3S0 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590,
Wednesday ai)d Friday also continued to be observed in many countries as days commemorative of the passion of Christ (dies stationum), with lialf-fasting. The Latin cliurcli, however, gradually substituted fasting on Saturday for fasting on Wednesday.
Finally, as to the daily devotions : the number of the canonical hours was enlarged from three to seven (according to Ps. cxix. IGtt: "Seven times in a day will I praise tliee'*). But they were strictly kept only in the cloisters, under the technical names of matina (about three o'clock), prima (about six), tertia (nine), sexta (noon), nona (three in the afternoon), vesper (sixj, completorium (nine), aiid mesonyctium or vigilia (midnight). Usually two nocturnal prayere were united. The devotions consisted of prayer, singing, Scripture reading, especially in the Psalms, and readings from the histories of the martyrs and the homilies of the fathers. In the churches ordinarily only morning and evening worship was lield. The high festivals were introduced bv a nio;lit service, the vigils.
§ 76. The Church Year.
B Hospinian: Festa Christian. (Tiguri, 1593) Gencv. 1075. M. A. NioKEL (R. C.) : Die heil. Zeitea u. Teste nacli ihrer Eutstoliung u. Feier in der Kath. Kirche, Mainz, 1825 sqq. 6 vols. Pillwitz: Geschictte der heil. Zeiten. Dresden, 1842. E. Ranke : Das kirchliche Pericopensystcin aus den iiltesten Urkundeu dargelegt. Berlin, 1847. Fr. Stkavss (late court preacher and professor in Berlin) : Das ovangelische Kirclienjahr. Berl. 1850. Lisco : Das christliclio Kirchenjaiir. Berl. (1840) 4th ed. 1850. Bobeiitag: Das evangelischo Kirclienjahr, &c. Breslau, 1857. Comp. also Augusti : Handbucli der christliclien Archaologie, vol. i. (1836), pp. 457-595.
After the fourth century, the Cliristian year, Avith a cyc\c of regularly recurring annual religious i'estivais, comes forth in al! its main outlines, though with many fluctuations and variations in particulars, and forms thenceforth, so to speak, the skeleton of the catholic cultus.
The idea of a religious year, in distinction from the natural
§ 76. THE ClIUECH TEAK. 387
and from tlie civil year, appears also in Judaism, and to some extent in the heathen world. It has its origin in the natura. necessity of keeping alive and bringing to bear upon the people by public festivals the memory of great and good men and of prominent events. The Jewish ecclesiastical year was, like the whole Mosaic cultus, symbolical and typical. The Sabbath commemorated the creation and the typical redemption, and pointed forward to the resurrection and the true redemption, and thus to the Christian Sunday. The passover pointed to Easter, and the feast of harvest to the Christian Pentecost. The Jewish observance of these festivals originally bore an earnest, dignified, and significant character, but in the hands of Pharisaism it degenerated very largely into slavish Sabbatism and heartless ceremony, and provoked the denunciation of Christ and the apostles. The heathen festivals of the gods ran to the opposite extreme of excessive sensual indulgence and public vice.'
The peculiarity of the Christian year is, that it centres in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and is intended to minister to His glory. In its original idea it is a yearly representation of the leading events of the gospel history ; a celebration of the birth, passion, and resurrection of Christ, and of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to revive gratitude and devotion. This is the festival part, the semestre Domini. Tlie other half, not festal, the semestre ecclesicB, is devoted to the exhibition of the life of the Christian church, its founding, its growth, and its consummation, both as a whole, and in its individual members, from the regeneration to the resuiTection of the dead. The church year is, so to speak, a chvv nological confession of faith; a moving panorama of the great events of salvation ; a dramatic exhibition of the gospel for the Christian people. It secures to every important article of faith its place in the cultus of the church, and conduces to wholeness and soundness of Christian doctrine, as against all unbalanced
* Philo, in his Tract, de Cherubim (in Augusti, 1. c. p. 481 sq.), paints this differ^ ence between the Jewish and heathen festivals in strong colors ; and the picture was often used by the church fathers against the degenerate pagan character of th*- Christian festivals.