388 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
and erratic ideas.' It serves to interweave religion with the life of the people by continually recalling to the popular mind the most important events upon which our salvation rests, and by connecting them with the vicissitudes of the natural and the civil year. Yet, on the other hand, the gradual overloading of the church year, and the multiplication of saints' days, greatly encouraged superstition and idleness, crowded the Sabbath and the leading festivals into the background, and subordinated the merits of Christ to the patronage of saints. The purification and simplification aimed at by the Eeformation became an absolute necessity.
The order of the church year is founded in part upon the history of Jesus and of the apostolic church ; in part, especially in respect to Easter and Pentecost, upon the Jewish sacred year ; and in part upon the natural succession of seasons ; for the life of nature in general forms the groundwork of the higher life of the spirit, and there is an evident sjnnbolical correspondence between Easter and spring, Pentecost and the beginning of harvest, Christmas and the winter solstice, the na-. tivity of John the Baptist and the summer solstice.
The Christian church year, however, developed itself spontaneously from the demands of the Christian worship and public life, after the precedent of the Old Testament cultus, with no positive direction from Christ or the apostles. The New Testament contains no certain traces of annual festivals ; but
' This last thought is well drawn out by W. Archer Butler in one of his sermons : " It is the chief advantage of that religious course of festivals by which th* church fosters the piety of her children, that they tend to preserve a due proportion and equilibrium in our religious views. We have all a tendency to adopt particular views of the Christian truths, to insulate certain doctrines from their natural accompaniments, and to call our favorite fragment the gospel. We hold a few texts so uear our eyes that they hide all the rest of the Bible. The church festival system (Spreads the gospel history in all its fulness across the whole surface of the sacred year. It is a sort of chronological creed, and forces us, whether we will or no, by the very revolution of times and seasons, to give its proper place and dignity to every separate article. ' Day unto day uttereth speech,' and the tone of each holy anniversary is distinct and decisive. Th« s the festival year is a bulwark of orthodoxy as real as our confes.sion of faith. ' Ilistory shows, however (especially that of Germany and France), that neither the church year nor creeds can prevent a fea^ ful apostiisy to rationalism and infidelity.
§ 76. THE CHUKCH TEAK. C 89
BO early as the second century we meet with the general observance of Easter and Pentecost, founded on the Jewish pass over and feast of harvest, and answering to Friday and Sunday in the weekly cycle. Easter was a season of sorrow, in remem- Drance of the passion ; Pentecost was a time of joy, in memory of tlie resurrection of the Redeemer and the outpouring of th( Holy Ghost.' These two festivals form the heart of the church year. Less important was the feast of the Epiphany, or manifestation of Christ as Messiah. In tlie fourth century the Christmas festival was added to the two former leading: feasts, and partially took the place of tlie earlier feast of Epiphany, which now came to be devoted particularly to the manifestation of Christ among the Gentiles. And further, in Easter the 7rda')(a aTavpcaatjiov and avacrTaaifiov came to be more strictly distinguished, the latter being reckoned a season of joy.
From this time, therefore, we have three great festival cycles, each including a season of preparation before the feast and an after-season appropriate : Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. The lesser feasts of Epiphany and Ascension arranged themselves under these.* All bear originally a christological chai'a.cter, representing the three stages of the redeeming work of Christ : the beginning, the prosecution, and the consumma tion. All ai'e for the glorification of God in Chi'ist.
The trinitarian conception and arrangement of the festal half of the church year is of much later origin, cotemporary with the introduction of the festival of the Trinity (on the Sunday after Pentecost). The feast of Trinity dates from the ninth or tenth century, and was first authoritatively established in the Latin church by Pope John XXLl., in 1334, as a comprehensive closing celebration of the revelation of God the
' Comp. vol. i. § 99.
" There was no unanimity, however, in this period, in the number of the feasta Chrysostom, for example, counts seven principal feasts, corresponding to the seven days of the week: Christmas, Epiphany, Passion, Easter, Ascension, Pentecust, and the Feast of the Resurrection of the Dead. The last, however, is not a s( rictly ecclesiastical feast, and the later Greeks reckon only six principal festivals answering to the six days of creation, followed by the eternal Sabbath of the churob tri nmj)haat in heaven. Comp. Augusti, i. p. 630.
