Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
Dies cinerum, Ash Wednesday, so called because the bishop strewed ashes on the heads of believers with a warning reference to Gen. iii. 19, comp. xviii. 27. With the Tuesday preceding, Shrove Tuesday (from shrive, to confess), ended the carnival season (carni valedicere) which, beginning with 6th Jan. or the feast of the three holy kings, reached its climax in the last days, from three to eight, before Ash Wednesday. On this closing day the people generally sought indemnification for the approaching strict fast by an unmeasured abandoning of themselves to pleasure. From Italy where this custom arose and was most fully carried out, it subsequently found its way into the other lands of the West. In opposition to these unspiritual proceedings the period of the Easter festivals was begun three weeks earlier with the 10th Sunday before Easter (Septuagesima). The Hallelujah of the Mass was silenced, weddings were no more celebrated (Tempus clausum), monks and clerics already began the fast. The Quadragesima festival reached its climax in the last, the great week. It began with Palm Sunday (ἑορτὴ τῶν βαΐων) and ended with the great Sabbath, the favourite time for baptisms (Rom. vi. 3). Thursday as the memorial day of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and Friday as the day of Christ’s death, Good Friday, were days of special importance. A solemn night service, Easter vigils, marked the transition to the joyous Easter celebrations. The old legend that on this night Christ’s second coming would take place rendered the service peculiarly solemn. Easter morning began with the jubilant greeting: The Lord is risen, and the response, He is risen indeed. On the following Sunday, the Easter Octave, Pascha clausum, ἀντίπασχα, the Easter festival was brought to a close. Those baptized on the great Sabbath wore for the last time their white baptismal dress. Hence this sabbath was called Dominica in albis; subsequently, in accordance with the Introitus from 1 Pet. ii. 2, Quasimodogeniti; and by the Greeks, καινὴ κυριακή. The joyous celebrations of Easter extended over all the Quinquagesima period between Easter and Pentecost. Ascension day, Festum ascensionis, ἑορτὴ τῆς ἀναλήψεως, and Pentecost, πεντεκοστή, were introduced as high festivals by vigil services; and the latter was concluded by the Pentecost-Octave, by the Greeks called κυριακὴ τῶν ἁγίων μαρτυρησάντων and at a much later date styled by the Latins Trinity Sunday. The Festival-Octaves, ἀπολύσεις, had an Old Testament pattern in the עֲצֶרֶת of the Feast of Tabernacles, Lev. xxiii. 26.
§ 56.5. The Christmas Festivals.—The first traces of the Christmas festival (Natalis Christi, γενέθλια) in the Roman church are found about A.D. 360. Some decades later they appear in the Eastern church. The late introduction of this festival is to be explained from the disregard of the birthday and the prominence given to the day of the death of Christ in the ancient church; but Chrysostom even regarded it as the μητρόπολις πασῶν τῶν ἑορτῶν. Since the 25th of March as the spring equinox was held as the day of creation, the day of the incarnation, the conception of Christ, the second Adam, as the beginning of the new creation was held on the same day, and hence 25th Dec. was chosen as the day of Christ’s birth. The Christian festival thus coincided nearly with the heathen Saturnalia, in memory of the Golden Age, from 17th to 23rd Dec., the Sigillaria, on the 24th Dec., when children were presented with dolls and images of clay and wax, sigilla, and the Brumalia, on 25th Dec., Dies natalis invicti solis, the winter solstice. It was considered no mere chance coincidence that Christ, the eternal Sun, should be born just on this day. The Christmas festival too was introduced by a vigil and lasted for eight days, which in the 6th century became the Festum circumcisionis. The revelling that characterised the New Year Festival of the pagans, caused the ancient church, to observe that day as a day of penance and fasting. The feast of the Epiphany on the 6th Jan. (§ 37, 1) was also introduced in the West during the 4th century but obtained there a Gentile-Christian colouring from Luke ii. 21 and was kept as the festival of the first fruits of the Gentiles and received the name of the Festival of the three holy kings. For even Tertullian in accordance with Ps. lxxii. 10 had made the Magi kings; it was concluded that they were three because of the three gifts spoken of; and Bede, about A.D. 700, gives their names as Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. By others this festival was associated with Christ’s first miracle at the marriage in Cana, and also with the feeding of the 5,000 in the wilderness. After the analogy of the Easter festival since the 6th century a longer preliminary celebration has been connected with the Christmas festival. In the Eastern church, beginning with the 14th of Nov., it embraced six Sundays with forty fast days, as the second Quadragesima of the year. In the Latin church, as the season of Advent, it had only four Sundays, with a three weeks’ fast.
