THE NAME OF JESUS. 'Tis the Name that whoso teaches "Tis the name by right exalted JESUS, we Thy Name adoring Long to see Thee as Thou art : So to write it in our heart, That hereafter upward soaring, We with angels may have part. Amen. 87 The peculiar offices which the Church has assigned to the day are admirably adapted to explain the history, to expound the doctrine, and to enforce the lessons of the circumcision of Christ. 'The First Lesson for the morning gives an account of the institution of circumcision; and the Gospel of the circumcision of Christ : the First Lesson at evening, and the Second Lessons and Epistle all tend to the same end, viz.: that since the circumcision of the flesh is abrogated, God hath no respect of persons, nor requires any more of us than the circumcision of the heart. The Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the day were all first inserted in 1549.** We know not how better to conclude this paper than by placing the Collect directly under the reader's eye, which, in its pregnant comprehensiveness, turns into one short prayer the converging precepts of the festival : Almighty God, who madest Thy blessed Son to be circumcised and obedient to the law for man; grant us the true circumcision of the spirit, that our hearts and all our members being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey Thy blessed will, through the same Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord Amen.' * Wheatly's Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer. The Epiphany ; OR, THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST TO THE GENTILES.` JANUARY 6. T is not uncommon for fasts and festivals to emerge first into view in the ecclesiastical firmament in the form of nebula, and gradually to shape themselves into distinctness and identity as proper and individual stars. Thus the feast of Epiphany was not originally a distinct festival, but formed a part of that of the Nativity; and the word Epiphany was originally applied to Christmas Day as well as to the day to which it is now peculiar. The idea common to both these seasons was that of manifestation-the Nativity commemorated the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, and, what we now call the Epiphany, His manifestation by a star to the Gentiles. Wheatly, however, maintains that the feasts of Christmas and Epiphany were always separate, and imputes it to the identity of the word used to designate them that they were ever regarded as having been one and the same; whilst Bingham contends for their primitive conjunction. It is not, however, beyond the limits of possibility to conciliate the statement of identity with the statement of difference. 'The term 'Eripávia was used at first,' says Mr. Riddle, as equivalent to reviia, Nativity; but afterwards a distinction was made between Epiphania prima et secunda, the first and second Epiphany; the former denoting Christmas Day, the latter Epiphany so called."* But a paragraph of Dr. Hook's is more significant as a passage of accommodation :-The feast of the Nativity 'being celebrated twelve days, the first and last of which, according to the customs of the Jews in their feasts, were high or *Manual of Christian Antiquities. SANCTITY OF THE SEASON. 89 chief days of solemnity, either of these might fitly be called Epiphany, as that word signifies the appearance of Christ in the world.'* When it became convenient to mark the distinctive honour and purpose of either day with greater precision, it happened naturally enough that the first was adopted for the commemoration of the Nativity, whilst the last, or Twelfth Day, was associated with the Epiphany. The chief reasons for the celebration of this feast apart from the Nativity, are stated in one of the Sermons referred to St. Augustine. On this day,' he says, 'we celebrate the mystery of God's manifesting Himself by His miracles in human nature; either because on this day the star in heaven gave notice of His birth; or because He turned water into wine at the marriage feast at Cana in Galilee or because He consecrated water for the reparation of mankind by His baptism in the river Jordan; or because with the five loaves He fed five thousand men. For each of these contains the mysteries and joys of our salvation.' It was in the latter part of the fourth century that the celebration of the Epiphany was severed from that of the Nativity; and the former festival, or the joint festival under the name of the former, is shown by the Homilies of the two Gregories, and by other authors, to have been of common observance in the early part of the same century. Ammianus Marcellinus indicates pretty plainly the degree of reverence that was paid to the Epiphany, when he tells us that the Emperor Julian, before his open and declared apostasy, found it convenient to cover his latent infidelity by taking part with the other Christians in the special rites of this high festival. And Gregory Nazianzen relates that the Emperor Valens, an Arian, followed the example of Julian. For he would have seemed an exile and alien from the Christian faith who should have neglected to associate himself with the observance of so high a solemnity. The sanctity of the day developed more and more in the estimation of the faithful; and successive Christian emperors dignified it by the introduction of ever-increasing signs of external reverence. 'Though at first this day,' says Bingham, 'was not exempt from juridical acts and prosecutions at law; nor were the public games and shows forbidden for some time to be exhibited thereon; yet, at length, Theodosius Junior (Cod. Theod. 1. 15, tit. 5, de Spectaculis, leg. 5) gave it an honourable place among those days on which the public games should not be allowed, forasmuch as men ought to put a distinction between days of supplication and days of pleasure. And Justinian (Cod. 1. 