 Chapter 12, Part 4 of History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries by S. Jitam. Chapter 12, Discipline in Life of the Church, Part 4. The desire for the more perfect state produced also further effects. If the higher life involved the renunciation of marriage, of property and of secular business, it could not be led in the midst of an ordinary household, or among the usual cares and distractions of a world still half-pagan. Hence arose the strong impulse which led multitudes to but take themselves to utter solitude in the desert, or to form communities in which the spiritual life should be the first object of existence. Tests and monks were a protest against the merely secular life, only relieved by a few religious observances into which too many Christians allowed themselves to fall. The motives which led the various brethren to become ascetics no doubt differed as the men differed, but it is not difficult to understand the charm which, in the midst of a restless and yet innervated world, was found in a life which offered, or seemed to offer, rest and freedom from worldly care, and the terrible calamities which fell upon the empire in the fifth and sixth centuries, no doubt increased the desire to fly away from tumult, to calm and safety. Solitude, the perfect quiet of a hut or cave in the desert, where a spring, a little garden, and a palm tree supplied all that was necessary for human life in the genial climate of Egypt, first drew men to leave the haunts of their fellows. We have seen already how St. Anthony withdrew into the wilderness. Many soon followed his example. It was not long before the unrestrained fancy of the solitaries led them to adopt strange forms of life. Some spent long years on the top of lofty pillars. Simeon, the most noted of these pillar saints, who lived in the early part of the fifth century, established himself on a column which was finally raised to the height of sixty feet from the ground. There he remained some thirty years, exhorting to repentance those who flocked to him, settling disputes, making enemies to be at one, converting pagans. Men otherwise careless were arrested by so extraordinary a spectacle. The danger that men would come to think that some special merit attached to this form of mortification was early pointed out by Nelus, himself an ascetic. There was nothing worthy of praise in living on a pillar, but there was a great danger lest a pillar saint should be intoxicated by the undeserved praise which he actually received. Quote, he that exalteth himself shall be abased." A still more strange phenomenon were the boski, or grazers, who divested themselves of almost all the attributes of humanity. They had no habitations, but wandered about like wild beasts, on mountains and uncultivated plains, supporting a wretched existence on such herbs and fruits as the earth brought forth of itself. They seemed, however, to have come together for the services of the church. But Christian virtues, the excellencies of those who by their very profession belonged to a body, cannot be fully developed in solitude. Solitude is hard to reconcile the life of a hermit with the essential character of Christian love, since the hermit regards his own good only, while charity seeketh not her own. Nor will a man in solitude come to the knowledge of his own defects, since he has no one to admonish and correct him. Quote, woe to him that is alone when he falleth, and heth not another to lift him up." Hence men soon came to feel the necessity for community in the religious life. A common life brings with it the necessity of rule and order, and so tends to correct the fantastic excesses into which solitaries too readily fell. The first step towards the formation of a religious community was taken when a number of hermits built their cells near to each other. Quote, like the wigwams of an Indian encampment, clustering round the chapel of the community. Such an assemblage of huts crowded together was called a Laura. The hermits who inhabited it assembled together for divine service and admitted the authority of a chief, generally the person whose fame had drawn others about him. The most famous founder of communities of this kind was Saint Sabbath, the remains of whose earliest buildings are still to be found on the River Kidron. But the first who gave a definite rule and order to a body of men, withdrawn from the world for the sake of religion and living a common life, seems to have been Pecomius, who gave rules for a body of monks dwelling together on an island of the Nile called Tabene. He founded not merely a monastery, but an order, for daughter monasteries soon sprang up which followed the rule of Tabene and acknowledged the authority of its head, called the Abbas, or father. It is not easy to say how much of the extant rule which bears the name of Pecomius is really due to him, how much to subsequent development, but the general characteristics we can scarcely air in attributing to the founder. The brethren of this society were taught to avoid the temptations which arise from idleness. They plated mats and baskets from the reeds of the Nile. They cultivated the ground, they built boats. Tailors, smiths, carpenters, and tanners were found among them. The sale of their products first supplied the wants of the society, and then that which remained over was given to relieve the wants of the sick and the poor and needy. Prisoners also were not forgotten. Twice a year the superiors of the several daughter communities met at the chief monastery, when each gave an account of the administration of his office. A candidate for admission to the brotherhood was not received at once. He was first asked whether he was seeking refuge from some civil penalty, whether he was a free man and therefore competent to choose for himself his mode of life, whether he was capable of resigning all that he had. If he was able to answer these questions satisfactorily, he had to submit to a three years period of probation. Finally, if he passed through this successfully, he was admitted to the brotherhood, solemnly pledging himself to live according to the monastic rule. On the first and last day of each week the monks laid aside the skins which they commonly wore, and came into the sanctuary to receive the holy mysteries. Every day and night they said frequent prayers. Palladius is said to have founded also the earliest convent for women, with a rule similar to that of the men. To these sisters was given the name, quote, nana, unquote. Derived perhaps from an Egyptian word, whence such sisters have almost everywhere been distinguished as, quote, nuns, unquote. Or by some equivalent appellation. The general characteristics of the Tabaniat monasticism may be said to be simplicity of life, labor, devotion, and obedience. A greater than Pachomius, Saint Basil, was the founder of an order which endures in the Greek church even unto this day. He designed, says his panagiarist Gregory of Nazionzus, to unite the excellencies of the contemplative and the practical life, and his rule bears the stamp of his good sense and knowledge of mankind. He recommends nothing repulsive or unpractical. What he regarded as the proper end and aim of asceticism was to render the body the obedient servant of the higher nature, not to cripple it by unmeaning austerities. His monks were to praise God and pray to him, after the psalmist's example, seven times a day, but they were not to make devotion an excuse for idleness. They, like those of Pachomius, were to labor for their own living at such trades as could be pursued without noise, and especially at the tailing of the ground. All that was earned was the property of the community, no man called anything his own. All that was required was kept in a common storehouse and dispensed at the discretion of the superior. No special rule was made as to the food to be taken, but the superior was to judge what was sufficient in each case. The use of wine was not forbidden. The monk's clothing was to be of the simplest and coarsest kind. Signs were, so far as possible, to take the place of words, except in divine service. Children who were presented by their lawful guardians were to be received and trained, but were not to be entered on the list of monks until they were of an age to understand the meaning of monastic vows. All postulants had to undergo a period of probation. Saint Basil's mother and sister united with other women to lead a monastic life. He permitted those who desired to enter a convent to take the vows at sixteen or seventeen years of age. The African church, at a somewhat later date, did not permit this before twenty-five, and a law of the empire refused to recognize such vows as valid if taken before the age of forty. Saint Basil's institutions were wise, and where he ruled they were doubtless wisely carried out, but the administration of even the wisest code will sometimes fall into incompetent hands. Men found their way into cloisters who had no real vocation for the ascetic life. Some came in who had nothing to leave in the world and much to gain in the convent, making their profession of godliness a means of gain. Such were eager to find occasion for activity outside their house. These formed the black rabble who incurred the contempt of cultivated heathens, who plundered and destroyed temples, who were constantly employed as the tools of fanatical partisans in the disputes about dogma of which they understood no more than the effusion mob did of the teaching of Saint Paul. There were many who, like Chrysostom, acquired in monastic retirement from their own failures and recoveries of deep knowledge of the weakness of human nature and of the way to peace. But many, attempting to annihilate desires which are deeply rooted in man, were persecuted by impure thoughts, and there was a general tendency to attempt to cure these rather by bodily mortification than by heartfelt devotion. A seeking after phariseic self-righteousness, combined with an abject fear of malignant fiends, too often took the place of the trustful spirit of Christian love. A peculiar form of monasticism was that of the audience, who were, says Epiphanius, restive and schismatical, but not heretical. These took their rise from one Audeus, or Udo, a layman of Mesopotamia, whose zeal for religion was offended by what he thought the easy and luxurious lives of the higher clergy. He founded several ascetic societies in which the Peshaw Festival was celebrated at the same time as that of the Jews, and the literal interpretation of such passages of scripture as seemed to ascribe a human body to the deity was insisted upon. Audeus, at an advanced age, was banished to the northern coast of the Black Sea, where he is said to have introduced monasticism among the Goths. This sect is believed to have disappeared about the end of the fourth century. In the West, as was natural, monasticism ran a very different course. The practical good sense and calmer judgment of the Western leaders gave it such a form as answered to the needs of their church. When first the banished Athanasius brought monks into the West, they were looked upon as something extravagant, but under the fostering care of men like Ambrose in Milan, Jerome in Rome, and Martin in Tours, they soon became familiar objects. In Rome, Jerome attained extraordinary influence, especially with the weaker sects. The country houses of Roman ladies became nunneries, where devout widows and maidens led an ascetic life. Tenderly nurtured women sacrificed to this overmastering impulse position, friends, even life itself. At a time when, in spite of the Christianity of the emperors, a large portion of the Romans who were most distinguished in literature and politics still clung to the old faith, when many of the leading ecclesiastics were engaged in unseemly squabbles and contests for place, the more sensitive souls were driven to seek a refuge in monastic life. Augustine found in Rome about the year 388 several convents presided over by men of worth and ability, where the brethren led a peaceful life without needless restrictions, maintaining themselves by the labor of their hands, and houses of women in which the sisters were instructed in faith and doctrine by the superiors, and occupied themselves in spinning and weaving. Both men and women performed miracles of fasting. The islands on the west coast of Italy, and soon afterwards those on the south coast of Gaul, came to be peopled with men seeking a refuge from the storms of the world and opportunity for Christian contemplation, who mingled their chance with the plashing of the waves. Pious ladies, such as Jerome's friend Fabiola, turned to the stream of their magnificence to these island monasteries, which in the terrible times of the