vigiliae christianae. 2014, vol. 68 issue 3, p290-309.pdf

vigiliae christianae 68 (2014) 290-309

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VigiliaeChristianae

The Origin of the Post-Nativity Commemorations

Hugo MendezUniversity of Georgia 218 Sedgefield Overlook, Dallas, GA, 30157

[email protected]

Abstract

On a number of fourth and fifth century calendars, a block of feasts commemorating Stephen, James, John, Peter, and Paul immediately follows 25 December. Contemporary studies have lost sight of the rationale for its position. This paper defends a proposal of Hans Lietzmann and suggests that the community that created the block recognized Christmas as the starting point of the sanctoral cycle. This community elected to place the memorials of Christianity’s earliest confessors at the head of this annual order, sym-bolizing their historical priority over other martyrs. Stephen occupied the first of these dates precisely so his commemoration could precede that of every other confessor on the calendar, a position that illustrates the intensity of his cult in the late fourth-fifth centuries. The study proceeds to develop this insight into a framework capable of explaining similar commemorations on other early Christian calendars.

Keywords

martyr cult – Christmas – Saint Stephen – protomartyr – martyrology – Christian year – calendar

1 Introduction

The well-known “Syriac Martyrology”1 of Edessa (c. 411 ce) reproduces a lost Greek calendar from Nicomedia, dated to c. 360 ce.2 The martyrology begins in December and runs to November, its first entry falling on 26 December and the

1 Also known as the Breviarium Syriacum; Syriac original published in: W. Wright, “An Ancient Syrian Martyrology”, The Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record 8 (1865) 45-56. English translation: W. Wright, “An Ancient Syrian Martyrology,” The Journal of Sacred Literature and Biblical Record 8 (1866) 423-432. Discussion in: Mariani, Bonaventura,

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Vigiliae Christianae 68 (2014) 290-309

last on 24 November. Only one great feast appears in the document: “the day of the Manifestation of our Lord Jesus,” that is, the Epiphany, on its traditional 6 January date. A “Commemoration of all the Confessors” also appears on the calendar for the Friday after Easter (between the 6 and 7 April entries).Otherwise, all the entries on the calendar commemorate individual “confes-sors and victors, and their days on which they gained crowns,” with each entry listing the name(s) of individual martyrs, the cities in which they died, and the anniversaries of their deaths.

Most of the commemorations included on the calendar are extracted from the local martyrological traditions of a number of churches, especially Nicomedia, Alexandria, and Antioch.3 However, three entries commemorate figures from the New Testament. These three entries are grouped together at the very beginning of the calendar, occupying the 26-28 December dates:

The former Kānūn [December]

26. According to the reckoning of the Greeks. The first confessor, at Jerusalem, Stephen the Apostle, the chief of the confessors.4

27. John and Jacob [James], the Apostles, at Jerusalem.28. In the city of Rome, Paul the Apostle, and Simon Cephas [Peter], the

chief of the Apostles of our Lord.

Why do the names of New Testament figures appear only at the beginning of the calendar? Why are they grouped together? The position of these entries appears to be marked.5

Breviarium Syriacum seu Martyrologium Syriacum Saec IV iuxta Cod. SM. Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta (Rome: Herder. 1956) 3-25.

2 This is clear from the presence of “martyrs of Nicomedia otherwise not universally vener-ated” (Henry Chadwick, “The Calendar: Sanctification of Time,” Studies on Ancient Christianity [Burlington, VT: Ashgate. 2006.] 106).

3 C. Erbes, “Das syrische Martyrologium und der Weihnachtsfestkreis I” in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 25 (1904) 330. A full listing of the local churches cited in the Syriac Martyrology appears in: Mariani 1956, 6-9.

4 Here, I have edited W. Wright’s translation, which omits a comma after “the first confessor,” to conform to Mariani’s translation: “confessor primus, Hierosolymis, Stephanus, Apostolous, caput confessorum” (Mariani 1956, 27).

5 It is also unusual that these first entries of the calendar fall so late in the month of December. The first entry of all other months falls between the 1st-15th days of that month, with an aver-age near the 3rd of the month. This question may be associated with the issue of Christmas and the Syriac Martyrology (see sources cited in note 23).