§ 56.6. The Church Year was in the East a symbolic adaptation of the natural year only in so far as it brought with it the Christianising of the Jewish festivals and the early recognition of Western ideas about the feasts. Only on the high festivals, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost are they retained; on the other Sundays and festivals they never obtained expression. The Easter festival was considered the beginning of the church year; thereafter the Quadragesima or Epiphany; and finally, the Old Testament beginning of the year in September. The whole church year was divided into four parts according to the Lectio continua of the gospel, and the Sundays were named thereafter. The κυριακὴ πρώτη τοῦ Ματθαίου was immediately after Pentecost. The Latin Church Year begins with the season of Advent, and distinguishes a Semestre Domini and a Semestre ecclesiæ. But only the former was fully developed: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost with the Sundays belonging to them, representing the founding, developing and completing of the history of salvation. To a corresponding development of the second half we find early contributions, e.g. the Feast of Peter and Paul on 29th June as festival of the founding of the church by the Apostles, the Feast of the leading martyr Laurentius (§ 22, 5) on 10th August as memorial of the struggle prescribed to the Ecclesia militans, and the Feast of Michael on 29th September with reference to the completion in the Ecclesia triumphans. That in these feasts we have already the germs of the three festivals of the community of the church which were to correspond to the three festivals of the Lord’s history appears significantly in the early designation of the Sundays after Pentecost as Dominica post Apostolos, post Laurentium, post Angelos. But it never was distinctly further carried out. This deeply significant distribution was overlaid by saint worship, which overflowed the Semestre Domini. The principle of Christianising the Pagan rites was legitimated by Gregory the Great. He instructed the Anglo-Saxon missionaries to the effect (§ 77, 4), that they should convert the heathen temples into churches and heathen festivals into ecclesiastical festivals and days of martyrs, ut duræ mentes gradibus vel passibus non autem saltibus eleventur. The saints henceforth take the place of gods of nature and the church year reproduced with a Christian colouring all the outstanding points in the natural year.—As the last festival connected with the history of the Lord, the Feast of the Glorification, ἁγία μεταμόρφωσις, was held in the East on 6th August. According to tradition the scene was enacted on Mt. Tabor, hence the feast was called Θαβώριον. The Latin church adopted it first in the 15th century (F. transfigurationis).170
§ 56.7. The Church Fasts (§ 37, 3).—In the Greek church the ordinance of fasting was more strict than in the Latin. In one period, however, we have a system of fasts embracing four great fasting seasons: The Quadragesima of Easter and of Christmas, the period of from three to five weeks from the Pentecost Octave (the Greek Feast of All Saints) to that of Peter and Paul on 29th June, and the fourteen days before the Ascension of Mary on 15th August. There were also the νηστεῖαι προεόρτιοι on the evenings previous to other festivals; and finally, the weekly recurring fasts of Wednesday and Friday. The strictest was the pre-Easter fast, observed with gradually advancing rigidness. On Sexagesima Sunday flesh was eaten for the last time, then followed the so-called Butter week, when butter, cheese, milk and eggs were still allowed; but thereafter complete avoidance of all fattening food was enjoined, reaching during the great week to the utmost possible degree of abstinence. In the West instead of Wednesday, Saturday was taken along with Friday, and down to the 13th century it was enjoined that nothing should be eaten on these two days of the week, as also on the quarterly days (quatuor tempora) and