Teutonic invasion became places of refuge for arts and letters as well as for Christian life. Of these island monasteries by far the most famous was that of Larynum. Anoritus, born of a noble family of Belgique Gaul, was warned by a divine voice to repair to the island, to which his name was afterwards given. It was then absolutely desolate, but he set himself to establish a monastery there, and soon drew round him a body of disciples, among the first of whom was a young man named Hillary, whom by prayers and tears he prevailed upon to renounce the world. The fame of his piety caused him to be chosen Bishop of Arles, but he held that dignity no more than two years, dying somewhat suddenly in the early part of the year 429. Larynum became an important clergy school for southern Gaul, and trained many bishops, among them Hillary of Arles and Eucharius of Lyons, while two successive abbots, Maximus and Faustus, became bishops of Rhys. From this monastery, too, came forth one of the most famous books of the fifth century, the Cominatorium of Incentius. On the continent, the religious house which was founded by St. Martin in the neighborhood of Poitiers, about the year 360, is regarded as the earliest monastery in Gaul, but a far more important community was that founded in southern Gaul by John Cassian. Cassian was probably born in southern Gaul, to which his writings unquestionably belong, about the year 360. While still young, he entered a convent at Bethlehem, where he received his first training in religion. Once initiated in the ascetic life, he was seized with the longing to visit the native land of asceticism, Egypt. Among the Egyptian monks and herbets he remained in all ten years, and then passed on to Constantinople, where he was ordained deacon by the great John Chrysostom. When the patriarch was banished, it is thought that Cassian paid a visit on his behalf to Rome. Ten years later we find him in Merci, near which place he founded two convents, for men and for women respectively, under the model of those which he had seen in the east. By the example of these monasteries, and still more by the series of writings which he now began, he gave an immense impulse to the spread of monastic institutions, especially in Gaul and Spain. He died at a very advanced age, in the highest reputation for sanctity, probably shortly after the year 433. He wrote in later life on the Nestorian controversy, but his most famous works are the book on monastic institutions, and the account of certain conversations which he describes himself as having held, in company with his friend Germanus, with some of the most renowned Egyptian anchorites. In the first named book he describes principally the Egyptian system with a view to the instruction of Gaul. He shoes us the dress of the Egyptian monks, the girdle of their loins, the hood just covering the head, the linen tunic with sleeves barely reaching to the elbow, the cord through which the skirts of the garment may be drawn for greater freedom and labor, the short mantle over head and shoulders, the goatskin thrown over all, the sandals on the feet and the staff in the hand. He wisely orders that if a hair-shirt is worn, he does not recommend it, it shall be concealed, not made a show of. And generally he reminds the brethren that a monk's dress should be distinguished by simplicity, not singularity, and that the Egyptian dress is not in all respects suited for the climate of Gaul. The postulant for admission must sit at least ten days before the door of the monastery, enduring the scorn and the contemptuous questions of the brethren as they pass to and fro. When admitted he spends his first year in a novice's room outside the convent proper under the care of one of the older monks, and when permitted to enter the convent itself he is again under the special charge of one of the seniors until he perfectly learned the lesson of implicit obedience. If he cannot endure the trial, the clothes in which he entered are put upon him again and he is sent forth into the world. It is worth noting that although the monk must part with his worldly goods, the house which he enters is on no account to receive them. Once within the monastery the monk is to have nothing of his own, not even his thoughts. The meals of the Galician monks were to be meager, but not so scanty as those in Egypt which Cassian is aware would not be sufficient to sustain life in Gaul. In Egypt they were eaten in silence in Cappadocia with reading of scripture. Of offenses some were to be corrected by spiritual rebuke, some with stripes or by expulsion from the house. In the latter portion of the work Cassian treats of the principal sins and failings to which hermits and monks were especially liable, their causes and their cure. These are gluttony, sins of the flesh, avarice, anger, gloominess, torpor, vanity, and pride. These seem to be mentioned in the order of the difficulty of their treatment. The coarser and more obvious sins, which can be readily subjected to discipline, stand first. Then come those more subtle sins which are often the product of the ascetic life itself. Torpor was the special trial of the solitary, whom it attacked most in the weary hour of noon, whence it was known as the demon that destroyed it in the noon day. Useful labor was the great antidote, and here the writer takes occasion to commend the industry of the monks of Egypt, who not only maintain themselves by their labor, but also assisted to support others. The nature of vanity, that juggling fiend which can put on the disguise of a virtue, and which, when it seems to be overcome, rises again to make the sinner vain of his own victory, is sketched with a masterly hand. Pride, though the first of sins, is nevertheless the last to make its appearance. It rises out of the excellent virtues which a man possesses and spoils them all. With the combating of this most subtle evil, the book concludes. The, quote, collations, unquote, may be regarded as a supplement to the institutes, being intended to lead ascetics to a yet higher degree of holiness than that contemplated in the earlier work. Cassian recognizes the much greater difficulty of his present task, in as much as the forming of the inner man, so as to enable it steadily to contemplate God, and to rise towards perfection, is greater than that of subjecting the outer man to authority and precept. These collations, which were specially written with a view to being read by monks and hermits, were intended to point the way to the ideal perfection of ascetic life by shooing how the principal questions, likely to arise in such a life, were treated by those who were its leaders. Here we find the results of meditation, as well as the lessons of practical life, philosophic discussion, as well as moral precept, frequently illustrated by examples from the stores of memory or legend. The end and aim of the monk's calling, the respective advantages of the monastic and the solitary life, the three great renunciations which the monk makes of his earthly riches, of his own passions and propensities, and of the present world, perfection, and most of all divine love, spiritual knowledge, and especially the various methods of interpreting holy scripture, God's gifts of grace, under which head many miracles are related with the wholesome caution that the great lesson to be learned of Christ is not to work wonders, but to be meek and lowly of heart, the various kinds of prayer and thanksgiving, such and such like are the subjects treated of. The speculative spirit, which is visible throughout, shooes that the great leaders of asceticism were not unfaithful to the Christian philosophy, which was still found in the Alexandrian schools. The influence of the book was immense, as Saint Benedict ordered it to be constantly read at a certain hour in the houses of his order, and it was perhaps the philosophic thought, which is found in many of the Colossians, which gave to the monks that bent to mental toil and abstract discussion which made the monasteries of the West for many generations the chief centers of literature and intellectual life. But all the efforts of previous founders of monasteries fall into the shade when we compare them with those of Benedict of Nersia. The career of the Benedictine order is the most signal testimony to the virtue and the wisdom of its first legislator. Benedict, the son of a noble family in Umbria, received a literary education in Rome, but shocked at the dissipated life which he saw around him, fled at an early age from the great city and took refuge in an almost inaccessible cave in the Sabine Hills, near Subiaco, where he depended for sustenance on the charity of the neighbors. Like very many who have attempted to crush the natural passions, he was haunted by visions of the fair forms which he had left behind. He shared the fate of other famous hermits in that his solitude became populous with the throng of men who were attracted by his fame. It was probably this circumstance which induced him to forsake Subiaco with his companions and to journey southward to Monte Cassino in Campania, where he founded what became the most famous monastery in the world, the model after which, more or less directly, all other Western monasteries have been formed. The rule which he gave was stern, but not too stern for human frailty to endure. It trained men to be strong, not fanciful. At the head of every monastery was a paternal ruler, an abbot, chosen by the major part of the monks themselves. Under him was a, quote, propositus, unquote, or provost, whom he appointed. And again under him, if the monastery was so large as to require them, subordinates called, quote, de Cani, unquote, or deans, who took the superintendent's each of ten brethren. As each new brother was admitted to a monastery, he was required to pledge himself in the most solemn manner to the three great principles of monastic life, firmness of resolution, change of life, and obedience to God and his saints. As it was of the very essence of monastic vows that they should be lifelong, no one was allowed to take them until he had passed through a period of probation, in which every opportunity was given to the novice to learn the real nature of his own calling, and to the superiors of the society to discover whether he had the qualities which a good monk should have. With a view of deterring waivers, the act of reception was made an especially solemn one. The novice to be received had to lay on the altar of the church of the monastery, with solemn invocation of the saints whose relics were there, a written engagement to observe the rule. The man who could not, with a clear conscience, affirm his earnest intention of remaining in the brotherhood to his life's end could be no true monk, nor the man who could not resign his natural wishes and passions so as to be guided in all things by the monastic rule. As in the rule of Pecomius, so in the Benedictine, not only did the brethren observe the several hours of the divine office, but they had to undertake regular manual labor, often of some severity. Idleness was, their founder thought, the mortal enemy of the soul. In order to cut off any excuse for the monks absenting themselves from their house, each convent was enjoying to provide for itself. So far as might be, all necessary supplies of food and clothes and the like. The third vow bound the monk to the most absolute and implicit obedience to the superior. Whatever was commanded by one in authority, he was bound to obey at once as a divine command. This prompt obedience was the first step in the road to humility. By it, the monk testified that nothing was dearer to him than the work of Christ. When the novice was required to regard his Abbot as one who stood in the place of Christ, we may clearly see that the Benedictine order was from the first a church within the church. What the bishop was to the diocese, that was the Abbot to his convent. The difference was that the narrower circle aimed at a higher level of Christian life than was possible for the wider, and as the strength of the church lies in the fact that it is a growing tree capable of adapting itself to its environment, so the Benedictine order, without departing from the intention of its founder, has been able to accommodate itself to each of the many ages through which it has lived. Benedict did not enjoin upon his monks an excessive asceticism. While his principles were stern and unbending, he did not make the monastic life wearisome by petty restrictions. His rule became the model for all the monastic rules of the West, in which we consequently find, with all differences of detail, a certain uniformity of type. The great glory of the Benedictine order is that it impressed upon a world in the process of dissolution the capacity for renewal, which is to be found in a life of order, industry, obedience, and simplicity. Whether in the humbler office of tilling the land, or in the hire of preserving literature and promoting sound and thorough study, the Benedictines have a well-earned fame, though they wrought for the sake of the work, and not for their own glory. The literary labors, however, for which the Benedictines had been so distinguished, were not directly prescribed by the founder. The credit of setting monks to work at literature belongs to Cassiodorus. Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, or Cassiodorius, was a Roman of distinguished family who held high offices of state under the Gothic King Theodoric. On the fall of the East Gothic Kingdom in 540, being now an old man, he withdrew to his property in Brutium, where he founded a convent, the Monasterium Bivriens. He thought it nobler to be the slave of Christ than to rule the kingdoms of this world. In the wreck of the empire, he was anxious to preserve learning. To this end, he gave to his society his own excellent library, which he continued to augment until his death. Not only were the monks incited by his example to the study of classical and sacred literature, he trained them likewise to the careful transcription of manuscripts, in the purchase of which large sums were continually dispersed. Bookbinding, gardening, and medicine were among the pursuits of the less intellectual members of the fraternity. The system took root and spread beyond the boundaries of Italy, so that the multiplication of manuscripts became gradually as much a recognized employment of monastic life as prayer or fasting. The tendency to asceticism was not unopposed. Even Saint Chrysostom, himself a monk and an earnest advocate of monastic life, emphatically rejected the distinction which was in his day commonly drawn between the counsels of perfection which were for the few, and the easier precepts which might suffice for the many. He knew how degrading was the notion that men could not attain true Christian life in the midst of the family and the world. The beatitudes, the precepts of the Lord and His apostles, these are not for the monk alone, but for all the members of Christ. A man who has a wife and children may see the Lord, as Isaiah saw him, if he has but Isaiah's spirit. Those who run away from the world in which the battle has to be fought are deserters from the great army. A very different kind of critic was Jovinian, who had also originally been a monk, but had become convinced of the unsoundness of the principle on which monasticism was generally defended. He declared, it was said, that the merits of virgins are just the same as those of the married and the widowed, who have been baptized into Christ, if the general holiness of their lives is the same, and that abstinence from food has no higher merit than the thankful participation of it. Inorthodox opinions are also attributed to him with which we are not at present concerned. Jovinian's reasoning is said to have influenced certain nuns so strongly that they broke their vows and married. His teaching excited the indignation of Pope Mauritius, who in a consistory of the Roman clergy condemned and excommunicated him and ate of his adherents as guilty of innovation and heresy. Jovinian betook himself to Milan, hoping, perhaps, for the protection of the emperor, who then held his court there. But in matters of faith, Ambrose was there almost all-powerful, and from Milan also the heretic had to flee. Ambrose also issued a letter of warning against some of his own monks, who, like Jovinian, denied the peculiar merit of celibacy. Monks as such were at first simply lay people and attended the services, or at any rate received the Eucharist, at some neighboring church. In process of time, however, it was felt to be unfitting that the brethren of a monastery should depend for sacred administrations on the clergy of a church which, as the founders of religious houses preferred remote sites, was often at some distance, and it became customary for one of the older brethren, generally the abbot himself, to be a presbyter and to administer the sacraments within the convent walls. The society had then precisely the same relationship to the bishop of the diocese, as a village with its presbyter. It was not until the time of Benedict that it was regarded as essential for a convent to have its own church and its own clergy. But as the monastic life was regarded as the highest form of Christianity and attracted many men who had otherwise had become clergymen, it became usual from the time of Pope Ceresius to ordain monks. From the end of the fourth century, in fact, the monasteries came to be looked upon as the best schools for the clergy, and especially for the bishops. Monks were not unfrequently ordained against their own wish, and even those of the clergy who were not monks frequently lived in a community which differed little from a convent. The old custom of making monasteries subject to the bishop of the diocese was broken in upon in Africa, early in the sixth century. Religious houses there sought greater independence by making themselves subject to distant bishops, especially to the bishop of Carthage. Elsewhere, the right of each bishop to take the spiritual oversight of convents within the diocese was strenuously maintained. But this was carefully restricted to such matters as belonged to the office of a bishop. The general care of the, quote, lay multitude, unquote, of monks was reserved to the abbot alone, unless the interference of the bishop was specially invoked. The imperial government, which found it necessary to provide that men should not escape their civic duties, and especially the duty of tax-paying, by receiving ordination, made an exception in favor of those who had become monks in early youth. These might receive orders forfitting thereupon a fourth part of their property. The law also provided that a married person, man or woman, should not carry off all the family property on adopting the monastic life, and it dissolved the marriage when one of the parties took the vows. It deprived parents of the right to forbid their children to enter a monastery, or to disinherit them for that cause, and masters also could not prevent their bond-servants from becoming monks. But if it made entrance easy, it made exit difficult. A monk who left his monastery, whether to enter another or to go into the world, was to leave whatever goods he had in the hands of that which he had first entered. End of Chapter 12, Part 4. Chapter 8, Part 1 of History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries by Samuel Cheatham. Chapter 8, Part 1, Ecclesiastical Ceremonies and Art. The most essential portions of Christian worship were not exposed to all men without distinction. The fear of impious imitations or parodies, such as Justin thought that he saw in the Mysteries of Mithras, no doubt restrained Christians from making public in a world still largely pagan, writes which they themselves reverenced with the deepest awe. In Justin's description, it does not appear that any but the baptized were present at the administration of baptism or the Eucharist, nor is the form of the consecration of the elements revealed. As in the apostolic age, non-believers might be present at ordinary meetings for reading of the scriptures and preaching. So in the fourth and fifth centuries, unbaptized persons were admitted to hear the Bible lessons and exposition, which might prepare them for admission to the inner Mysteries of the faith. Those who were admitted to this more open worship were, however, for the most part not mere heathens, but either Catechumans seeking admission to the Mysteries, or penitents desiring readmission, and the portion of the Eucharistic service at which they were present was called the liturgy or the mass of the Catechumans. To these, at the end of their instruction, which might extend over two or three years, were imparted what were regarded as the most sacred treasures of the Christian faith, the essentials of the baptismal rite, and the confession of faith to be made by the baptized, the Lord's Prayer, the form of consecrating and administering the Holy Eucharist. The baptismal confession became the password by which Christians knew each other, and also the solemn promise of allegiance which the Christian soldier made to the great captain. As may be supposed from the reservation of the creed, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity was not spoken of in the presence of heathens. To the carefully guarded secrets of the Christians, the name mystery came to be applied as to rites only known to the initiated. The mystery which surrounded the most sacred rites of the Church, of course, gave greater importance to the Catechuminate, the preparatory instruction through which all candidates for baptism had to pass. The usual solemn seasons of baptism were Easter and Pentecost. The later called in English, White Sunday, from the appearance of the newly baptized in their white robes. But in the East, the epiphany, when the baptism of the Lord was commemorated, was regarded as an appropriate time for baptism. And in the West, Christmas and Saints' days, especially the nativity of St. John Baptist. The bishops of Rome, however, strongly insisted on the observance of the ancient seasons, unless in the case of those who were in danger of death. Where the great season of baptism was Easter Eve, those among the Catechumens who were near the end of their course were, during Lent, brought under more special instruction. To these capetentes, as they were called, the Articles of the Creed, the nature of the sacraments, and of the penitential discipline of the church were carefully explained. The 40 days of catechizing were a period of fasting, vigil, prayer, and countenance. An epoch in the instruction was the solemn delivery of the Creed by word of mouth to the candidates which took place at Rome in the fourth week of Lent, generally on the Wednesday at Milan on the eve of Palm Sunday in Gaul and in Gothic Spain on Palm Sunday itself in Proconsular Africa, probably on the eve of the fourth Sunday in Lent. This was followed by the giving of the Lord's Prayer. At Rome and perhaps elsewhere, the giving of the Creed was preceded by the solemn handing over of the Gospels. The ceremonies of baptism itself, the interrogations, the renunciations, the exorcisms, the blessing of the water, the unctions, the three immersions, the milk and honey, the imposition of hands remained essentially the same as in the preceding period, though with some additional details. The kindling of lamps immediately after the baptism is first heard of in the fourth century as is also the putting on of white apparel which, if first assumed on Easter Eve, was worn until the Sunday after Easter, known as the Sunday of the putting off the white garments. Another ceremony which appears early in the fourth century is the washing of the feet of the baptized. But if the changes in the actual ceremony were unimportant, its general aspect changed much when the church gained its freedom. Quote, it would be difficult to imagine any scene more moving than that picture to us in the pages of Saint Cyril, when on the eve of the Savior's resurrection at the doors of the church of the anesthesis at Jerusalem, the white-robed band of the newly baptized was seen approaching from the neighboring baptistery and the darkness was turned into day in the brightness of unnumbered lights. As the joyous chant swelled upwards, blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven and whose sin is covered. It might well be thought that angels' voices were heard echoing the glad acclaim. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin and in whose spirit there is no guile. Close quote. It is clear that in the period with which we are dealing, baptism was commonly administered to such as were capable of instruction in the mysteries. Yet infants were also baptized. Quote. Let the lambs of our flock be sealed from the first. Close quote. Says Isaac the Great in the early part of the fifth century. Quote. Let the robber may see the mark impressed upon their bodies and tremble. Let the children of the kingdom be carried from the womb to baptism. Close quote. A great hindrance to the baptism of infants was the desire to reserve for a later age the sacrament which might, it was thought, wash away the sins of the previous life. Even the pious Monika preferred to defer her son's baptism when she saw him no longer in peril of death. Those who were lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God wished to defer the purifying washing to the latest moment of their lives. Against this view, which as may be supposed was not favorable to morality, the greatest teachers most earnestly protested and it gradually ceased to prevail. The chrismation and laying on of hands followed in ancient times, immediately on the washing of water and this is still the custom of the East. In the West, if no bishop was present at the baptism, the baptized were presented to him afterwards at some convenient season, this part of the service being reserved to the Episcopal order. The Arabic canons, called Nicene, desired the core Episcopus in his circuits to cause the boys and girls to be brought to him that he may sign them with the cross, pray over them, lay his hands upon them and bless them. When heretics were readmitted to the church, even if their baptism was held valid, they were in almost all cases required to receive imposition of hands from a Catholic bishop. A layman was permitted to baptize one who lay in peril of death, who, if he survived, was to be brought to the bishop for the laying on of hands. An African council in the year 398 forbade women to baptize, notwithstanding which in later times midwives were instructed to baptize newborn infants in case of need. The question of validity of baptism conferred by heretics, already agitated in the second century, reappeared at a later time, especially in connection with the Donatists. The general conclusion arrived at in the West may be stated in the words of St. Augustine with regard to Marcion. If Marcion, he says, quote, hallowed baptism by the evangelical words in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, the right was sound, even though his own faith as he understood by those words something different from that which Catholic truth teaches was not sound but stained with fictions of falsehood. Close quote. Andy Elsewhere defines his conception of the effect of baptism among heretics. In heresy, men may have baptism, although it does not begin to avail them unto salvation until they have been converted from the error of their ways. On this principle, the second council of Arles directed that Fotiniens coming over to the church should be baptized, but that Bonossians should not as they have already received baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity. In the East, the view prevailed that baptism must be received from blameless priests or it became pollution. To this effect, Athanasius declared that he who was sprinkled by heretics is rather defiled in ungodliness than redeemed with the ransom of Christ. Jovinian, a man in other respects also eccentric, ascribed extravagant effects to baptism. He endeavored to show, said his opponent Jerome, that they who had received baptism in the fullness of faith could not be tempted of the devil. If any were so tempted, they had received the baptism of water only and not of the spirit. All who had kept their baptism unstained had the same reward in the kingdom of heaven as, on the other hand, all who fell had the same punishment. His views were condemned by Ambrose and by Ceresius, Bishop of Rome. The doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, important as it is, did not become the subject of any conspicuous controversy or of synodal decision within the first six centuries. There was no sharp authoritative definition of the effect of eucharistic consecration. Various teachers expressed their opinions in diverse ways without condemning those who expressed their views differently. All agreed that there was something in the mystery to be looked upon with reverence and awe. All agreed that the bread and wine became, by priestly consecration, in some sense, the body and blood of Christ. But the nature of the change was variously conceived and expressed. Some regarded the presence of Christ in the elements as a spiritual one, effectual only to the faithful receiver. Others conceived the effect of consecration rather as a change of substance in the bread and wine, while the greater number of teachers adopted neither of these views to the exclusion of the other. Almost all spoke of a change or transformation, terms which were also applied to the baptismal water and to chrism after benediction. Those who were most under the influence of origin, as Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, and Gregory of Naziansus, inclined to the more spiritual view, which also found vigorous support in the West from Augustine and his followers, influenced as they were by the belief that only those who were pretestant to life could really and truly feed upon the Son of God. Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, Hilary of Poichers, and Ambrose, inclined rather to the conception of a change in the substance of the elements. Gregory of Nysa held the peculiar view that as during the Lord's earthly life, bread and wine became by assimilation part of his natural body. So, after his ascension by the working of his divine power, the consecrated bread and wine became part of his glorified body. The Nestorian controversy was not without effect upon the views which were held as to the nature of the Eucharistic change. Those who held that the divine nature of Christ did not annihilate the human, also held that the presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements did not annihilate the proper substance of the bread and wine. It remains, said Theodorette, in its own essence or substance. The proper nature or substance of the bread and wine, said Pope Galatius, does not cease to exist. Still, the popular tendency was naturally to the more obvious and easily conceivable view of the mystic change, and this is found embodied in liturgies. The definite doctrine of transubstantiation emerged from the scholastic philosophy in the Middle Ages. We have already seen that from very ancient times the Eucharist was regarded as, in some sense, a sacrifice, as in it was commemorated and pleaded the one all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ. This conception acquired greater prominence in the fourth century, and the Fathers sometimes used expressions which almost seemed to imply that in the Holy Eucharist, the sacrifice of Christ is repeated without shedding of blood. Such expressions as the spiritual sacrifice, the bloodless service, are frequent both in sermons and in liturgies, but still they imply rather a commemoration than an actual sacrifice. Yet, Chrysostom also speaks as if in the consecrated Eucharist, the lamb that was slain were actually lying on the altar. The connection of propitiatory masses with the doctrine of purgatorial fire is not found before the time of Gregory the Great. In the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, the same elements are found which were already in use in the third century, but, as in the case of baptism, with some amplification and added splendor. The first portion of the service to which Cacic humans were admitted consisted principally of prayer and reading of passages of Holy Scripture. The readings of Scripture in the Eucharistic office were in ancient times three, the prophecy or reading from the Old Testament, the Apostle or Epistle, and the Gospel. A rubric in the liturgy of St. James directs the reading of a passage from the Old Testament and the practice still continued in the West in the later part of the sixth century. The reading of a portion from the Apostle, that is, St. Paul, or from an epistle of some other apostolic writer and from a Gospel, has probably been universal from the earliest times to the present day. The allusions to the practice are almost innumerable. At an early date, certain books seem to have been appropriated to certain ecclesiastical seasons and the readings to have been taken from them in order unless the course was interrupted by some festival for which there were proper elections. It was, for instance, an established rule in St. Chrysostom's time that the Acts of the Apostles should be read in the period between Easter and Pentecost, and St. Augustine apologizes for interrupting his course on St. John, in which he had followed the order of the Eucharistic elections because a saint's day intervened the elections of which he was not at liberty to change. No table of epistles and Gospels now exists, which is certainly earlier than the time of Gregory the Great, but, quote, even the earliest Greek manuscripts bear distinct traces of having been used for liturgical purposes, close, quote, and, quote, the fact that the same elections were employed by the fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries as the subjects of their homilies proves the very early date of their assignment to particular days, close, quote. The word of exhortation and exposition of scripture were, as we have already seen, regarded as a due preparation for the Eucharistic feast. In the fourth century, preaching was regarded as a special function of the bishop, but not to the entire exclusion of presbyters. Chrysostom, still a presbyter, says at the end of a sermon preached at Antioch that he must now be silent and make way for his master. No layman, not even a monk, however distinguished was permitted to preach in a church. In some cases, a portion of a sermon was addressed to the general congregation, including Cacic humans and others, while another was reserved for the faithful when they alone remained. Sosomon tells us that in Rome, neither the bishop preached nor anyone else. If this was the case, the custom certainly was broken through in the fifth century by Leo the Great, of whom we have many sermons. To speak generally, preaching was frequent in the great town churches, but comparatively rare in the country villages. Not that presbyters in charge of a church where there was no bishop were forbidden to preach, but that they frequently lacked the will or the power. It was to correct this state of things that presbyters were everywhere enjoined to preach, and that, where they were unable to do so, deacons were empowered to read homilies of the fathers. The bishop commonly delivered his address sitting on his throne at the east end of the sanctuary, though he often came forward in order to be better heard, to the rail which separated the sanctuary from the nave or to the desk from which the lessons were read. It must not be supposed, however, that it was only in the Eucharistic office that sermons were preached. There are, for instance, two sermons of Augustines on the same subject, the second of which must have been preached in the afternoon. Chrysostom also preached at a later hour than that of Communion, though it appears that he had to combat a superstitious objection to hearing sermons after taking food. Oratory occupied in the early centuries, but a subordinate place in the Western church. But in the East, it was much more prominent and important, and was seduliously cultivated, the Greek preachers adopting the style which was taught in the schools of rhetoric by such men as Libanius. From the schools also, the practice of applauding admired passages passed into the churches, much against the wish of the greatest preachers. Chrysostom has to remind his hearers that they did not come to church to see a stage play. Sermons were, for the most part, carefully prepared orations delivered without a manuscript, but we hear occasionally of sermons being read. In Syria, sermons in a loosely metrical style were much in favor. Of the later portion of the liturgy, at which only the initiated, the enlightened, were allowed to be present, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in the last of his lectures to the Catechic humans, supplies us with an exact and trustworthy account as it existed in the mother of churches in the middle of the fourth century. It is to this effect. First, the deacon presents to the bishop and to the presbyters who encircle the sanctuary, water to wash their hands, symbolizing the purity with which we ought to approach the holy mysteries. He then exhorts the brethren to give each other the holy kiss, a token of the oneness of their souls. The bishop then exclaims, "'Lift up your hearts,' and the faithful respond. "'We lift them up unto the Lord. "'Then let us give thanks unto the Lord, our God,' to which the response is, "'It is meat and right.' "'Then God's mercies in heaven and earth "'through angels and men are commemorated, "'the strain ending in, "'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Savioth.' Then, proceeds Cyril, quote, "'We beseech the merciful God "'to send forth the Holy Spirit "'upon the elements displayed on the altar, "'that he may make the bread, the body of Christ, "'and the wine, the blood of Christ, "'for certainly whatever the Holy Spirit "'may have touched is hallowed and changed.' Next, over that propitiatory sacrifice, we beseech God for the peace of the church, for