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The unique character of these three entries, and their grouping at the head of the calendar, suggest they form a distinct and integral block of festivals. This suspicion is confirmed in their joint appearance on a number of other early calendars (extant or reconstructed), in a more or less intact sequence, despite changed surroundings. From the homilies of Gregory of Nyssa and Asterius of Amasea, one can easily reconstruct a variant form of the same block for the churches of fourth century Cappadocia:6

Nyssa and Amasea (c. 380)

Dec. 26 Stephen 27 Peter, James, John 28 Paul

The fifth-century lectionary of the church of Jerusalem provides yet another variant:

Armenian Lectionary of Jerusalem (c. 420)7

Dec. 27 Stephen8 28 Paul and Peter 29 James9 and John

6 Jill Burnett Commings, Aspects Of The Liturgical Year In Cappadocia (325-430) (New York: Peter Lang. 2005) 99-100.

7 “27 December. Of Saint Stephen. . . . 28 December. Commemoration of Paul and of Peter, Apostles. . . . 29 December. Of the Apostle James and of John the Evangelist . . . .” (Athanase Renoux, “Le codex armenien Jerusalem 121,” PO 36,2:168 [Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols. 1971]). The same tradition also situates a feast for James, the brother of the Lord, and David on 25 December. For an introduction to this feast, see: Stephane Verhelst, “Liturgy of Jerusalem in the Byzantine Period,” Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land, ed. Ora Limor and Guy G. Stroumsa (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols. 2006) 455. I plan to explore the interaction of this feast with the block in an upcoming study.

8 A variant reading found in manuscript E of the Armenian Lectionary transfers the commem-oration of Stephen to 26 December.

9 Although a commemoration of “the apostle James” appears on 29 December, distinct from the commemoration of “James [the brother of the Lord]” on 25 December, the epistle reading assigned for the 29 December feast is taken from James 1:1-12. Clearly, at some point in the development of this lection, there has been a confusion of James, the son of Zebedee and James, the brother of the Lord.



All three variants are relatively consistent with one another, with only minor differences. Whereas the Syriac Martyrology unites the celebration of Peter to that of Paul (28 December), the Nyssan and Amasean arrangements unite Peter with James and John, creating a single feast in honor of the inner three disciples of Jesus (27 December). The three feasts of the Jerusalem Lectionary are identical to those of the Syriac Martyrology, except that they begin a day later (27 December, rather than 26 December), and the second and third feasts have switched positions. It is easiest to see secondary developments in the block as presented in the Armenian Lectionary of Jerusalem, beginning with the position of the feast of Stephen on 27 December. Given the plurality of early sources agreeing with the 26 December date (including: Gregory of Nyssa, the Syriac Martyrology, the Calendar of Carthage, and the Hieronymian Martyrology), the discrepant Jerusalem date must reflect a later shift.10 Evidently, the feast of Peter and Paul resisted this shift, steadfastly clinging to its traditional 28 December date. To compensate, the Jerusalem church moved the observance of James and John back another day (to December 29), reorder-ing the final two elements of the sequence. The secondary positions of all these feasts make it unlikely that the sequence attested in the Jerusalem Lectionary is original.11 Instead, the original order of the feasts is preserved in the sequence attested by either the Nyssan and Amasean churches or the Nicomedian church. The following is a composite of these sequences, and a preliminary reconstruction of the original position and sequence of these feasts:

Preliminary Reconstruction

Dec. 26 Stephen 27 (Peter) James, and John 28 (Peter) and Paul

10 The feast of Stephen also falls on 27 December on the Byzantine calendar, where 26 December represents the Synaxis of the Theotokos, a feast inspired by the Nativity cele-bration and in place by the eighth century (François Bovon, “The Dossier on Stephen, the First Martyr,” Harvard Theological Review 96 [2003] 286; Margot Fassler, “The First Marian Feast in Constantinople and Jerusalem: Chant Texts, Readings, and Homiletic Literature,” The Study of Medieval Chant: Paths and Bridges, East and West, ed. Kenneth N. Levy and Peter Jeffery [Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer. 2001] 25-88).

11 Consider the opposite scenario. The Nicomedian calendar would have to metathesize the commemorations of James and John and of Peter and Paul without a clear motivation.

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2 Survey of the Literature

The unity and wide provenance of these feasts has earned them a fair amount of attention in the literature. Almost a century ago, Duchesne correctly recog-nized that there was “no historical support” for the late December position of these feasts. No record identifying the dates of the deaths of Stephen et al. survived apostolic times. Furthermore, it was not until 415 ce that the relics of Stephen were discovered,12 decades after our earliest attestation of the 26 December feast. Consequently, the lead date of the block does not memori-alize the discovery and transfer of his relics, nor the dedication of a church under his patronage. Ultimately, Duschesne was forced to conclude that the feasts “were fixed arbitrarily,” but never explained why they came to occupy these positions in particular.13

In his classic work Comparative Liturgy, Anton Baumstark agreed that the feasts were fixed arbitrarily to memorialize New Testament figures for whom no historical anniversaries existed. There, he describes the series as a sub-type of the “concomitant feasts” that “brings together, immediately after a great Feast in the Liturgical Year, a whole group of commemorations of New Testament figures.” Where parallel clusters in the East and West Syriac tra-ditions immediately follow Easter, the 26-28 December block appears “after Christmas.”14 Unfortunately, Baumstark’s model was little more than descrip-tive, never identifying the cause for associating these feasts with Christmas rather than another feast.

