described ;
benedictions, and exorcisms, Church Orders.
(/) Palm Sunday appears for the first time in the Pilgrimage of ' Silfia.' Formerly we had only known of it as "being kept at the end of the 5th cent., a hundred years later; it is mentioned in the life of Euthyraius (t 472). The appearance of the festival at Jerusalem is significant. It was doubtless due to the desire to commemorate our Lord's entry into Jerusalem on the spot where it happened. 'Sih-ia' says: 'On this day, at the seventh hour (1 p.m.) all go to the church on the Mount of Olives, where service is held ; and at 5 p.m. they read the Gospel story of the fevents of the day, and all proceed on foot to Jerusalem, the people crying. Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord ; some bearing palm branches, some olives ; and so the bishop, after the type of our Lord, is conducted to the Holy City very slowly.' The palms and olives are an instructive comment on the Gospel account.
(g) Mamidy Thursday is not in early times men- tioned as being observed in commemoration of tlie Last Supper. Duchesne [Orig. viii. § 3) seems to think that it was so observed at Rome at least. in the primitive ages, but there is no evidence for it. The earliest authority for an Eucharist on this day is the Testament of our Lord (c. 350?), which in a very difficult and apparently corrupt passage prescribes it (ii. 11); probably, as a comparison uf the Copto-Arabic tr. of the work -with James of Edessa's Syriac shows, in the evening (see Cooper-Maclean's note, p. 226). On this day also the deacon offered 'a lamp in the temple' (ib.). ' Silvia,' at the end of the same century, describes the Eucharist in the church called ' The Martyrium ' or Golgotha, in the afternoon ; it was o\er by 4 p.m., and then there was— on this occasion alone in all the year— a celebration of the Eucharist in the little chapel of the Cross, to the east of Gol- ^'otha. The bishop celebrated, and all communi- cated. In Africa at the same time there was an evening Eucharist on this day, and the people were exempted from the customary fast before Holy Communion on this occasion by the Third Council of Carthage, a.d. 397 (can. 29 : 'excepto uno die anniversario quo coena domini celebratur,' Mansi- Labbe, iii. col. 885). -Tt will be seen that, strictly speaking, these Eucharists, if celebrated after sun- set, were at the beginning of Good Friday rather than on the Thursday. St. Augustine {Ep. liv., see below) saj-s that there were in his time two Eucharists on the Thursday, one for the sake of those who could not fast till evening, and would not receive the Eucharist otherwise.
In the preparation for baptism this Thursday playe<l an important part. The candidates were bidden to lathe on this day, apparently as a ceremonial washiiiLT (Ifinpnl. Can. 106; Kqyptian Church Ord'-r. I", [<., la- ii.le rightly]; Test, of our Lord, ii. 6; Anu-iiiii, F.pp. liv. 10, Iv. 33 ad JaniiaHum). Ilai liiiu ;it I'ascha was not confined to the comp't , „ t . i : m the 'Testament the widows (presbyteresses) are hidden to bathe on that day (i. 42). There appears also to have been on that day the custom in some jilaces of washing the feet of the competcnte.<c in memory of the pedilauium of .In W"- — a custom which afterwards gave the name to Maundy Thursday (from the
ment,' mandatitm, Jn 13^^). Elsewhere the pedi- lauium took place after baptism. The council of Elvira (can. 48) forbade priests or clergy to wash the feet of the newly baptized. Pseudo-Ambrose [dc Saeramcntis, iii. 1) says that this was the cus- tom at the place where he wrote (not Jlilan ?), but tliatitdid not obtain at Rome. In the Galilean Church also it was common (Hefele, Covncils, i. 158, Eng. tr.).
(A) J?as<er ITceA-.— The observance of the days after Easter is mentioned in the Apostolic Con- stitutions ('the great week [Holy Week] and that which follows it,' viii. 32). This fortnight was to be a time of rest for slaves, that they might be instructed. St. Chrj-sostom (Horn. 34 dc Res. Chr.) also mentions Easter Week. In ' Silvia,', Easter, as well as Epiphany [Christmas] and the Dedica- tion, has an octave during which 'stations' are held at the various churches in and near Jeru- salem. But, with this exception, octaves outside Easter Week are Western and not Eastern.
2. Pentecost and Ascension. — (a) The name 'Pentecost' had in the first four centuries two meanings, the fiftieth day after Easter, and the whole season of fifty days after that festival.
(a) It is used as a day in NT : Ac 2' ('the day of Pentecost'), 20>» (id.), 1 Co 16^ ('until Pentecost') ; the Jewish nomenclature was continued in the Apostolic age. We find the same sense in suc- ceeding ages, though perhaps not so frequently as the other. A fragment of IrenECus, quoted by pseudo- Justin {Qua-st. et Respons. ad Orthodoxos, 115) seems to speak of the day: ' Irenwus . . . in his treatise irepl toS irdcxa . . . makes mention of Pentecost also, on which (cV jj) we do not bend the knee because it is of equal significance with the Lord's Day.' Pseudo-Justin in the corresponding question has dTro toC irdffxa fws t^s TrcvTijKOffTrjs. The 43rd canon of Elvira (c. 305 A.D.) has: ' ut cuncti diem Pentecostes celebremus.' 'Silvia' (\-i. § 1) has 'a Pascha usque ad Quinquagesima, id est Pentecosten,' and (§ 3) ' Quinquagesimarum die, id est dominica.'