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 LIGHTS

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LZOHTS

simple eleiueutsa^ light, mudic, rich attire, procesaioiiK, ablutions, aud lustrations, flowers, unguents, incense, etc., belong, as it were, to the common stock of all ceremonial, whether religious or secular. If there is to be any solemnity of eictemal worship at all it must include some at least of these things, and whether wo turn to the polytheistic ritual of ancient Greece and Rome, or to the nations of the far East, or to the com- paratively isolated civilizations of the aborigines of Mexico and Peru, human striving after impressiveness is found to manifest itself in very similar ways. A multiplicity of lights is always in some measure joyous and decorative, and it is a principle taught by every- day experience that marks of respect which are shown at first with a strictly utilitarian purpose are regarded in the end as only the more honorific if they are con- tinued when they are plainly superfluous. Thus an escort of torches or candle-bearers, which is almost a necessity in the dark, and is a convenience in the twi- light, becomes a formality indicative of ceremonious respect if maintained in the full li^ht of day. Again, since the use of lights was so familiar to Jewish ritual, there is no sufficient ground for regarding the Chris- tian Church as in this respect imitative either of the religions of Greece and Rome or of the more oriental Mitnra worship. At the same time, it seems probable enough that certain features of Christian ceremonial were directly borrowed from Roman secular usages. For example, the later custom that seven acolytes with candlesticks should precede the pope, when he made his solemn entry into the church, is no doubt to be traced to a privilege which was common under the Empire of escorting the ^reat functionaries of the State with torches. This nght is expressly recognised in the '* Notitia Dignitatum, but it may also be found in embryo at an earlier date, when the Consul Duilius for his victory over the Carthaginians, in the third century before Christ, obtained the privilege of being escorted home by a torch and a flute player. But granting, as even so conservative an historian as Car- dinal Baronius is fully prepared to grant, a certain amount of direct borrowing of pagan usages, this is no subject of reproach to the Cathol ic Church. ' * WTiat ' ' , he savs, '* is to prevent profane things, when sanctified by the word of God, being transferred to sacred purposes? Of such pagan rites laudably adopted for the service of the Christian religion we have many examples. And with regard more especially to lamps and candles, of which we are now speaking, who can reasonably find fault if those same things which were once offered to idols are now consecrat(Kl to the honour of the martyrs? If those lamps which were kindled in the temples on Saturdays — not as though the gods needed light, as even Seneca points out (Ep. XV, 66), but as a mark of veneration — are now lighted in the honour of the Mother of God? If the candles which were formerly distributed at the Saturnalia are now identified with the feast of the Purification of our Lady? What, I ask, is there so surprising if holy bishops have allowed certain cus- toms firmly rooted among pagan peoples, and so tenaciously adhered to by them that even aifter their conversion to Christianity they could not be induced to surrender them, to be transferred to the worship of the true God?" (Baronius, " Annales", ad ann. 58, n. 77).

With regard to the use of lights in direct connexion with the Iioly Sacrifice of the Mass, we find the whole system of portable lights elaborated in the earliest of the "Ordines Romani". Indeed, St. Jerome's plain reference, already quoted, to the carrying of lights at the Gospel, seems probably to take the practice back to at least three hundred years earlier, even if we may not appeal, as many authorities have done, to the words of the Act^ of the Apostles (xx, 7-8) : " And on the first day of the week, when we were assembled to break bread, Paul discoursed with them. . . . And

there were a great number of lamm in the upper chamber where we were asscmblecf." It does not seem to have been customary to place lights upon Uie altar itself before the eleventh century, out the "Or- dinos Romani" and other documents make it clear that, many centuries before this, lights were carried in procession by acolytes (see Acolyte), and set down upon the ground or held in the hand while Mass was being offered and the Gospel read. A decree of the so-called Fourth Council of Carthage directs that in the ordination of an acolyte a candlestick is to be eiven him. but this collection of canons does not be- long, as wckS once supposed, to the year 398, but to the time of St. Csesarius of Aries (about a. d. 512). A httle later, i. e. in 636, St. Isidore of Seville (EtymoL, VII), xii, n. 29) speaks quite explicitly on the point: " Acolytes ", he says, " in Greek, are called Ceroferarii in Latin, from their carrying wax candles when the Gospel is to be read or the sacrifice to be offered. For then lights are kindled by them, and carried, not to drive away darkness, as the sun is shining, but for a sign of joy, that under the form of material li^ht may be represented that Light of which we read in the Gospel: That was the true light." It was only at a later date that various synodal decrees required the lighting of first one candle, and afterwaros of two, during the time of the celebration of Mass.

The use of lights in baptism, a survival of which stiU remains in the candle given to the catechumen, with the words: " Receive this burning liffht and keep thy baptism so as to be without blame, etc., is.a^ of great antiquity. It is probably to be connected in a ver^' immediate way with the solemnities of the Easter vied, when the font was blessed, and when, after care- ful preparation and a long series of "scrutinies", the catechumens were at last admittod to the reception of the Sacrament. Dom Morin (Revue B^n^ctine, \^II, 20; IX, 392) has ^ven excellent reason for be- lieving thai the ceremonial of the paschal candle may be traced back to at least the year 382 in the lifetime of St. Jerome. Moreover the term ^xaTiffd^yres (iUumi- riati), so constantly applied to the newly baptieed in early WTitings, most probably bears some reference to the illumination which, as we know from many sources, marked the night of Holy Saturday. Thus St. Am- brose (De Laps. Virg., v, 19), speaking of this occasion. mentions 'Hue blazing light of the neophytes", ana St. Gregoi>' of Nazianzus, in his great Sermon on Holy Baptism ", tells the candidates that the lamps which you will kindle are a symbol of the illumination with which we shall meet the Bridegroom, with the lamps of our faith shining, not carele^y lulled to sleep" (Orat., xl, 46; cf. xlv, 2).

Again, the pagan use of lights at funerals seems to have been taken over by the Church as a harmless piece of ceremonial to which a Christian colour might easily be given. The early evidence upon this pomt in the wTitings of the Fathers is peculiarly abundant, beginning with what Eusebius tells us of the lyinc in state of tnc body of the Emperor Constantino: "They lighted candles on golden stands around it, and afforded a wonderful spectacle to the beholders, such as never was seen under the sun since the earth was made" (Vila. Const., iv, 66). Similarly, St. Jerome tells us of the ol:)semiies of St. Paula in 386: "She was borne to the grave by the hands of bishops, who eyen put their shoulders under the bier, while other pon- tiffs carried lamps and candles Ixjfore her " (Ad Eus- toch., ep. cviii, n. 29). So, again in the West, at the funeral of St. Germanus of Auxerre, "The number of lights beat back the rays of the sun, and maintained their brightness even through the day'' (Constautius, "VitaS. Gemmni", II, 21).

It is also certain that, from a very early period. lamps and candles w^ere burnt around the bodies, and then, by a natural transition, before the relics, of the martyrs. How far this was merely a development