Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/817

 SEXAGESIMA

747

SEXT

Sezagesima (Lat. sexagesima, sixtieth), is the eighth Sunday before Easter and the second before Lent. The Ordo Romanus, Alcuin, and others count the Sexagesima from this day to Wednesday after Easter. The name was already known to the Fourth Council of Orleans in 541. For the Greeks and Slavs it is Dominica Carnisprivii, because on it they began, at least to some extent, to abstain from meat. The Synaxarium calls it Dominica secundi et muneribus non cornipti adventus Domini. To the Latms it is also known as "Exsurge" from the beginning of the In- troit. The slatio was at Saint Paul's outside the walls of Rome, and hence the oratio calls upon the doctor of the Gentiles. The Epistle is from Paul, II Cor., xi and xii describing his suffering and labours for the Church. The Gospel (Luke, viii) relates the falling of the seed on good and on bad ground, while the Lessons of the first Noctum continue the history of man's iniquity, and speak of Noah and of the Deluge. (See Septuagesima.)

Butler, The Movable Feasts of the Catholic Church (New York,

8. d.), tr. IV, ii. Francis Mershman.

Sexburga, Saint, d. about 699. Her sisters, Sts. Ethelburga and Saethrid, were both Abbesses of Faremontier in Brie, St. Withburga was a nun at Ely, and St. Etheldreda became Abbess of Ely. Sexburga was the daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, and was married about 640 to Earcon- bert, King of Kent. She lived with her husband for twenty-four years, and by him had two .sons, Egbert and Lothar, both successively Kings of Kent, and two daughters, both of whom became nuns and saints: St. Earcongota, a nun of Faremontier, and St. Ermen- hild, who married \\'ulfhere. King of Mercia, and after his death took the vf^il and became Abbess of Ely. After the death of her husband in 664, Sexburga founded the Abbey of Minster in Sheppey; after a few years there she removed to Ely, and placed her- self under her sister Etheldro'da, then abbess. The " Liber Eliensis" contains the farewell speech made by Sexburga to her nuns at Minster, and an account of her reception at Ely. St. Etheldreda died, probably in 679, and Sexburga was elected ablicss. She was still alive and acting as abbess in 69.'), when she pre- sided at the translation of St. Etheldreda's relics to a new shrine she had erected for her at Ely, which in- cluded a sarcophagus of wliite marble from the ruined city of Grantchester. Sexburga was buried at Ely, near her sister St. Etheldreda, and her feast is kept on 6 July. There are several lives of St. Sexburga ex- tant. The one printed in Capgrave, "Nova Leg- enda", and used by the Bollandists seems to be taken from the Cotton MS. (Tib. E. 1) in the British Museum. There is another Latin life in the same collection (Cotton MS., Calig. A. 8), but it is so damaged by fire that it is useless. At Lambeth there are fragments of an Anglo-Saxon life (MS. 427).

Bede, Hist. EccL, iii, c. 8; IV, cc. 19, 21 ; Liber Eliensis in Anglo. Chr. Soc; Acta SS., July, II, 346-9; Montalembert, Monks of the West, ed. Gasquet, iv, 401; Hardy, Cat. Mat. in R. S., I, 360-2; BvTi.BR, Lives of the Saints, QJu\y. A. S. BaRNES.

Sezt. — I. Meaning, Symbolism, and Origin. — The hora sexta of the Romans corresponded closely with our noon. Among the Jews it was already re- garded, together with Terce and None, as an hour most favourable to prayer. In the Acts of the Apos- tles we read that St. Peter went up to the higher parts of the house to pray (x, 9). It was the middle of the day, also the usual hour of rest, and in consequence for devout men, an occasion to pray to God, as were the morning and evening hours. The Fathers of the Church dwell constantly on the symbolism of this hour ; their teaching is merely summarized here: it is treated at length in Cardinal Bona's work on psalmody (ch. viii). Noon is the hour when the sun IS at its full, it is the image of Divine splendour, the plenitude of God, the time of grace; at the sixth

hour Abraham received the tliree angels, the image of the Trinity; at the sixth hour Adam and Eve ate the fatal apple. We should pray at noon, says St. Ambrose, because that is the time when the Divine light is in its fulness (In Ps. cxviii, vers. 62). Origen, St. Augustine, and several others regard this hour as favourable to prayer. Lastly and above all, it was the hour when Christ was nailed to the Cross; this memory excelling all the others left a still visible trace in most of the liturgy of this houi-.

All these mystic reasons and traditions, which indicate the sixth hour as a culminating point in the day, a sort of pause in the life of affairs, the hour of repast, could not but exercise an influence on Chris- tians, inducing them to choose it as an hour of prayer. As early as the third century the hour of Sext was considered as important as Terce and None as an hour of prayer. Clement of Alexandria speaks of these three hours of prayer ("Strom.", VIII, vii, P. G., IX, 455), as does Tertullian ("De orat.", xxiii-xv, P. L., I, 1191-93). Long previous the "Didache" had spoken of the sixth hour in the same manner (Funk, "Doctrina XII Apostolorum ", V, XIV, XV). Origen, the "Canons of Hippolytus", and St. Cyprian express the same tradition (cf. Baumer, "Hist, du breviaire", I, 68, 69, 73, 75, 186, etc.). It is therefore evident that the custom of prayer at the sixth hour was well-established in the third century and even in the second century or at the end of the first. But probably most of these texts refer to private prayer. In the fourth century the hour of Sext was widely established as a canonical hour. The following are very explicit examples. In his rule St. Basil made the sixth hour an hour of prayer for the monks ("Reguke fusius tractata;", P. G., XXXI, 1013, sq., 1180), Cassian treats it as an hour of ])rayer gimcrally recognized in his monasteries (Instit. C(rnob., Ill, iii, iv). The " De virginitate " wrongly attributed to St. Athanasius, but in any case dating from the fourth century, speaks of the prayer of Sext as do also the "Apostolic Constitutions", St. Ephrem, St. Chrysostom (for the texts see Bau- mer, op. cit., I, 131, 145, 152, etc., and Leclercq, in " Diet, d'arch. chret.", s. v. Breviaire). But this does not prove that the observance of Sext, any more than Prime, Terce, None, or even the other hours, was universal. Discipline on this point varied widely according to the regions and Churches. And in fact some countries may be mentioned where the cus- tom was introduced only later. That the same variety prevailed in the formula} of prayer is shown in the following paragraph.

II. Variety of Prayers and Formulae. — Despite its antiquity the hour of Sext never had the importance of those of Vigils, Matins, and Vespers. It must have been of short duration. The oldest testimonies mentioned seem to refer to a short prayer of a private nature. In the fourth and the following centuries the texts which speak of the compositions of this Office are far from uniform. Cassian tells us that in Palestine three psalms were recited for Sext, as also for Terce and None (Instit., Ill, ii). This number was adopted by the Rules of St. Benedict, Colum- banus, St. Isidore, St. Fructuosus, and to a certain extent by the Roman Church. However, Cassian says that in some provinces three psalms were said at Terce, six at Sext, and nine at None. Others recited six psalms at each hour and this custom be- came general among the Gauls (cf. Hefele-Leclercq, "Hist, des conciles", III, 189- Leclercq, loc. cit., 1296, 1300; Martene, "De antiq. eccl. ritibus", III, 20; IV, 27). In Martene will be found the proof of variations in different Churches and monasteries. With regard to ancient times the " Pcrogrinatio Sylvia}", tells us that at the hour of Sext all assembled in the Anastasis where psalms and anthems were recited after which the bishop came and blessed the