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6. PENTECOST OR WHITSUNDAY.

This season has reference to the ascension of our Lord and the commencement of the christian church by the descent of the Holy Ghost. The foregoing high feasts comprise the great events of his earthly existence. This sets forth his exaltation at the right hand of God, where he fulfilled his promise of sending the Holy Spirit, the Comforter; and, as the invisible head of the church on earth, he continued still to govern it by his miraculous agency. Herein was manifested the first display of his heavenly grace; so that though he dwelt no more with us, he was still, as during his abode on earth, full of grace and truth.

The feast in question is based on historical and doctrinal truth, which, like those facts on which the other great feasts rely, is substantiated by historical evidence. The ascension of our Lord is an historical fact; and this festival is based on the most important circumstance connected with that fact-the effusion of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost.

Both the Greek and Latin churches agree in beginning this sacred festival with the Ascension Feast, and end it with Pentecost. The Greek church admit of no Trinity Feast within this sacred season, but in the place of it celebrate the feast of All Saints and Martyrs. The former can claim no higher antiquity than the ninth century, and probably was not fully established until the fourteenth. But there was very early a feast day of the Apostles, in the Western church, which afterwards became the feast day of Philip and James. This was in all probability the origin of the modern Whitsunday, being much earlier than that of All Saints, instituted A. D. 834, or, according to others, 751, or 610.

The Ascension feast was established in the fourth century as one of the great festivals; but it may have been celebrated, notwithstanding, at a period still earlier. Nor need it appear surprising that two events were commemorated by one festive season. For the same is true of the Jewish festival, which included the feast of firstfruits and of the promulgation of the law, Ex. 23: 16. Lev. 23: 14–21. Num. 28: 26. Indeed this festival, in many respects, bears a very close analogy to that of the Jews; and evidently is little else than a modification of it. The converts of that day, when the Holy Ghost descended, were the first-fruits of the Spirit. Jerome elegantly con

trasts this with the giving of the law on Sinai: "Utraque facta est quinquagessimo die, a Paschate; illo, in Sina; haec, in Sion. Ibi terrae motu contremuit mons; hic, domus apostolorum. Ibi, inter flammas ignium et micantia fulgura, turbo ventorum, et fragor tonitruorum personuit; hic, cum ignearum visione linguarum, sonitus pariter de coelo, tanquam spiritus vehementis advenit. Ibi, clangor buccinae, legis verba perstrepuit; hic, tuba evangelica Apostolorum ore intonuit." 1

The feast has been celebrated at different times for one day, for seven days, and again for three. The religious solemnities of this occasion were very much the same as on the other great festivals. It was one of the three baptismal seasons,3 and derives the name of Whitsunday or white-Sunday from the circumstance that so many were clad in white on this day at their baptism. Homilies were delivered as on the other festivals, and the sacrament administered.4

As an instance of the extravagant folly of popish superstition, it may not be impertinent to add that the Catholics were accustomed to throw down fire from the arches above, to denote the cloven tongues. Flowers of various hues were scattered, in token of the various tongues and gifts of the Spirit. And doves were let loose to flutter about the church as an emblem of the Spirit's presence.5

7. FESTIVALS In Honor of the Virgin Mary.

No instance of divine honor paid to Mary is recorded of an earlier date than the fifth century. Cyril of Alexandria and Proklus of Constantinople were the first to pay these honors to her. Festivals to her memory began to be held about the year 431,2 but were not generally observed until the sixth century. From this time until the sixteenth century they were general in all the Western churches, though differing in number and in rank, in the several countries of Europe. The Greek church observe only three great festivals of this description.

The following is a brief enumeration of the principal festivals in question.

1. The festival of the Purification. Candlemas, Feb. 2, instituted in the sixth century.4

2. Of the Annunciation, popularly styled Lady Day, March 25, an early festival, styled by St. Bernhard, radix omnium festorum.5

3. Of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, instituted by Urban VI, 1389.6

4. Of the Assumption of Mary into heaven, Aug. 15, early instituted. Mary was the tutelary divinity of France; and for this reason this day was observed with peculiar care. It was also the birth day of Napoleon, and accordingly was observed under his dynasty as the great festival of the nation.

5. Of the Nativity of Mary, Sept. 8, instituted in the Eastern church in the seventh century; in the Western, in the eleventh or twelfth.8 6. Of the naming of Mary. A. D. 1513.

