Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/196

CALENDAR martyrologium it is the type of a class. It contains long lists of obscure names for each day mingled with topographical data, but as contrasted with the later martyrologia of Bede, Ado, Usuard, etc., out of which our modern "Martyrologium Romanum" has developed, the "Hieronymian" includes few biographical details regarding the subject of its notices. The fuller discussion of this document, however, belongs to the article (q.v.). It is sufficient here to notice that in its primitive form the "Hieronymian" includes no proper feast of Our Lady; even the Purification, on 2 February, is only indirectly alluded to.

—And here it may be convenient to observe that the principal festivals of the Blessed Virgin, the Assumption, Annunciation, and Nativity, were undoubtedly first celebrated in the East. There seems very good reason to believe, from certain apocryphal Syriac narratives of the "Falling asleep of Mary the Mother of the Lord", that some celebration of her Assumption into Heaven was already observed in Syria in the fifth century on a day corresponding to our 15 August (cf. Wright, in Journal of Sacred Literature, N.S., VII, 157). The Annunciation again is said to be commemorated in an authentic sermon of Proclus of Constantinople, who died in 446, while the agreement of the Armenian and Æthiopic Christians in keeping similar festivals seems to throw back the period of their first introduction to a time earlier than that at which these schismatical churches broke away from unity. In the West, however, we have no definite details as to the earliest occurrence of these Marian feasts. We only know that they were kept at Rome with solemnity in the time of Pope Sergius I (687–701). In Spain, if we may safely follow Dom G. Morin in assigning the "Lectionary of Silos" to about 650, there is definite mention of a feast of Our Lady in Advent, which may be earlier than those just referred to; and in Gaul the statutes of Bishop Sonnatius of Reims (614–631) apparently prescribe the observance of the Annunciation, Assumption, and Nativity, though the Purification strange to say, is not mentioned.

Although the mention is a departure from the natural chronological order, a word may also be said here about the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In the East we find it known to John of Eubœa towards the close of the eighth century. It was then kept, as it still is in the Greek Church, on 9 December, but it is described by him as being only of partial observance. Nevertheless, about the year 1000, we find it included in the calendar of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus, and it seems by that time to have become universally recognized in the East. The West, however, did not long lag behind. A curious trace may be found in the Irish "Calendar of Aengus" (c. 804), where the Conception of Our Lady is assigned to 3 May (see The Month, May, 1904, pp. 449–465). This probably had no liturgical significance, but Mr. Edmund Bishop has shown that in some Anglo-Saxon monasteries a real feast of the Conception was already kept upon 8 December before the year 1050 (Downside Review, 1886, pp. 107–119). At Naples, under Byzantine influence, the feast had long been known, and it appears in the famous Neapolitan marble calendar of the ninth century under the form Conceptio S. Annæ, being assigned, as among the Greeks, to 9 December. The general recognition of the feast in the West seems, however, to have been largely due to the influence of a certain tractate, "De Conceptione B. Mariæ", long attributed to St. Anselm, but really written by Eadmer, his disciple. At first only the Conception of Our Lady was spoken of, the question of the Immaculate Conception was raised somewhat later. For the feast of the Presentation of Our Lady (21 November), an early Eastern origin has also been claimed dating back to the Year 700 (see Vailhé, in ("Echos d'Orient", V, 193–201, etc.), but this cannot be accepted without fuller verification. For the other Marian festivals, e.g. the Visitation, the Rosary, etc., the reader must be referred to these separate articles. All are comparatively modern additions to the calendar.

—From the mention of Sts. Peter and Paul conjointly on 29 June in the "Depositio Martyrum" of the "Philocalian Calendar", it is probable that the two Apostles both suffered on that day. In the time of St. Leo (Sermon lxxxiv) the feast seems to have been celebrated in Rome with an octave, while the Syriac martyrologium in the East and Polemius Silvius in Gaul equally manifest a tendency to do honour to the Principes Apostolorum, though in the former the commemoration is attached to 28 December, and in the latter to 22 February. This latter day was, generally, given to the celebration of the Cathedra Petri, also belonging to very early times, while a feast in honour of St. Paul's conversion was kept 25 January. Of the other Apostles, Sts. John and James appear together in the Syriac martyrologium on 27 December, and St. John still retains that day in the West. With regard to St. Andrew we probably have a reliable tradition as to the day on which he suffered, for apart from an explicit reference in the relatively early "Acta" (cf. Analecta Bollandiana, XIII, 373–378), his feast has been kept on 30 November, both in the East and in the West, from an early period. The other Apostles nearly all appear in some form in the "Hieronymian Martyrologium", and their festivals gradually came to be celebrated liturgically before the eighth or ninth century.

The fixing of the precise days was probably much influenced by a certain "Breviarius" which was widely circulated in somewhat varying forms, and which professed to give a brief account of the circumstances of the death of each of the Twelve. As an indication that some of these feasts must have been adopted at a more remote date than is attested in existing calendars, it may be noted that Bede has a homily upon the feast of St. Matthew, which the arrangement of the collection shows to have been kept by him in the latter part of September, as we keep it at present. St. John the Baptist, as already noted, had also more than one festival in early times. Besides the Nativity on 24 June, two of St. Augustine's sermons (nos. cccvii, cccviii) are consecrated to the celebration of his martyrdom (Passio or Decollatio). Similar honours were paid to St. Stephen, the first martyr, more particularly in the East. St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his funeral oration over St. Basil, delivered at Cæsarea in Cappadocia in 379, attests this, and lets us know that the feast was kept then as it is now, the day after Christmas. On the other hand, St. Joseph's name does not occur in the calendar until comparatively late. Curiously enough the earliest definite assignment which the writer has been able to find of a special day consecrated to his memory occurs in the "Calendar of Aengus" (c. 804) under its existing date, 19 March. There we read of "Joseph, name that is noble, Jesus' pleasant fosterer". But despite an invocation of St. Joseph in the old Irish hymn "Sen De", ascribed to St. Colman Ua Cluasaigh (c. 622), we cannot regard this entry as indicative of any proper cultus. It seems probable, from the nature of some of the apocryphal literature of the early centuries, that honour was of old paid to St. Joseph in Syria, Egypt, and the East generally, but reliable data as to his feast are at present wanting.

—During the Merovingian and Carlovingian period the number of festivals which won practical recognition gradually increased. Perhaps the safest indications of this development are to be gathered from the early service-books—sacramentaries, antiphonaries, and