An attempt to isolate that cause would come decades later in Richard M. Nardone’s discussion of the sanctoral cycle:

Before the end of the fourth century . . . it then became possible to honor the great saints of the New Testament, even though their anniversaries, and even their tombs, were unknown. The days following Easter would have been suitable for their memorials, and in fact Easter Week was used for that purpose in the church of Mesopotamia. But the Greek and Roman churches preferred to keep all the feasts of the saints on fixed days of the civil calendar. Since Easter was a movable feast, the alternative choice was the octave of Christmas.

Stephen the First Martyr naturally came first, on December 26, although the Eastern churches later gave that honor to the Virgin Mary.

12 So the account of the Epist. Luciani (PL 41,807-17). 13 Louis Duchesne, Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution (New York: Macmillan. 1919)

267.14 Anton Baumstark, Comparative Liturgy, ed. Bernard Botte, tr. F. L. Cross (Westminster,

MD: Newman. 1958) 184-185.



The choice of Stephen shows that sainthood was still associated with martyrdom. The next two days were originally assigned to the chief apos-tles: Peter and Paul, and John and James.15

Although Nardone correctly notes why Easter would be an impractical day to anchor these feasts, he too quickly identifies Christmas as “the alternative choice” for these celebrations.16 Why not select the Epiphany, a date already associated with the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry?17 As late as 1995, Michael Kunzler could accurately say, “the reason for celebrating [Stephen’s] feast on 26th December remains unexplained.”18

In fact, by treating Easter and Christmas on equal terms as open “alterna-tives” for these memorials, Nardone and Baumstark missed the true genius of the fourth century calendars that pioneered the late December block of feasts. A reconstructed start date on 26 December does not merely set this block of commemorations beside Christmas, but beside a unique liturgical fault line: the beginning of the church calendar in such fourth century cities as Rome19 and Nyssa, coinciding by design with the Nativity celebration. A century ago, Hans Lietzmann explained the position of these feasts on precisely this basis.20 Unfortunately, his analysis has been widely overlooked in contemporary litur-gical scholarship. With due deference to Lietzmann’s work, I would like to pro-vide a new defense of his fundamental insight, deviating in certain points from his own conclusions. My goal, however, is not so much to explore these feasts for their own sake, as to adapt my explanation of them into a new framework capable of addressing related problems in early Christian liturgy.

15 Richard Morton Nardone, “The Church of Jerusalem and the Christian Calendar,” Standing before God: Studies on Prayer in Scriptures and in Tradition with Essays in honor of John M. Oesterreicher, ed. Asher Finkel and Lawrence Frizzell (New York: Ktav House. 1981) 242.

16 Worse, Nardone appears to anachronistically import the contemporary Western concep-tion of Christmas and Easter as the two anchors of the church calendar.

17 That is, associated with his baptism (Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. 1991] 125). In John, the call of the first disciples imme-diately follows the account of Jesus’ baptism (1:29-51).

18 Michael Kunzler, The Church’s Liturgy, tr. Placed Murray, Henry O’Shea, and Cilian Ó Se (New York: Continuum. 2001) 418.

19 Talley 1991, 80, 85. The first entry of the Depositio Martirum (Chronography of 354) reads, “VIII kal. Ian. [25 December] natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae” (Chronica Minora, vol. 1, Momumenta Germaniae Historica, ed. T. Mommsen [Berolini. 1892] 71).

20 Hans Lietzmann, Petrus und Paulus in Rom: liturgische und archäologische Studien (Bonn: Marcus und Weber, 1915), 95-96.

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3 Position of the Feasts

Already in 380 ce, Gregory of Nyssa interprets the meaning of this block pre-cisely by virtue of its position at the head of the Cappadocian liturgical year:

In a wonderful manner God has established an order [taxis] and sequence [akolouthia] by the feasts we commemorate each year. Our order of spiri-tual feasts . . . consists in having a knowledge of heavenly reality. [Paul] says that at the beginning the Apostles enjoyed an order which formed prophets together with shepherds and teachers. The order of yearly cele-brations concurs with this apostolic sequence. However, the first [cele-bration] does not concur with the others because the Only-Begotten Son’s theophany through his birth from a virgin is instituted in the world not simply as a holy feast but as the holy of holies and feast of feasts. Therefore let us number those who follow this order which for us begins with the assembly of apostles and prophets. Indeed people like Stephen, Peter, James, John and Paul possess the apostolic and prophetic spirit after whom comes the pastor and teacher [Basil] who belongs to their order which marks our present celebration.21

For Gregory, the church year begins with the 25 December celebration of Christ’s birth. It then proceeds immediately into a commemoration of “the assembly of the apostles and prophets” on the next day22 (the feasts of “Stephen, Peter, James, John, and Paul”), and then to a commemoration of “pas-tors and teachers,” which class embraces all post-apostolic figures. In this

21 Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. funeb. 1 (PG 46,787ff.), tr. Richard (Casimir) McCambly and David Salomon.