7. Of Conception. This feast, according to Bellarmin, was not necessarily dependent upon the question so fiercely discussed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries respecting the immaculate concep. tion.9

8. FESTIVALS IN Memory of the Martyrs.

These festive occasions are often styled the birth days of the mar tyrs, uagtipov yevédhia, nalilitia. They never relate, however, to their natural birth, but to their death, at which they were born to a new and nobler life above. Nemo, ante obitum, beatus, was an established maxim of the church. "When you hear of the birth day of a saint," says Peter Chrysologus, think not that it relates to his carnal birth on earth, but to the day when he was born from earth to heaven, from toil to rest, from labor to repose, from trials to joys unfading and eternal; from earthly vanities to a crown of glory.2

The earliest festival of this kind was that of Polycarp. Another which was observed with great solemnity, was the feast of the Maccabees, founded on the heroic death of the mother and her seven sons.3 These festivals were preceded by vigils, and celebrated around the graves of the martyrs, where their lives were read, and eulogies pronounced, the sacrament administered, and public entertainments given gratuitously by the rich. But these entertainments became, in time, the occasion of shameful excesses, and were suppressed. It is worthy of note that the fathers indignantly repel the charge of paying religious honors to the martyrs, and assert that they only celebrate these festivals to provoke the living to emulate the deeds of the sainted dead, and to follow after those who, through faith and patience, inherited the promises.4

9. OF ST. JOHN'S DAY.

This commemorates the birth of the Baptist, as Christmas does that of Christ. Both are veiled in equal uncertainty, but the former is known to have preceded the latter by six months, and is accordingly held June 24. Thus the sun of the Old Testament is made to set at the summer solstice, and that of the New Testament to rise in the winter solstice. In the year 506, it was received among the great feasts, like Easter, Christmas, and other festivals; and was celebrated with equal solemnity, and in much the same manner.2

10. OF THE APOSTLES' DAYS.

The reasons for observing these were the same as for observing the martyr feasts; nor is there any instance of the appointment of such a day for any apostle or evangelist who was known not to have suffered martyrdom. The Apostolical Constitutions, VIII. c. 33, make mention of the apostles' feast, and direct that slaves shall be exempt from labor on that day, which intimates that it was regarded as one of the great feasts. But none of the apostles is specified, neither is the time of observing it mentioned. The idea of a general feast of this character was often entertained, though the festival was but inconstantly observed. The Oriental church celebrated it immediately after Whitsunday, and in connection with it; but the churches generally were not agreed either in regard to the day, or the persons who should be honored by it. At one time Peter's and Paul's day is mentioned; 2 at another, that of Philip and James ;3 then the twelve collectively. But separate festivals were, in time, prescribed for all together with the evangelists Mark and Luke.

Festivals were, in process of time, established also in great numbers for the saints of distinction, though they died not as martyrs. The Eastern church was the first to appoint such festivals. In the Western church they were regarded most from the time of Charlemagne to Gregory VIII.5

The right of canonizing saints originally belonged to the bishops, but the privilege was restricted by councils. The first instance of canonization by the pope occurred A. D. 995. The privilege continued to be exercised occasionally until the twelfth century, when it began to be boldly asserted and defended.

The feasts of All Saints, Nov. 1, and of All Souls, Nov. 2, were instituted, the former in the seventh and the latter in the tenth century.

A farther sketch of the endless festivals of the Catholics would be inconsistent with the design of this work. Suffice it to say that they fill up the entire year in the Roman Calendar, so that there is not a day which is not dedicated to the memory of one or more of their saints. For a further account of the festivals of the church, the reader is referred to the 3d vol. of Augusti's original Work.

It appears that the earliest professors of the christian faith were disposed conscientiously to abstain from public religious ceremonies, and were more than content to be even destitute of temples, altars, priests, and sacred pomp or show. They received in its literal and broadest meaning the precept of our Saviour, that his disciples should worship God in spirit and in truth; and they thought that they had discovered, in the overthrow of the Jewish polity and the destruction of the temple, an intimation of the Divine will that religious worship should be no longer limited by time and place. The Jewish Christians, indeed, continued to evince an attachment to places, times, and seasons; but the early Gentile converts regarded temples and altars as remnants or indications of heathen superstition,—an opinion which is strongly developed, for example, in the Apologies of Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, and Tertullian, and even in the writings of Origen (contra Celsum, lib. viii.)

In course of time, however, when Christianity was protected, and even adopted, by the state, and opportunity was thus given of establishing public forms and ceremonies of worship without fear of danger, and when it seemed expedient to recommend it to the favor of half-converted pagans by outward pomp and circumstance, it was thought to be at once safe and seasonable to increase the number of sacred solemnities, both ordinary and extraordinary, to restore many parts of the Jewish ritual, and even to incorporate into the system of christian worship various rites and ceremonies from the customs of the declining pagan superstition. And it is to this period of church history, and to these mistaken principles of polity, that we may chiefly refer the origin of stations, processions, and pilgrimages. But to speak of these in detail would carry us too far out of the department of Christian Antiquities into the region of ecclesiastical su perstition and folly.

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