3, tit. 12, de Feriis, leg. 7), reciting one of the laws of Theodosius the Great, makes both the Nativity and Epiphany days of vacation from all pleadings at law, as well as from popular pleasures. And so it is in the laws of the Visigoths, published out of the body of the Roman laws by Reciswindus * Article 'Epiphany,' in Hook's Church Dictionary. and other Gothic kings, and the old Gothic interpreter of the laws in the Theodosian Code. From whence we may conclude that this was becoming the standing rule and custom throughout the Roman and the Visigoth dominions, to keep the festival of Epiphany with great veneration; neither allowing the courts to be open on this day for law, nor the theatre for pleasure.** On the vigil of the Epiphany it was customary for homilies to be preached, for the Lord's Supper to be celebrated, and for slaves to enjoy a holiday. On the day itself it was ordered in the Roman Pontifical that, after the chanting of the Gospel, a priest should give notice to the congregation of the days in which Lent, Easter, and all the movable solemnities were to be kept for the ensuing year. For this service a particular form was prescribed. The custom, in its essential features, was of pretty general observance by those to whom was committed the care of the Paschal cycle; or the rule for finding Easter. Cassian says that it was an ancient practice in Egypt for the Bishop of Alexandria, as soon as Epiphany was past, to send his circular letters to all the churches and monasteries of Egypt, to signify to them the beginning of Lent, and Easter Day.' The bishops of France, too, were enjoined to give notice on the day of Epiphany of the times when the festivals were to be kept in their churches. If any doubt arose about these seasons, the Metropolitan was to be consulted; and he again, if unable to resolve the difficulty, was to refer it to the arbitrament of the Roman See. The letters which issued on such occasions from the Metropolitans to their provincial bishops was commonly called Epistolæ Paschales and Heortasticæ, Paschal and Festival Epistles,-which, before giving the intimation of the times of incidence of the movable fasts and festivals, discussed shortly some topic of usefulness and importance. The Greek Church accorded an honour to Epiphany which the earlier Latin Church withheld. In the former communion it was the baptism of Jesus, over and above all the other phenomena or associations of the day, as enumerated already by St. Augustine, that was most strongly dwelt on in the commemoration of the Epiphany. It was at our Lord's baptism that His divinity was proclaimed to the world by the voice that came from heaven,Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 'Why,' asks St. Chrysostom, 'is not the day on which Christ was born called Epiphany, but the day on which He was baptized ? Because He was not manifested to all when He was born, but when He was baptized. For to the day of His baptism he was generally_unknown, as appears from the words of John the Baptist, There standeth one among you, whom ye know not. And what wonder that others should not know Him, when the Baptist himself knew Him not before that day? For I Antiquities of the Christian Church. know Him not, says he; but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit de scending and remaining on Him, the same is He that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. Regarding it as commemorative in a special manner of the manifestation of the Trinity at the baptism of Christ,* it was natural that the Greek Church should promote the Epiphany to be one of the three solemn times of baptism, of which the other two were Easter and Pentecost. Of these three solemn times for baptism, from which even so high a feast as the Nativity was excluded, Easter, and after it Pentecost, was regarded with most favour and reverence. The reason for those solemn seasons, at which catechumens were accustomed to be baptized in the mass, is to be found in the necessity there was for the trial and probation of candidates. Baptism, in ordinary cases, was deferred till one of these seasons, lest hypocrisy, or ignorance, or mere impulsiveness, should bring a scandal upon the religion which was professed in that sacrament. Yet the anticipation of these times, in exceptional cases of accident or disease, or of uncommon graces and attainments, was left to the liberty and discretion of the ministers of the church. Baptism was generally called ows or púrioua, light or illumination; and the Epiphany, in so far as it commemorated the baptism of Christ, 'who from that time became a light to them that sat in darkness,' was known as the Day of Lights, or of the Holy Lights. That the practice of the Greeks might keep pace with their verbal symbolism, it was their custom to adorn their churches with a great number of lights and tapers when they came to perform the service of the day. On the vigil of the feast of Epiphany it was usual to consecrate the water to be used at baptisms throughout the year, as in one of his 'Homilies on the Baptism of Christ,' we are informed by St. Chrysostom; who in another of them declares further that 'in the solemnity [of Epiphany] in memory of our Lord's baptism, by which He sanctified the nature of water, they were used at midnight to carry home water from the church, and lay it up, where it would remain as fresh and uncorrupt for one, two, or three years, as if it were immediately drawn out of any fountain.' 'The like custom,' Bingham tells us, was observed by Fronto Ducæus to appear in the Syrian calendar.' The designations of the Epiphany vary as it is contemplated from different points of view. In addition to the simple idea of * St. Chrysostom tells us that this manifestation, together with the earlier one by the star of the wise men, and the later one by the miracle at Cana, in Galilee, all occurred on the same day, although of course not in the same year. But this assertion has not passed without challenge. In the Latin Church it wanted this privilege-the Roman, French, and Spanish Churches for many ages not allowing of any other solemn times of baptism, but only Easter and Pentecost, except in case of sickness and extremity.' -Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church' ་ |