CHAPTER VIII.

CHRISTIAN FESTIVALS.

As the prayers of Christians were not confined to any definite times, but their whole life was to be a continued prayer, so also their whole life was to be a festival-a day dedicated to their God and Redeemer. All the sabbatical and festive regulations of the Old Covenant were closely connected with the spirit of bondage and minority, since men were confined under outward ordinances.

The redeemed, who had received the spirit of adoption, no longer required such discipline. Hence the Apostle Paul appealed to the Galatian Christians who had allowed themselves to be seduced to make the Jewish festivals a matter of prime importance in religion. "How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire to be again in bondage?" The law of the sanctification of the Sabbath is, like the whole ceremonial law. abolished for Christians, and it can only be applied in a spiritual sense to the Christian dispensation, inasmuch as the Christian ought to sanctify every day as a day of the Lord, by a life founded on faith in the Redeemer, and on heart-communion with him. In opposition to the carnal Jewish passover connected with outward observances, the Apostle Paul says, "Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us." But he does not infer from this, Therefore you ought, instead of the Jewish feast dedicated to the remembrance of freedom from earthly, bodily bondage, to appoint a paschal feast in remembrance of your freedom from the service of sin by the sacrifice of Christ; no! your whole life, he would say, must be such a spiritual paschal feast, consecrated by faith to the redemption gained for you by the sufferings of Christ, while you strive to preserve the purification from sin bestowed upon you, and to keep from all the pollution of sin, from the dominion of which you have been freed by the Redeemer. "Let us keep the feast," he says, "not with old leaven," not with the leaven of sin, the nature of the old man, but as men created anew, with the new bread (the new divine life which we, as justified, have received from

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our Redeemer), "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth," (inward truthfulness, the essence of genuine morality, as falsehood is the essence of sin). And Chrysostom justly remarks on this passage:* * "Therefore the present time is a feast-time, for when he says, 'Let us keep the feast (in Luther's translation the Easter feast) he does not say this because it was then Easter or Whitsuntide, but to show that all times are feast-times for Christians, in virtue of the superabundance of the blessings imparted to them. For what good has not been imparted to Christians? The Son of God has become man for thy sake; He has freed thee from death; He has called thee to the kingdom of heaven. How canst thou, who hast obtained and art obtaining such great things, help making thy whole life a feast? No one, therefore, should be cast down on account of poverty, sickness, or persecution; for we have a perpetual feast-time. Therefore the Apostle Paul says (Phil. iv. 4): Rejoice in the Lord always.' On feast-days no one wears soiled garments. Therefore we must not do it, for it is a marriage-feast; a spiritual marriagefeast (Matt. xxii. 2); 'for the kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king who made a marriage for his son.' Now when a king makes a marriage-feast, and that for his son, what greater gift can there be than such a feast? Let no one, then, come clad in rags to the marriage-feast; but I speak not here of outward garments, but of impure works." Of this feast of Christians not confined to any special time, Augustin says: When men here celebrate their feasts of revelry, they are accustomed to have musical instruments before their houses, or choirs of musicians. And what do we say when we hear this as we pass by? What is going on here? and the answer is, a feast. We are told it is a birth-day or a wedding that is here celebrated, as an apology for the revelry that is indulged in on the occasion. In God's house there is a perpetual feast, for nothing transitory is here celebrated; the choir of angels, the presence of God's countenance, joy without decay. This feast is without beginning or end From this everlasting feast of joy there resounds an inde

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* Εορτῆς ἄρα ὁ παρών καιρός. Καὶ γὰρ εἰπὼν, ἑορτάζωμεν, οι ἐπειδὴ πάσχα παρῆν, οὐδὲ ἐπειδὴ ἡ πεντηκοστὴ ἔλεγεν, ἀλλὰ δεικνὺς ὅτι πᾶς ὁ χρόνος, ἑορτῆς ἐστι καιρὸς τοῖς Χριστιανοῖς διὰ τὴν ὑπερο Boλýv twv doðévtɩ àɣaðìv.—Chrysost. in 1 Cor. Hom, 15, § 3.

scribable echo on the ears of our heart, though the world does not repeat the echo. Whoever walks in the house of God, and contemplates the wonders of God in the redemption of believers; his ear will be ravished by these festive heavenly sounds."

Socrates, the ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century, justly remarks: "Christ and his apostles laid down no law for festivals, but left it to the free expression of grateful feeling in reference to the divine benefits." But the multiplication of festivals is no proof of the liveliness and depth of these feelings; for the first Christians believed that while their whole life was continually penetrated by these feelings, and was highly spiritual, while the conflict between Christianity and the world was everywhere becoming more intense, that there was less need of such outward means of remembrance and excitement. They found sufficient excitement in every Friday as the day of the Lord's passion, and in every Sunday as the day of his resurrection. We cannot, certainly, deduce the establishment of particular annual festivals from a perversion of the Christian life which had sunk down from its original height, but must find in it the mark of a natural development of it; so that the reference to the fundamental facts of the Christian consciousness which at first were celebrated on particular days of the week, was afterwards attached to certain days in the year, in order by that means to penetrate the Christian life and communion more completely with it. Only it was injurious, though by no means a necessary consequence, when a false contrast was formed between the feasts and the rest of the Christian life, and thus the original spiritual character of the latter was lost; as we have already heard Chrysostom lament, that, in great cities, many believed that they had religion enough if they attended the leading festivals of the church.