the good ordering of the world, for kings, for our soldiers and allies, for those who are sick or in trouble, and in short, we all pray for all who need help, and so we offer the sacrifice. Then we commemorate those who have gone to rest before us, first among them patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, that God, through their prayers and intercessions, may accept our prayer. After these, we commemorate those holy fathers and bishops, and all others of our body who have gone to rest before us, believing that the greatest benefit will accrue to their souls on whose behalf prayer is offered while the holy and awful sacrifice is displayed." Upon this intercession followed the Lord's prayer. Then the bishop says, "'Holy things for holy men!' "'The consecrated elements are holy, "'fit for the holy alone to receive, "'to which the response is made. "'One only is holy, one only is the Lord, "'even Jesus Christ.' "'Then the chanter sings the words, "'Oh, taste and see how gracious the Lord is!' "'And the communicant's approach, "'holding out the right hand supported by the left, "'so as to receive the body in the palm, "'saying Amen upon reception.' "'Ceril recommends his neophytes "'to touch their eyes with the holy particle "'before partaking. "'After the body, the cup of the blood is received, "'reverently, with bowed head, "'the recipient, saying Amen. "'With the moisture remaining on the lips, "'the communicant is recommended to touch the forehead, "'the eyes and the other organs of the senses. "'Then he is to wait for the prayer "'and to give thanks to God "'who is granted to him so great mysteries.' "'In this description it may be observed "'that there is no mention of the recitation "'of the words of institution "'or of the oblation of the consecrated elements. "'Saint Cyril was perhaps unwilling to mention these "'in such a manner as to run the risk "'of bringing them to the knowledge of the heathen. "'However this may have been, "'they are so absolutely universal in all existing liturgies "'that it is impossible to doubt "'that they are derived from very early, "'if not absolutely from primitive times. "'The characteristics above enumerated are found, "'with many differences of detail and of arrangement, "'in almost all the liturgies "'which have come down to us. "'These fall into five divisions, "'the Palestinian, of which the Greek liturgy of St. James, "'corresponding in its principal features, "'with that described by St. Cyril, "'is probably the earliest example. "'The Alexandrian, typified by that called St. Mark's, "'the East Syrian or Nestorian, "'the Hispano Galican, and the Roman, "'from which the Ambrosian differs but little. "'Of these, the first three may be called Eastern, "'the other two Western, "'though the later also, especially the Spanish, "'show traces of an Eastern origin. "'We find in nearly all liturgies after the Sanctus, "'commemoration of the Lord's life or of some event in it, "'and of the institution of the Eucharist, "'oblation, prayer for living and dead, "'leading on to the Lord's prayer with its embolismus "'or expansion of the petition, "'deliver us from evil. "'In the Eastern liturgies always, "'sometimes in the Galican and Spanish, "'but not in the Roman or Ambrosian, "'we have an Epichlisus, "'or prayer for the descent of the Holy Spirit "'upon the elements. "'In the Alexandrian, or St. Mark's, liturgy alone, "'the prayer for the living and the dead, "'and for acceptance of the sacrifice, "'are inserted in the preface, "'which intervenes between the Sursum Corda and the Sanctus. "'The East Syrian liturgies differ from Palestinian, "'mainly in having the intercession for living and dead "'before the Epichlisus. "'The most remarkable peculiarity of the Roman rite is "'that the commemoration of the living "'is separated from that of the dead "'and precedes consecration. "'The peculiarities of the Galican rite show "'that it belongs to a wholly different family from the Roman. "'In it, the prayers for living and dead, "'with the kiss of peace, "'follow the ablation of the unconsecrated elements "'and precede the Sursum Corda. "'The Sanctus is immediately followed by the prayer "'called Colectigo post Sanctus, "'and this again by the recitation "'of the words of institution. "'The solemn processions at the bringing in "'of the Book of the Gospels, or the lesser entrance, "'and at the bringing in of the elements, "'or the greater entrance, are particularly Eastern. "'And it is not only an arrangement "'and in some details that the Eastern liturgies "'differ from the Western. "'While in the East, the liturgical forms are fixed "'and nothing varies from day to day "'except the Lections and some of the Hymns. "'In the West, almost everything changes with the festival. "'The Roman liturgy has regularly changing collets "'as well as Lections and Hymns, "'and had anciently an almost equal store "'of changing prefaces. "'In the liturgies of the Galican type, "'even the prayers which accompany the consecration "'change with the season. "'And the style of the East is markedly different "'from that of the West. "'While the prayers of the East are long "'and remarkable for a certain solemn magma eloquence, "'in those of the West, "'of which we have familiar instances "'in our own Anglican collets, "'we are at once struck by a terse "'and even laconic expressiveness. "'The gorgeous East is contrasted here, "'as in many other points, "'with the more sober and practical West. "'The elements were still offered "'by the members of the Church. "'It would seem to follow that the bread "'was that which was commonly used in households, "'though it may no doubt have been specially prepared. "'In the East, there is no question "'that from the first, "'the bread provided for the Eucharist "'has always been leavened. "'While in the West, "'there can scarcely be said "'to be any distinct proof "'of the use of unleavened cakes "'before the time of Leo IX, "'at circa 1050. "'It was indifferent whether the wine "'was white or red, "'so that it was made from the juice of the grape. "'The mixing of water with the wine "'was almost universal "'and was thought to symbolize the blood and water "'which flowed from the Lord's pierced side "'or the two natures in the Person of Christ. "'To avoid the latter symbolism, "'the Armenian monophysites used pure wine. "'The consecrated elements were called Yuloke, "'a name afterwards applied "'to that portion of the oblations "'which had not been consecrated "'and which was distributed after celebration "'to those who had not communicated. "'The old custom of sending consecrated Yuloke "'as a sign of brotherly feeling "'to distant churches or bishops "'was forbidden by the Council of Leo de Sia "'in the fourth century. "'Ordinaryly, any remains "'of the consecrated elements "'were consumed by the clergy "'or it would seem, in some cases, "'by innocent children, infant communions "'still being practiced. "'Communion, in one kind, "'that of bread only, "'was only heard of among the Manicheans. "'As in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries, "'the commemorative and sacrificial aspect "'of the Holy Eucharist came to be more regarded "'than the receiving the heavenly food, "'the faithful communicated less frequently. "'In the East, they are said to have contented themselves "'with one Communion in the year, "'but daily Communion was not infrequent "'and Christian teachers urged the faithful "'to communicate at least weekly. "'Councils threatened with excommunication, "'those who did not at any rate communicate "'at the three great festivals. "'Even in the time of Tertullian, "'it seems to have been regarded as becoming "'that the recipients and the ministers "'of Holy Communion should be fasting. "'But the necessity of communicating fasting "'does not appear to have been recognized "'before the fourth century. "'From that time, there is a general consent of testimony "'that the sacrament could only be given "'to those who had not taken food "'on the day of reception. "'It was emphatically laid down by consular decrees "'that the clergy who administered the Eucharist "'must be fasting. "'The one exception was on Monday, Thursday. "'The whole service took, during the fourth "'and following centuries, "'an aspect of greater staintliness and splendor. "'The number of clergy was greatly increased "'and they appeared in special and appropriate vestments. "'These were derived from the dress, "'once almost universal among the upper classes "'of the Empire, both in the East and West, "'the long tunic with some kind of super vestment, "'which bore various names. "'The white tunic, used as the ceremonial dress "'of a Christian minister, "'came to be known simply as Alba, the modern alb. "'Other varieties of the tunic were the Dolmatic "'and the Greeks de Caryon, "'both of which we find mentioned as lay garments "'before they were appropriated "'to the services of the sanctuary. "'The upper robe appears as the Finoles, or Planeta. "'At a later date as the Casula, our Chassuel. "'A strip of cloth passed round the neck "'so that the ends hung down in front, "'or, for a deacon, passed over the left shoulder, "'was called a Orrarium, "'in much later times the Stole, "'and a similar strip passed round the wrist, a Maniple. "'There is little doubt that the Omophorion "'and the Pallium are simply modifications of the Stole. "'The color of the liturgical vestments "'up to the Middle Ages was always white "'for all orders of the clergy." As early as the fourth century, we find the pastoral staff regarded as one of the insignia of a bishop. Rings were used by bishops as by other dignified persons from early times, but there seems to be no distinct proof of there being regarded as symbols of office before the later half of the sixth century. Early in the seventh century, we find Stole, Ring, and Staff recognized as characteristic of a bishop, Stole and Chassibal of a priest, Stole and Olp of a deacon. The Gregorian sacramentary states expressly that no cleric stands in the church at any time with covered head unless you have an infirmity. Quote, "'It may be safely asserted "'that no case has been at all made out "'for a general use of an official headdress "'of Christian ministers "'during the first eight or nine centuries after Christ.'" Close quote. The burning of incense as a natural symbol of praise and prayer rising towards God and as surrounding offerers and offerings with a sweet order seems to have come into use in the fourth century. Incense is permitted by the apostolic canons to be presented at the time of offering, but the pseudo Dionysius, possibly writing in the fourth century, seems to be the first who distinctly testifies to its use in religious ceremonial. Its use is prescribed in ancient liturgies, but it is difficult to fix a date for their several component parts. A thurible of gold is said to have been sent by a king of Persia to a church in Antioch about the year 594. The sign of the cross was constantly used both by the ministers in divine service and by lay people. Make the sign of the cross, says Cyril of Jerusalem, quote. On thy forehead, bet the demons, seeing the mark of the king, may tremble and flee away. Make this sign when thou eatest and when thou drinkest, when thou liest down and when thou risest up, when thou speakest and when thou walkest, close, quote. The kiss of peace was almost everywhere introduced in the Eucharistic celebration, and the faithful, as a mark of reverence, frequently kissed the doorposts of the holy house or the steps of the sanctuary, while the officiating ministers kissed the altar and the book of the gospels, quote. At an early period, we find fountains or basins supplied with fresh water near the doors of churches, especially in the East, that they who entered might wash their hands at least before they worshiped, close, quote. The earliest mention of blessing water, other than that for baptism, seems to be that in the apostolical constitutions, which describes the practice probably of the latter part of the fourth century. There is no trace of the use of holy water in the West until a much later period. The ceremonial use of lights was probably earlier. Beginning in the assemblies before dawn or in the darkness of the catacombs, the use of lamps was maintained when the services were in the light of day on account of their symbolism and their festive character. There are also traces as early as the fourth century of the practice of maintaining an ever-burning lamp in the sanctuary. Kneeling was the usual posture of prayer in the churches, except on Sundays and in the season between Easter and Pentecost, when it was desired to express exulting joy rather than humiliation, and so the faithful prayed standing. The praying figures of the Roman catacombs are represented standing with arms expanded and hands open. All faces were turned towards the East where the sun arose, the natural symbol of the light of the world. In early times, the voices of the congregation had no doubt taken a large share in the responsive portion of the service, but as the music came to be more elaborate, it fell more and more into the hands of the trained singers who formed the choir. The council of Laodicea would indeed have confined all singing and church to these. The singing consisted either of sentences chanted by the lay people in response to the clergy, or of psalms or psalm-like compositions chanted in alternate strains by a choir divided into two bands. The latter method is believed to have been introduced, perhaps after the example of the Syrians, by Flavian and Deodorus, about the year 350 at Antioch, whence it spread rapidly throughout the world. This kind of music was brought into use by Ambrose at Milan to cheer the hearts of the faithful under the oppression of the Arian Empress Justina and soon spread over the Western church. Augustine, however, somewhat dreaded the concord of sweet sounds, thinking that he was sometimes more moved by the music than by the matter of what he heard, and he says that Athanasius preferred a simple monotone to more elaborate music. Jerome was indignant with the operatic singers of his time, and Chrysostom did not like the devil's tunes to be applied to the songs of angels. End of chapter eight, part one. Chapter 13, part two of history of the Christian church during the first six centuries. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the Christian church during the first six centuries by Samuel Cheatham, chapter 13, part two, ecclesiastical ceremonies and art. Besides the Eucharistic celebrations, the faithful had also meetings for worship of another kind. We have already seen that before the end of the third century, hours of prayer were prescribed for the devout. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, the hour system was developed so that seven hours were observed. The Eastern and Western offices for the several hours, widely as they now differ, probably owe their origin to a common source. The earliest form, quote, appears to have consisted in the recitation of Psalms together with prayers and hymns, but with no lessons, and to have been designed for use during the night and in the early morning. Saints Basil and Chrysostom and others often speak of these services. The origin of these prayers has been traced with much probability to the 18 prayers used in the Jewish synagogue. The earliest form of the Roman office appears to have consisted solely of the Psalter, so distributed as to be recited once a week. At the end of the appointed number of Psalms for the daily office, Patr Noster was said. This seems to have constituted the entire office which contained no lessons, hymns, or colleagues. Lessons were in early times only read at the mass. The nocturnal office of the Eastern church and the Mozarabic matins contained no lessons at the present time, close quote. But the Council of Laodicea, about AD 360, enjoined that in assemblies for worship, the Psalms should not be said continuously but that after each Psalm there should be election and this only from canonical scripture. And in Cassian's time, we find that the custom of reading two scripture lessons between every 12 Psalms was an immemorial custom with the monks of Egypt. Saint Benedict in the offices which he instituted prescribed no lesson during the short nights of summer, but during the winter half of the year there were to be three elections and these not only from scripture but from those doctors of the church who were in the highest repute. The elaborate system of our offices ultimately formed could naturally only be kept up in a religious house. Iflections did not from the first form part of the non-Eucharistic office, the reading of scripture was at any rate highly commended. It was the mark of a good Christian to be familiar with holy scripture. Copies of the Bible were commonly on sale and rooms were provided in churches to which those who would might retire to meditate on God's law. Such teachers as Chrysostom and Augustine rejected with indignation the excuses of the lay people who alleged that they had no time to read the scriptures or that they were unable to understand them. The former in fact traces the corruptions of the church to the prevailing ignorance of scripture. Litonies or Rogationes, processions that is about the fields with supplications for fruitful seasons and for freedom from pestilence and famine, were instituted by Memertus, Bishop of Vien in the year 452 on the three days immediately preceding ascension day. Marriage signifying to us as it does the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his church has from primitive times received the blessing of the Christian ministry. The anxious care of the church for the sacredness of family life caused it to forbid the union of near kindred whether by blood or by marriage. While in some cases it recognized the validity of unions which the state did not sanction as for instance those between slave and free. Marriages of Catholics with heathens, Jews or heretics were naturally discouraged and were punished by a period of penance. Adultery of either husband or wife was generally recognized as a ground of divorce and also unnatural crimes and apostasy from the faith. Remarriage of persons who had been divorced was permitted by some authorities but in the end came to be forbidden even to the innocent party. Prayers and benedictions for the mass which accompanied marriage are found in the Galatians sacramentary but no account of the marriage ceremonies of the West which differed in some points from those of the East seems to be found earlier than that of Pope Nicholas the first in the ninth century who describes to the Bulgarians the immemorial usage of the Latin church. A usage which probably dates from an earlier period in the sixth century. With us he says no band of gold or silver or of any other metal is placed on the heads of the contracting parties in the marriage ceremony. We have first the betrothal an engagement to contract marriage at a future time entered into with the full consent of the parties themselves and of those in whose power they are their parents or guardians. The bridegroom gives earnest to the bride by placing a ring on her finger and either then or at some other time appointed hands to the bride in the presence of witnesses summoned for the purpose a formal contract to provide the dowry mutually agreed upon. In the church they present themselves with the oblations which they are to offer to God by the hand of the priest and not till then do they receive the sacred veil and the benediction as the first pair received a blessing and paradise. Those who marry a second time however do not receive the veil. On leaving the church there are placed on their heads crowns which are kept there for the purpose and the nuptial rites being thus completed they are exhorted with God's help to lead a life of unity for ever after. These are the Pope says the principal ceremonies in marriage though there are others in use which he does not think it necessary to specify and he lays it down very clearly that nothing is absolutely necessary for a valid marriage but the mutual consent of the parties to be married quoting Chrysostom to the same effect. The Greek practice with which the Pope contrasts his own was to place crowns on the head of the bride and bridegroom soon after the service began. The use of the ring seems almost universal but while in the West the bridegroom alone gives the ring to the bride as earnest in the betrothal ceremony. In the East the bride also gives a ring to the bridegroom. The crowning is so important to write in the Greek church that it gives name to the marriage service while in the Latin church it seems little more than a country custom of putting a peculiar headdress on the wedded pair when they left the church. The Pope does not mention the joining of hands but it is clear that this was a usual observance both in East and West. The veil spoken of is not the bride's veil but a purple covering spread over both bride and bridegroom at the time of the benediction as a token of their union. As may readily be supposed the Christian church did not neglect the sick and dying. Not only did the ministers of the church visit the sick offer prayer with and for them, lay hands upon them and administer holy communion to them but they also after the apostolic precept and example anointed them with oil in the name of the Lord. In absent the first, early in the 5th century seems to have been the first to apply the word sacramentum to this right and it was not until a much later period that it came to be regarded simply as a safeguard for one actually on the point of death and to be called extreme unction. According to the pseudo aereopagite the body of the departed was anointed with oil in a quasi sacramental manner but this testimony is unsupported and probably represents the writer sense of what would be fitting rather than the fact. The wreath often placed on the head of the corpse was probably intended simply as an emblem of victory over death but found objectors as savoring of paganism. The superstitious custom of placing a consecrated host within the lips of a corpse or in the coffin was condemned by several councils. Violent expressions of grief, tearing of the garments, the use of sackcloth and ashes, the bearing of cypress branches and the like were held to be long rather to those who sorrowed without hope than to those who had Christ in them, the hope of glory. The funeral procession was almost always in the full light of day, though lamps and torches were born in it as well as branches of olive and palm. The philosophic emperor Julian forbade funerals in the daytime, especially on the ground that to meet them was of ill omen. From the fourth century onward, attempts seem to have been made to bury as near as possible to a church. For an edict of Grachian repeats the old law against the bearing in cities and expressly provides that no exception is to be made for places hallowed by the remains of apostles or martyrs. The custom of holding a banquet or celebrating the Eucharist at the tomb still lingered in the fourth century. A custom arose in early times of placing lights on graves. This, which seems to have been derived from paganism, was condemned by the Council of Ilvira. And in the early part of the fifth century was attacked by Vigilancius, to whom Jerome replied in rather a half-hearted way, pleading that it was a practice of simple-minded people who meant no harm by it. Great care was exercised in the choice of persons to be ordained. Some classes were altogether excluded as Cacic humans, persons newly baptized, baptized privately in severe sickness, or by heretics, or who after baptism had lived unworthily of their vocation. Penitents, those who had been twice married, possessed or epileptic persons, or such as they had suffered any bodily mutilation, all who exhibited themselves on the stage or in the circus, all slaves, and even freedmen who were not clear of every obligation towards their former masters, all whose condition of life did not afford them the necessary freedom to devote themselves to the service of the Church as soldiers or members of the civil service. The state forbade those who were responsible for the payment of the imperial taxes, the curiales, to be withdrawn from this duty by ordination. In early times, a bishop seems not to have been ordained under the age of 50 years. Justinian's legislation required 35. In practice, it was held sufficient if a bishop-elect had attained 30 years. Strict inquiry was made as to the candidate's soundness in the faith, his blamelessness of life, and his social condition. A provincial council in the sixth century decreed that no one should be ordained to the priesthood who had not served a year at least as lector or subdeacon. No one was ordained except to a particular church, his title to orders. Among the few exceptions to this rule were Paulinus and Jerome. The clergy in the period of which we are now treating were probably rarely educated for their work in a school of theology. Such schools do not appear to have existed in the West. And in the East, those which arose at Alexandria, Antioch, and elsewhere seem to have come to an end or lost their influence in the troubles of the fifth and sixth centuries. So long as the great pagan schools, such as those of Athens and Alexandria, continued to flourish, many young men of Christian families sawed in them general culture and philosophical training while