THE ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL

New Zealand Tablet, 24 December 1908, Page 13

THE ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL

Mr+h J s n certam , that at , t] , le ™* of the third centurv tho wJ,+\™ nT ? was « el ? br ated in both the Eastern and Western Churches. It is equally certain that at the bog. mung of the fifth century that feast was celebrated and tWH C f r T Btian 1 a , n ' dl < if ™ exe^ *e Doiiatist and the city of Jerusalem) on the 25th of December But hot ween these points there was much difference as to thday on which the birth of Our Lord was to be celebrated.' tW n f + % r^T ° f St - Pllili P of Heraclea show that the feast of Epiphany was observed in the Eastern Church at the end of tbe third century. Now it is suithat throughout the greater part of the fourth century tbe Easterns included the birth of Christ among the four reasons for that feast. Thus at that period of the Churches of Egypt, Syria and Palestine celebrated the nativity cf Christ 0,1 the 6th of January. St. Epiphanius, a writer of the atter half of the fourth century, is very nositive as to tlie birth of Jesus on the latter date. St. Chrysostom. preaching on Christmas Day, 38S, to the people of Antioch' defends the feast from the reproach of novelty, although he admits that in Syria it was then scarcely ten vea-rs old Other Orientals of the early part of the third century, like Clement of Alexandria and Origen, seem to be ignorant of any celebration of the birth of Christ. The language ol the latter almost excludes tlie supposition of such a feast in the capital of Egypt, while the former speaks of it in connection with some Gnostic heretics, who placed the date m April or May. The act of St. John Chrysostom was not an isolated one. In 379 St. Gregory Nazianzen in union with the Emperor Theodosius the Great, introduced the feast into Constantinople. In 382 St. Gregory of Nyssa, brother of the great St. Basil, introduced it Into 1 ontus and Cappadocia. Clearly it was the authority of the Roman See that, indirectly at least, compassed these notable liturgical acts. It is no small matter that, in face of local oppositions, Constantinople and Antioch should insert in the calendar a specific Roman feast. The tradition of the 25th of December as the birthday of Our Lord is much earlier and more positive at Rome than in the Orient. St. Augustine speaks of it as an old custom in his time, and in this he is supported by St Jerome, as well as by the Cappadocians, SS. Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa. St. Chrvsostom instilled its introduction into Antioch by the example of Rome wiser in this matter than the Orient. His judgment seems to have been influenced by a copy of the Augustan census of Judea, which according to him, was kept in a public place at Rome, and proved the birth of Christ at the Roman date. The . Apostolic Constitutions, an episcopal manual compiled between A.D. 350 and 49.5 but containing' a much earlier discipline, mention the 25th of December as the feast of the Nativity. Cave even cited .Iheophilus of Caesarea, a second century writer, for this date; the passage cited is from the acts of a council held at Caesarea in Palestine A.D. 190. These acts have come down to us through the writings of Sfc. Bede, the famous historian of the English Church, in the first quarter of the eighth century. Their genuineness is yet somewhat doubt-