Augustin opposes the celebration of a feast with worldly diversions in the following manner : "See to it, that, since ye desire to celebrate this day in a carnal manner, ye do not make yourselves unfit for celebrating what this feast means, eternally with the angels. Perhaps that drunken man whom I reprove, will say to me, Thou hast, forsooth, preached to us that this feast announces to us eternal joy; shall I not therefore dc myself some good?' Yes, thou mightest truly do thy

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self good, and not harm! For it announces joy to thee if thou art a temple of God. But if thou defilest the temple of God by drunkenness, the apostle tells thee (1 Cor. iii. 17), If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.'

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As the whole life of the Christian ought to be continually penetrated and animated by Him who is the great object of the Christian festivals; as, therefore, these festivals ought to serve to excite afresh in a Christian the ideas and feelings which, if his inner life be Christian, ought never to be withdrawn from it, Chrysostom presents this very strikingly in a sermon preached at Whitsuntide: "It is a Judaizing_notion to appear before God only three times a year: to the Jews it was said (Exod. xxiii. 14), Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year;' but from us God expects that we should at all times appear before him; and with the Jews the separation of space was the cause that only that number of assemblies could take place; for the worship of God was then confined to one place, therefore they could assemble only a few times in the year: for in Jerusalem, and nowhere else. could they worship God; on this account God commanded them to appear three times a year before him, and the distance of space served as an excuse. But we are commanded constantly to celebrate a feast, for we always have a feast. And in order that ye may know that there is always a feast for us, I will name to you the object of the feasts, and ye will know that there is a feast every day. Our first feast is that of Christmas. What is the object of this feast? That God appeared on earth and walked with men. But this is for all

times, for he said: I am with you always, even to the end of the world.' We can therefore celebrate Christmas at all times. What is the meaning of the second feast? We then announce the death of Christ-this is the Paschal feast; but since at all times we announce the Lord's death, we can also at all times celebrate the Paschal feast. What is the object of the feast to-day? That the Holy Spirit may come to us. But as the only-begotten Son of God is always with believers, so also is the Holy Spirit. Whence does this appear? Our Lord says (John xiv. 15, 16): “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; the Spirit of truth.' As Christ says of himself, Lo, I am

with you always, even to the end of the world,' and we can at all times celebrate the feast of the appearance of Christ; so he also said of the Spirit that he is always with us, and we can always celebrate Whitsuntide."

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Bishop Theodoret, according to the custom of the bishops in that age, announced a Christmas festival in the following words: When the only-begotten Son of God became man and effected our salvation, the men of that day, who beheld the fountain of blessing, celebrated no festival. But now, by land and sea, in cities and villages, they celebrate the memorial of these blessings, though they never saw the source of them with their bodily eyes." The same bishop, when bowed down with many sufferings, thus announced the festival: Sorrow has, indeed heavily oppressed me; for I have received not an iron but a human nature; but the remembrance of the Lord's birth has been an antidote for me." Augustin said at this festival: May the humble humble themselves before God, that by his help, as the support of their weakness, they may rise to God's height." And again :* "Rejoice, ye righteous, this is the birthday of the Justifier; rejoice, ye weak and sick, this is the birthday of the Saviour; rejoice, ye prisoners, this is the birthday of the Redeemer; rejoice, ye slaves, it is the birthday of the Lord; rejoice, ye free men, it is the birthday of the Liberator; rejoice, all ye Christians, it is the birthday of Christ!" An ingenious and profound thought!as although the remembrance of the birth of the Redeemer must on the one hand call forth the same feelings in the hearts of all Christians, yet on the other hand, according to their various characters, circumstances, and wants, the remembrance of the birth of Him who, as Origen says, became, in a higher sense than Paul, all things to all men, in order to satisfy the wants of ali, as the minds of men were affected by them in a variety of ways.

Leo the Great, bishop of Rome, spoke as follows at a Christmas festival:† "Our Saviour was born to-day, that we

Exultate debites et Natalis est Redemp Exultent liberi ;

*Exultate justi; Natalis est Justificatoris. ægroti; Natalis est Salvatoris. Exultate captivi; toris. Exultent servi; Natalis est Dominantis. Natalis est Liberantis. Exultent omnes Christiani; Natalis est Christi.August. Serm. 184 in Natali Domini, § 2.

Salvator noster, dilectissimi, hodie natus est: gaudeamus. Neque