they afterwards specially prepared themselves for the priesthood in the subordinate offices of the church or in monastic retirement. When, however, it became customary for the clergy of a city to live together in one dwelling under the superintendents of the bishop, such clergy houses commonly became seminaries in which candidates for orders were trained for their future work. The ceremonies which were used in admitting a person to the office for which he had been chosen were mainly two, the imposition of hands with prayer for the special grace required, and the formal delivery of the insignia and instruments of office. The laying on of hands with a view to the conferring of spiritual gifts was in most cases the privilege of the Episcopal order only. But the presbyters who were present also laid their hands on the head of one who was being ordained as presbyter, and there was no laying on of hands in the admission to office of subdeacons and others who filled the lower ranks in the service of the church. The delivery to one admitted to an office of the instruments which he was to use was a natural inauguration of his new functions. A reader had to read, the book was delivered to him, and he read, a subdeacon had to wash the bishop's hands, a pitcher and towel were delivered to him, as well as the chalice and paten of which he was to have charge. A deacon had, in southern countries, to drive away insects from the ablations upon the altar. A fan for this purpose was delivered to him. The delivery of the Eucharistic vessels to a presbyter is not found in the oldest Western ordinals. Gregory of Nazianzus tells us that when he was made bishop, he was vested by his ordainers in a long tunic or alb and a mitre, but scarcely any other allusion to the custom of vesting a candidate is found until a much later date. A peculiar ceremony in the ordination of a bishop was the holding of the book of the gospels over his head by two bishops while he received the benediction and the imposition of the hands of the other bishops. The use of chrism in ordination is first alluded to by Gregory the Great. From early times, the clergy were forbidden to wear long hair and, quote, in the later part of the sixth century, the tonsure seems to have become definitely established as a mark of separation between clergy and laity, close quote. The shape of the tonsure varied in different churches. End of chapter 13, part two. Chapter 13, part three of history of the Christian Church during the first six centuries. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of the Christian Church during the first six centuries by Samuel Cheatham, chapter 13, part three, ecclesiastical ceremonies and art. Socrates, the historian, noticing the diversity of practice in different regions with regard to the observance of the Paschal Festival, points out that the observance of special days and months and years had no scriptural authority. The Mosaic Law had, he says, no direct bearing upon the Christian Church and the ceremonies and observances which he saw in actual use had arisen, for the most part, simply from local use and want. The cycle of festivals satisfied a craving of human nature. As for the apostles, they did not aim at giving rules for feast days, but at promoting piety and righteousness. This is true. The end of the observance of special days and hours is the maintaining and raising of the spiritual life of the Church. But in time, festivals and fasts of universal observance acquire a sacredness which few dispute. The Lord's Day and the stations of Wednesday and Friday were already observed before the end of the third century. Constantine is said to have closed the law courts and forbidden labor on the Friday as well as on the Sunday, the Wednesday being probably always a day less strictly observed. Socrates notes, as a primeval custom of the Alexandrians, that on the Wednesday and Friday, the scriptures are read and expositions given in the churches, that in short, everything belonging to the solemn assembly is done except the actual celebration. Everywhere in the early part of the fifth century, there was a celebration of the Holy Eucharist on the Sabbath, that is Saturday, accepting at Alexandria and Rome where a local custom forbade it. While in the parts of Egypt bordering on Alexandria and in Thebade, the inhabitants had a custom on that day differing from that of the rest of Christendom. They partook of the Eucharist in the evening after a sumptuous repast. In the West, however, and particularly at Rome, Saturday became a fast day and had no celebration of the Eucharist. Four times in the year, once in each of the four seasons of the year, three days of the week, our ember days were observed with special solemnity. This custom appears to be peculiar to the Roman Patriarchate and not to be older than the fifth century. The disputes as to the proper time of celebrating Easter still continued in the period with which we are now concerned. At the Council of Nicaea, it was agreed that all the churches should conform to the use which was observed in Egypt, Africa, Italy, and the West generally. It is not clear that the Council laid down any rule for the determination of Easterday. Certainly, it did not put an end to the controversy. The quarto desim and practice still required to be repressed at the time of the Council of Constantinople in the year 381 and indeed did not die out until the sixth century. Even Rome and Alexandria often celebrated their Easter on a different day. This difference arose partly from the fact that the two churches used different cycles for the computation of the day of the Paschal Full Moon, partly from the Romans holding that Easterday must never fall earlier than the 16th day of the Paschal Moon, while the Alexandrians allowed it to be celebrated on the 15th and the Roman tradition did not allow Easterday to fall later than April 21st, while Alexandrian custom extended the Paschal limit to the 25th. The Britons observed Easter Sunday so early as the 14th day of the Paschal Moon. If it so fell according to their antiquated cycle, a practice which became a point of difference between them and the Roman missionaries under Augustine. An important step towards uniformity was made when victorious of Aquitaine, about AD 457, composed a new cycle combining the Alexandrian lunar cycle of 19 years with the solar cycle of 28 years, thus forming the Victorian period of 532 years. Still discrepancies occurred until the matter was finally set at rest by the Roman Abbot Dionysius Exigius, the same who introduced the era Anodomini into chronology. He employed the Victorian period in the Easter table which he constructed and in fact seems to have done little more than adapt the Victorian calculations to his own era of the nativity. The table of Dionysius was received almost universally in the East and West and from this time we have little controversy about the date of Easter day except where, as in Britain, the Roman missionaries found a church standing on older ways than their own. The 40 days preceding Easter are mentioned as days of special observance from the fourth century and are regarded as the time for preparing candidates for baptism, penitence for absolution, and the faithful generally for joining worthily into the Paschal Festival. One of the observances of such a season was naturally fasting but the nature and extent of this varied considerably in different places. The extension of the Lenten fast in the Alexandrian Patriarchate may be traced in the Festol letters of Athanasius from the year 329 to 347. At the earliest date, he speaks of the season of the 40 days and the week of fasting. At the latest of the 40 days fast and the Holy Week before Easter. At Rome, only three weeks before Easter were at this time observed by fasting and even in these, the Sabbath and the Lord's Day were not fasts. In the Church of Antioch and its dependencies, the 40 days seem to have been distinguished from Holy Week while at Jerusalem, Alexandria and Rome, Holy Week was included in them. Towards the middle of the fifth century, the Churches generally agreed in observing specially the six weeks preceding Easter. Deducting Sundays, this period included only 36 days of actual fasting, a circumstance which led to the addition to the Lent fast of the four days preceding the first Sunday in Lent. This addition was, however, not made in Rome at least until the time of Gregory the Great. The week which immediately precedes Easter Day, the emphatically Holy Week was specially observed from a very early period. The term Palm Sunday does not seem to be applied to the Lord's Day which begins this week by any earlier authority than Isidore of Seville in the early part of the seventh century. On the Thursday of this week, our Monday Thursday, the institution of the Holy Eucharist was specially commemorated and in some churches, the faithful communicated on this day after taking their evening meal, a reminiscence of the circumstances of the original institution. Good Friday, the day on which the Lord's crucifixion was commemorated was a day for the strictest fasting and for every display of sadness and mourning. On this day, there was no Eucharist. At Jerusalem, the true cross was exposed to the faithful who on this day alone were permitted to approach and kiss it. On Easter Eve, the joy of the approaching festival began to appear. Troops of neo-fights were buried with Christ in baptism. The numbers of the faithful passed the night in the churches waiting for his resurrection. Abundant lamps were lighted and in some places, fires were kindled. The introduction of the blessing of the Paschal Taper is attributed to Pope Zosimus early in the fifth century. The day of the resurrection itself was celebrated with every sign of joy and exaltation, which was prolonged in some degree to the Feast of Pentecost. From the middle of the fourth century, the 40th day after Easter, Holy Thursday, was observed as a commemoration of the Lord's ascension. In the East, the manifestation of the Lord, both at his birth and at his baptism, was celebrated on the 6th of January in the fourth century, while at the same period in Rome and its dependencies, the 25th of December was observed as the day of Christ's nativity, but the festival of January 6th seems to have been then unknown there. In the fifth century, the observance of the 25th of December as the nativity had spread into the East and that of the 6th of January as the Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles and also his baptism, had extended into the West so that both festivals were observed by almost the whole church. The first mention of the Epiphany in the West appears to be in the year 360, when Julian, not yet a declared pagan, attended the church services on that day at Vien in Gaul. 40 days after the commemoration of the Lord's nativity, followed that of his presentation in the temple. On the octave of the nativity was commemorated his circumcision when the name Jesus was given. The 25th of December was probably chosen for the commemoration of Christ's birth because it was, according to the Roman calendar, then current, the winter solstice. The day on which the sun, as it were a newborn, turns again towards us, was thought a fitting epoch to commemorate the advent of the son of righteousness. From an early age, commemorations of the principal saints mentioned in scripture came to have special days assigned to them. A commemoration of the Holy Virgin seems to have been associated with that of the Lord's birth. Rome does not seem to have adopted any festival in honor of the Virgin before the seventh century. St. Stephen, St. Peter, St. James, St. John, and St. Paul were, at any rate, in some churches, commemorated between Christmas and New Year's Day. And not only these, but the other apostles came, as might be expected, to receive special commemorations in every land which the sound of their voices had reached. But besides the scriptural saints, a crowd of names of martyrs and others who had served Christ in their generation came to be held in great honor and venerated with special service on special days. When, after struggle and persecution, the flock of Christ obtained rest, it was natural that they should look back with love and veneration to the heroes of the faith who had fallen in the great fight. From the first, martyrs and confessors had been held in reverence. Devout men carried them to their burial and commemorated their death days. But in time of calm, those who had braved the storm came to be even more honored. The belief arose that by making our requests known to the martyrs, who enjoy the presence of the deity, we might the better make them known unto God. We can put no bonds, said Jerome, on the apostles, they