li: Son g 1 " e^? st studies on Sfc - Bede show that he was well versed in the most ancient Christian literature. terv of tlif . n fe S en di£!COV ered in a Greek monaswLnfJ r? °- i ChalclS a c °Py of tlie commentary of Hippolytus on Darnel, in the fourth book of which it is D e e?em C ber rly vt^r^ born on the 25tlt o Jri?fn?™«{ i ? osslb T l y. thls w an interpolation, as some cntics maintain. If it were genuine, we should have here th^thi^r^ 011 ° f the , R ° man Church in the early Srfc 3 *!tSi^id m^ ,y -- TOUe^ 4 i f^ by °«« of its "iost brilliant il Vr oncers. Such a tradition, so soon fixed in the public vyorslnp ,of the Roman Church, would bring us ord }£J? lh * S Ti dlSt&n T- ° f the >PostoHc memories S ordinances. Unexceptionable from every point of view : is the notice in the Philocaliah Calendar of A.th 386 that we find t/ t te *' ab ° ut the mi .ddle of the fourth century (354,," fhL ™ S P L -^ erl « s receiving at Rome, oii Christmas Day the vows of Marcelhiia, the sister of St. Ambrose. WiJ the UhVI ld ° n . ces + . of an « e,lt origin it seems strange that tho little ecclesiastico-astronomical tract, Be. Pascha Co™ put™, of the year 243, written either in iLly or AfrS* is silent about the feast of the 25th of December, .or ratW says positively that the birth of Jesus took place on March 28th; the day on which God created the sin was the fittest day for tho birth of the Sun of justice The practice of celebrating " _ ' Throe Masses had its origin a.t Rome. The very old MassarS Call f - the G i elasian and Gregorfan Lcramentanes contain each three Masses for the day Anciently they were said at the time and in the order m which they are prescribed in-, the Missal, i.e., at midnighr before the aurora, and after sunrise. We know that in the sixth century, and probably eailier, the Pope was wono to say these three Masses at St. Mary Major's St AiiaV tas.as (whose feast occurred that. day), and at St. Peter's Curiously enough, ihe preface of the Nativitv, several colvW +W ff iy f pai^ s of , the Masses remain identically uhat they were fourteen hundred years ago, so jealous is the Church of her liturgy and so capable of preserving H from substantial alteration. The midnight vigil of Christ mas is the last relic of a very common custom in the first Christian ages of celebrating nocturnal vigils for the feasts of the saints. The attendant disorders discredited them, so that only the venerable vigil of the Nativitv escaped In the early middle ages all the people were expected to attend tlie midnight Mass and to communicate under pain of tliree years' excommunication, as a mean's of compelling the performance of what we now call Easter duty Perhaps this is the meaning of the tradition that the Emperor Justin (the first or the second) ordered Christmas to be everywhere celebrated, no doubt by confession and Comrnumon for it was a common feast long before the time of either Justin. At an early date legend and fancy seized upon the feast and decked it out with Charming Myths. There are some few left from the- Graeco-Roman time, sucu as the story that at the birth of Christ the Temple of Peace at Rome collapsed; that a spring of. oil burst out in the lrastcvere and flowed the whole day long into the Tiber • that Augustus saw in tbe air the Blessed Virgin with the Child in her arms and dedicated to them an altar of the l<irst-born God. Pretty fancies! not unnatural in a people who project back ypon their pagan past some small share of their new Christian consciousness: It was the Germanic peoples, however, ; who ..were destined to make the fortune of Christmas. It fell at a time when they were wont to celebrate their pagan sacrifices, and the missionaries prudently gave their traditional customs a Christian sense and direction. „ The rich cheer, the abundant' presents, the lavish hospitality of their old pagan days were not abolished. Nor were the numerous Scandinavian ceremonies in honor of Yule, the log, the candle, the boar's head, the, common feasting. The Lord of Misrule and the Abbot of Unreason continued the cariuvalesque character of the northern Yuletide, while the mince pies and spice cakes recall the gross and barbarous wassailings of the primitive Goth and Saxoii. Under men like Gregory Augustine, and Theodore" of Canterbury, > Aldhehm: and Daniel of Winchester, such habits were gradually modified, and within a short 'time the fierce pirates of the Northern seas gave to God saintly men like Wilfrid, Willibrod, Whirred (Boniface), and saintly women like Eadburg, Hilda, Lioba, aud countless others. 'it is only by a long course of training that the fancy and. imagination can 'be brought to run in the new groove of thought,' says Brother Azarais in his Development of English Thought. To that end does the Church bring to bear all her teaching and discipline By degrees she weeds out "the tares of the old faith ani plants the new. But there are also in every race and age

elect souls who are impatient of such slow formation and leap at once into the front rank of Christian heroes and heroines. ' The public feasts of the Church furnished many opportunities for good in mediaeval days. In the absence of great cities and extensive commerce they served to gather, the people together, to break down the isolation in which ' the noble and the peasant habitually lived. For a short while private war ceased, Christian charity prevailed, arfdthe voice of the preacher was listened to by vast multitudes, who for another year perhaps would not again visit the haunts of men. The Church made the most of such occasions. Hence we need not .be surprised to find that Christinas was at an early date one of the great feasts on which the mystery plays were executed. We possess a certain number of them yet, just as they were carried out. in France and Southern Germany. They are quaint and comical to our modern taste, but were full of meaning to our ancestors, whose faith was so much more direct and intense. —Very Rev. Dr. Shanahan. -