ‘omnipotens sempiterne deus qui nos omnium apostolorum merita sub una tribuisti celebritate venerari.’ Edd.]
[89] In the (so-called) Hieronymian Martyrology the entry at Jan. 18 runs ‘Dedicatio Cathedrae S. Petri Apostoli, qu primo Romae sedit.’
[90] The student may consult the scholarly article of Dr Sinker on ‘Peter S., Festivals of’ in D.C.A., together with Duchesne’s Christian Worship, E. tr. (pp. 277-281), Wordsworth’s Ministry of Grace, and Kellner’s Heortology, pp. 301-308. It should be added however with regard to Kellner that the notion that the feast is connected with the Primacy, as distinguished from the Episcopacy of St Peter, seems to be devoid of evidence.
[113] Euseb. H.E. v. 24. The words as to the forty hours are not unattended with difficulty; but the interpretation given above is that adopted by the soundest scholars. See Duchesne (Christ. Worship, E. tr., p. 241), and the notes on the place by Valesius. The meaning is probably that no food was partaken for forty continuous hours.
[117] The account in Socrates cannot be confidently regarded as strictly accurate in some of its details. We cannot readily accept the statement that the Saturdays at Rome were not fasting days.
[122] The whole subject of the Lent of the Eastern Church is very fully dealt with by Nilles in his Kalendarium Manuale and by Prince Maximilian of Saxony in his Praelectiones de Liturgiis Orientalibus, 1908.
[125]Paenitentiale, II. xiv. 1 (Haddon and Stubbs, Councils, III. 202).
[126] ‘In tribus quadragesimis anni et in dominica die et in feriis quartis et in sextis feriis conjuges continere se debent.’ Lib. xlvi. c. 11: Wasserschleben, Die Irische Kanonensammlung (ed. 1885), p. 187.
[127] The Great Litany on St Mark’s day at Rome was much earlier.
[129] For the reasons for his ingenious conjecture see Christian Worship, E. tr. p. 223.
[130] See Sinker’s scholarly article ‘Ember Days’ in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, for many valuable details.
[131] The MS. is wanting for the part before April.
[132] Can. 8 (Labbe xi. 274). It is to be observed that in the Leofric Missal, of much earlier date, the Ember days are noted as falling in the first week of Lent; in the week of Pentecost; in the full week before the autumnal equinox; and in the full week before the Nativity.
[133] The study of the Martyrologies of Bede, Florus, Ado, and Usuard has been recently approached in the true scientific spirit by Dom Henri Quentin, of Solesmes. Manuscripts in the various libraries of Europe have been examined and classified, and the sources of the entries traced in most cases with great success. See this writer’s Les Martyrologes historiques du moyen age (1908).
[135] [On these terms see Ducange, Glossarium, s.v. Festum; Addis and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, art. ‘Festival.’ Edd.]
[136] The classification of festivals in the Kalendars of Germany with Tyrol, Holland, Denmark, and Scandinavia, as printed by Grotefend, varies much. We find such terms as ‘Triplex’ as well as ‘Duplex’ (Breslau); ‘Duplex compositum’ (Utrecht); ‘ix Psalmorum’ (Metz); ‘Bini’ (i.e. bini chori) at Salzburg; ‘Festa Prelatorum,’ ‘Festa Canonicorum,’ ‘Festa vicariorum’ (Roskilde); ‘Summum’ and ‘semi-summum’ (Erfurt), and many forms that are unfamiliar to English students.
[137] For further observations on the Kalendars of the Church of England and of Churches in communion with it see Appendix III.
[138] See Quentin’s Les Martyrologes historiques, pp. 27, 28.
[139] For details see Baillet, Les Vies des Saints, tom. I, in his Discours, pp. xxxiii.-xxxix.
[140] In the recently discovered Testament of the Lord, the word ‘Pascha’ is used for the season preceding Easter, even as ‘Pentecost’ is used for the season of fifty days preceding Whitsunday.
[141]Gute Freitag is found occasionally in the German Church Orders of the Reformation Period.
[142] In Greek writers tessa?es?a?de?at?ta?. [For a full discussion of the whole question, with reference to the authorities, see V. H. Stanton, The Gospels as Historical Documents, Part I., pp. 173-197. Edd.]
[143] See Eusebius, H.E. v. 24, where the full context scarcely leaves a doubt that pa?e????se? t?? e??a??st?a? must be understood in the sense that Anicetus yielded the place of celebrant to Polycarp.
[145] We do not enter upon the discussion of the question whether he actually proceeded to the length of a formal excommunication. In certain of his letters he undoubtedly spoke of them as ????????t???. Euseb. H.E. v. 24.
[157] In the opinion of Duchesne the controversy dealt with in A.D. 325 was between the system of Antioch, which celebrated Easter on the Sunday next after the Jewish Pascha, and the system of Alexandria, which insisted on Easter being always after the vernal equinox. See Christian Worship, E. tr., 237.
[158] Eusebius, Vita Const.III. 18: Socrates H.E.I. 9.
[159] In French there is a trace of the more extended meaning in the phrase ‘quinzaine de PÂques,’ meaning ‘Holy week and Easter week.’ In Scotland and the north of England gifts of ‘pasch eggs’ (pronounced ‘paise eggs’), hard-boiled eggs stained with various colours, at Easter are still not unknown.
[161] For the history of the paschal controversies in the time of Pope Leo see Bruno Krusch, Studien zur christlich-mittelalterlichen Chronologie. Der 84 jÄhrige Ostercyclus und seine Quellen (Leipzig, 1880).
[164] The student who desires further details of the history of the controversies about the date of Easter, prior to the time of Dionysius Exiguus, may consult with profit the dissertation of Adrian Baillet in the ninth volume of his Les Vies des Saints (ed. 1739).
[165] The author died before his work was presented to the Pope, a duty performed by his brother Antonio Lilio, who was also a physician. Now and then we find the Gregorian Kalendar spoken of as the Lilian Kalendar.
[166] See Seabury, The theory and use of the Church Calendar in measurement and distribution of time, p. 120. Other devices of the astronomers which would reduce the error to only one day in a thousand centuries are noticed in the same work.
[167] Sir Harris Nicholas, Chronology of History, pp. 32-34; Giry, Manuel de Diplomatique, pp. 165-167.
[168] Notices of these Menologies will be found in Kellner’s Heortology, 387-393: and on both the Menology and the Menaea (in twelve volumes, corresponding to the months from September to August) see the Dissertation de libris et officiis ecclesiasticis Graecorum appended to Cave’s Historia Literaria.
[169] Nilles’ Kalendarium Manuale, tom I., and Prince Maximilian’s Praelectiones, pp. 122-221, may be consulted by the curious.
[170] The great doxology corresponds substantially to Gloria in excelsis; and the little doxology to Gloria Patri, etc.