who follow the Lamb wither so ever he goeth are of course present wherever he is. Gregory of Naziansus praised the martyr whom he is eulogizing, to look down from above upon his people and to join in the pastoral care of the flock. Solpitius Severus, grieving for the loss of Saint Martin, comforts himself and his friend Aurelius with the thought that the departed will be present with them as they speak of him and stand over them as they pray, that he will give them glimpses of his glory and guard them with his perpetual benediction. Saint Vassal regards the local martyrs as guarding the country from the onslaughts of enemies, though their power is not limited to the defense of one region only. He that is in tribulation, he says, has recourse to the martyrs and he that is in wealth runs to them no less, the one to seek help in his misfortunes, the other that his prosperity may be continued. The pious mother praying for her children, the wife supplicating for the return of her absent husband or the recovery of the sick, these trust that their prayers may be granted by the aid of the martyrs. Martyrs cooperate with our prayers and are our most powerful ambassadors. And the poets, as might perhaps be expected, go even beyond the orators in the influence which they ascribe to the saints in glory. Up to the fifth century, prayers were made in the liturgy for saints and martyrs as well as for others who have departed in the faith of Christ. We make our commemoration, says Epiphanaeus, quote, both for the righteous and for sinners, for sinners beseeching God to have mercy upon them, for the righteous, fathers and patriarchs, prophets, apostles and evangelists, martyrs and confessors, bishops and anchorites and the whole order of saints that we may distinguish the Lord Jesus Christ from those who are ranked merely as men, remembering that the Lord is not to be placed on inequality with any man, close quote. To this correspond the intercessions in the liturgy of the apostolic constitutions and in some of the Nestorian liturgies which probably in this respect retain the form which they had before the schism. On the other hand, in a liturgy described by Cyril of Jerusalem in that which bears the name of Saint James and generally in the later liturgies, commemoration is made of the Virgin Mary and of the saints, quote, in order that by their prayers and intercessions we may obtain mercy, close quote. It would be a wrong, says Saint Augustine, to pray for the martyrs whose intercession we seek. The names, whether of those saints whose intercession was asked or of those for whom the church on earth interceded were in ancient times read at the altar from folding tablets called diptychs, quote. The authority by which the name was inserted in the list was until at least the 10th century that of the bishop with, no doubt, the consent of the clergy and people and as time went on of the Synod and Metropolitan, close quote. Further, it came to be thought that prayers offered on the very spot where the body of a saint rested were of greater efficacy than those offered elsewhere. The possession of their bones was a kind of pledge that they would regard the place where they lay and would watch over the lives of those who dwelt there. Reverence is to be paid to all martyrs but most of all to those whose relics are with us. All help us by their prayers and their passion, says a writer of the fifth century. But with our own saints, we have a kind of intimacy. They abide with us, they watch over us while we are in the body. They receive us when we quit it. When nearness to the remains of the saints was so much desired, it is not wonderful that it was desired to preserve them. In Egypt, where the dead had been embalmed from time immemorial, the customs sprang up of making mummies of the bodies of famous saints, especially of martyrs, paying them the funeral honors due and then laying them on couches in their own dwellings. Saint Anthony was shocked at this practice, thinking at right that the bodies of the departed should be laid in tombs as those of the patriarchs of the Lord himself had been. But even where no embalming was attempted, the body of one who had suffered martyrdom or had been distinguished for saintliness of life was regarded as a precious possession. The first to move the bodies of the saintly dead was the emperor Constantine, who, to give his new city something of the sanctity which old Rome derived from the remains of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, brought over to Constantinople the holy relics of Andrew, Luke, and Timothy. At a later date, such translations were expressly forbidden by a law of Theodosius. The same law forbids the sale of the holy bodies, a practice which had arisen in the later part of the fourth century. There were even serious conflicts with considerable bloodshed for the possession of the corpses of those who were regarded as martyrs. Unexpected discoveries of the bodies of saints were also not uncommon. The adorate describes the flocking of the faithful to the magnificent tombs of the martyrs which were everywhere to be found. It was not once or twice a year that they were solemnly visited. Many times annually, high festival was held there. Many times a day were hymns sung there to the Lord. There, the healthy prayed for the preservation of their health, the sick for recovery, the childless for offspring. They who contemplated a journey prayed the martyrs to be their guides and companions. Those who had returned offered thanks which were due. Not that they approached them as gods, but that they supplicated them as God-like men and to be sought them to become their intercessors. And that they obtained what they sought was manifested by the vote of offerings which showed what cures had been affected, for men offered representations in gold or silver of eyes or feet or hands to commemorate their healing. It was not to be wondered that if the heathen now retorted on the Christians, the reproaches which the latter had formerly made against them of building splendid temples over dead men's bones. But far above all other saints was the mother of the Lord honored. We have already seen that the application of the epithet Mother of God to the Virgin had been a main cause of Nestorianism. But it was not merely the disputes on the incarnation that give exceeding dignity to her who was so highly favored. The ever-increasing reverence for virginity, the feeling that a woman was more ready sympathy than a man and that a mother must be powerful with her son. Such considerations as these led men to attach greater efficacy to the intercession of the Virgin than to that of other saints. As Christ was the mediator between God and man, so she came to be regarded as the mediator between man and Christ. It has been said with some degree of truth that almost everything which the Arians had said of Christ was said of the Virgin in the fifth century. She also, like the Christ of the Arians, was divine, though not one with God the Father. It came to be believed that St. Mary remained a Virgin even after the birth of her divine son, a theory which earlier ages probably have rejected as favoring the docetic notion that the Lord's body was not composed of solid flesh. Tertullian, in fact an ardent opponent of Gnosticism in all its forms, very evidently regards her as having undergone a lot of all mothers in the birth of her son, and for this, he does not appear to have been blamed. And even Basil the Great in the fourth century admits that the perpetual virginity is no necessary article of Christian faith. Though, he says, lovers of Christ cannot endure to hear that the mother of God ever ceased to be a Virgin. A strange kind of worship was paid to the Virgin in the middle of the fourth century in Arabia. There, certain women who came from Thrace paid her divine honors by offering to her cakes as renegade Jewesses had formally done to Astarte the Queen of Heaven. It was probably such extravagance as this which led certain teachers, also in Arabia, whom Epiphanaeus nicknamed Antideso Marianites to maintain an opinion which was offensive to the church at large, that St. Mary, after bringing forth her firstborn son or children to Joseph, and about the year 380, Helvedius, who lived in Rome, published a treatise in which he maintained that the Lord's brethren were the sons of Joseph and Mary, and must have found adherents for the Helvidians are spoken of as a sect or party. Similar views were maintained about the same time by Bonasus, Bishop of Sardica, and by Jovinian, who has already been mentioned as denying the special merit of virginity. The latter was condemned by synods held at Rome and at Milan about the year 390, and the former by one assembled at Capua in 392. That divine messengers, angels, both do God's service in heaven and succor men on earth, has been a pious belief of Christians in all ages of the church. They were not, however, invoked in the same way as St. Edmund. There seemed a danger lest Christians should lose the prize of their calling by worshiping of angels, and the angels themselves refused adoration when offered. Some kind of supplication was nevertheless addressed to them as the guardians of frail humanity, and it seems that in the fourth century, churches were dedicated in the names of angels which were especially visited by votaries who believed that supplications offered there would be most effectual. When annual commemorations became numerous, it was necessary to draw up lists of them in order to their proper observance. Of such calendars, or heritologia, the earliest which remain to us are the two published by Baccharius and often known by his name. Of these, the first contains a record of the burial days of the Roman bishops, from Lucius in AD 253 to Julius I in AD 352, the second, the burial days of the martyrs of the Roman church. This latter, De Rossi, takes to be a complete account of all the immovable festivals observed in the Church of Rome at the time when the list was drawn up, i.e., in the fourth century. They amount to 24. There is also extent, a calendar of the Carthaginian Church, which appears to be of the fifth or sixth century. There were no doubt similar documents everywhere which have not come down to us, containing the names of local saints and festivals, in addition to those which were observed throughout the Church. Some of the defenders of Christianity frankly pointed to the long array of saints' days in the Christian calendar as the equivalents of the old pagan holidays. Our Lord, says the Adorat to the heathen, quote, has given us our own dead as substitutes for your gods. These he has brought to nothing, to those he has allotted their honors. Instead of the Pandia, the Diasia, the Dionysia, and the rest of your holidays, there are celebrated public feasts of Peter and Paul and Thomas and Sergius and our other martyrs, close, quote. Chrysostom pointed out that the spirit of the several festivals should animate our whole life, not special days only. Quote, we keep a particular day, the epiphany, in memory of the Lord's manifestation upon earth, but he should be manifest to us every day. We keep our Paschal festival in memory of the Lord's death and resurrection, but whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, we show forth with the Lord's death. We keep our Pentecost in memory of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but we hope to have Christ always present with us through the spirit, close, quote. Very nearly connected with the reverence paid to the bodies of saints is the sacredness attributed to the places where they had lived and moved, especially to those which had been pressed by the feet of the Son of God. The Empress Helena set the example of pilgrimage to Palestine for the sake of visiting the holy places where the Lord had been born, died, and risen again. Churches were built over the spots where the Lord was born and where he was laid in the tomb. It was even believed that the actual cross upon which the Lord had suffered had been found buried in the earth. From this time, pilgrimages became frequent. Religious zeal longed to see the very places where the Lord had walked and suffered whence he had risen and descended into heaven. Happy was the man who possessed a little dust from these places, or a splinter from the wood of the very cross itself, which suffered no diminution, though fragments were daily taken from it. The only person from whom these fragments could be obtained was the Bishop of Jerusalem, a circumstance which no doubt increased the number of pilgrims to the holy city. Many also came to Palestine in hopes of being baptized in the Jordan, which Constantine himself proposed, but was unable to accomplish. End of chapter 13, part three.