390 Tnmn period, a.d. 311-590.
Father, who scut His Son (Chi-istmas), of tlie Son, who diod for us and rose again (Easter), and of the Holy Ghost, who renews and sanctifies us (Pentecost).' The Greek church knows nothing of this festival to this day, though she herself, in the l^icene age, was devoted with special earnestness and zeal to the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. The reason of this probably is, that there was no particular historical fact to give occasion for such celebration, and that the mystery of the holy Trinity, revealed in Christ, is properly the object of adoration in all the church festivals and in the whole Christian cultus.
But with these three great feast cycles the ancient church was not satisfied. So early as the Niceue age it surrounded them with feasts of Mary, of the apostles, of martyrs, and of saints, which were at first only local commemorations, but gradually assumed the character of universal feasts of triumph. By degrees every day of the church year became sacred to the memory of a particular martyr or saint, and in every case was either really or by supposition the day of the death of the saint, which was significantly called his heavenly birth-day." This multiplication of festivals has at bottom the true thought, that the whole life of the Christian should be one unbroken spiritual festivity. But the Romish calendar of saints antici pates an ideal condition, and corrupts the truth by exaggeration, as the Pharisees made the word of God " of none effect "
' The assertion that the festxun Trinitatis descends from the time of Gregorj th« Great, has poor foundation in his words : " Ut de Trinitate specialia cantaremus ; " for these refer to the prai.se of the holy Trinity in the general public worship of God. The first clear traces of this festival appear in the time of Charlemagne and in the tenth century, when Bishop Stephen of Liege vindicated it. Yet so late as 1150 it was counted by the abbot Potho at Treves among the novcB celebritates. Many considered it improper to celebrate a special feast of the Trinity, while there was nc distinct celebration of the unity of God. The Roman church year reached its culmination and mysterious close in the feast of Corpus Christi (the body of Christ), which was introduced under Pop} Clement the Fifth, in 1311, and was celebrated on Thursday of Trinity week (feria quinta proxima post octavam Pentecostes) in honor of the mystery of transubstantiation.
* Hence called Natales, nataliiia, nativitas, yev(0\ia, of the martyrs. The Greek church also has its saint for every day of the year, but vai- es in many par ticulars from the Roman calendar.
y 76. THE CHUfiCH YEAK. 591
bj their additions. It obliterates the necessary distinction between Sunday and tlie six days of labor, to the prejudice of th« former, and plays into the hands of idleness. And finally, it rests in great part upon uncertain legends and fantastic myths, which in some cases even eclipse the miracles of the gospel history, and nourish the grossest superstition.
The Greek oriental church year difiers from the Koman in this general characteristic : that it adheres more closely to the Jewish ceremonies and customs, while the Roman attaches itself to the natural year and common life. The former begins in the middle of September (Tisri), w^ith the first Sunday after the feast of the Holy Cross ; the latter, with the beginning of Advent, four weeks before Christmas. Originally Easter was the beginning of the church year, both in the East and in the West ; and the Apostolic Constitutions and Eusebius call the month of Easter the " first month " (corresponding to the month ISTisan, which opened the sacred year of the Jews, while the first of Tisri, about the middle of our September, opened their civil year). In the Greek church also the lectiones continucB of the Holy Scriptures, after the example of the Jewish Parashioth and Haphthoroth, became prominent, and the church year came to be divided according to the four Evangelists ; while in the Latin church, since the sixth century, only select sections from the Gospels and Epistles, called pericopes, havo been read. Another peculiarity of the Western church year, descending from the fourth century, is the division into four portions, of three months each, called Q'uatewher^ separated , from each other by a three days' fast. Pope Leo I. delivered several sermons on the quarterly Quatember fast,' and urges especially on that occasion charity to the poor. Instead of this the Greek church has a division accoi'ding to the four Gospels, which are read entire in course ; Matthew next after Pentecost, Luke beginning on the fourteenth of September, Mark at the Easter fast, and John on the first Sunday aftei Easter.
So early as the fourth century the observance of the fiesti
* Quatuor tempora. ' Sermones de jejunio quatuor temporum.