22 So Gregory of Nyssa’s homily for 26 December: “Yesterday the Lord of the universe wel-comed us whereas today it is the imitator of the Lord [Stephen]. How are they related to each other? One assumed human nature on our behalf while the other shed it for his Lord. . . . One was wrapped in swaddling clothes for us, and the other was stoned for him.” (Greg.Nyss., In Sanct. Steph. Protomartyris. 1 [PG 46,701ff.], tr. Richard [Casimir] McCambly and David Salamon). The feast of Stephen also followed Christmas in the fourth-century church of Asamea: “How truly holy and beautiful is the cycle of events delightful to us. Feast follows upon feast, the one celebration comes after the other. We are invited from prayer to prayer: the birth of the Lord is followed immediately by the honour given to His servant . . . the first of the martyrs, the teacher of suffering for Christ, the foundation of the good confession.” (Asterius of Amasea, “A Homily on Stephen the First Martyr,” 1-2 [PG 40,337ff.], tr. B. Dehandschutter in: Let us Die that We May Live, ed. Pauline Allen, Boudewijn Dehandschutter, Johan Leemans, and Wendy Mayer [New York; Routledge. 2003] 177-78).



earliest attestation of the feasts of Stephen et al., their position at the head of the church calendar is charged with significance, embodying the preeminence of the “apostles and prophets” over other “orders” within the “heavenly reali-ties” of the church.

In many respects, this interpretation of the church year parallels the appar-ent design of the Syriac Martyrology. As noted earlier, the feasts of Stephen, James and John, and Peter and Paul occupy the first three dates on that cal-endar (26-28 December). Unlike the Roman and Nyssan sources, the Syriac Martyrology lacks any reference to a 25 December feast. Evidently, Christmas was not observed in Nicomedia c. 360 ce; instead, the church liturgically commemorated the birth of Christ on “the day of the Manifestation of our Lord Jesus [the Epiphany]” [6 January], as was the practice of the church of Jerusalem into the sixth century.23 Nevertheless, the Syriac Martyrology still begins in December, with the feast of Stephen as its first entry of record. That our two earliest attestations of the feast of Stephen associate it with the begin-ning of the liturgical year is telling.24

The Syriac Martyrology gives us the added advantage of inspecting the litur-gical year as a whole. One can divide that calendar into two parts, the first seg-ment embracing feasts for “apostolic” figures (first three entries) and the rest commemorating “post-apostolic” figures (elsewhere).25 The organizing princi-ple here is not the spiritual hierarchy of the church (Gregory’s “heavenly reali-ties”) but historical antecedence. The deaths of Stephen, James, John, Peter,

23 Susan K. Roll, Toward the Origins of Christmas (Kampen, the Netherlands: Kok Pharos. 1995) 86. A discussion of Christmas the Syriac Martyrology appears in Erbes 1904; Erbes 1905. These studies are criticized for “arguments fort subtils et peu convaincants” in B. Botte, Les origines de la Noël et de l’Épiphanie: étude historique (Louvain: Abbaye du Mont Cesar, 1932), 27. On the practice of the Jerusalem church see: Roll 1995, 199-200; Talley 1991, 125; John F. Baldovin, The Liturgy in Ancient Jerusalem (Nottingham: Grove. 1989) 35-37.

24 The Armenian Lectionary of Jerusalem is the only one of the three sources cited above that does not situate this block of feasts at the beginning of the liturgical year. On that calendar, the liturgical year begins in January, its first entry corresponding to the vigil of the feast of the Epiphany (5 January). Of course, the absence of Christmas in the Lectionary betrays the fact that the block of feasts could not have originated in the Jerusalem church, and is a borrowing (so Nardone 1981, 242-43, who criticizes Dix’s claim to the contrary: Dom Gregory Dix, The Spirit of the Liturgy [Westminster: Dacre. 1945] 478).

25 There is some ironic truth in the medieval characterization of the 26-28 December feasts of Stephen et al. as celebrations of the comites Christi (“the companions of Christ,” i.e., sharers in his sufferings). On the Syriac Martyrology, they are “companions of Christ” pre-cisely as the only contemporaries of Jesus commemorated on the calendar.

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and Paul (26-28 December) all date to the period of the New Testament, while the deaths of all others commemorated on the martyrology cluster around the century preceding the year 360 ce, with a few early exceptions.26 Even still, this scheme is essentially consonant with Gregory’s taxis. After all, only fig-ures from the New Testament are “apostles and prophets” in later Christian tradition. A late (i.e., post-apostolic!) figure like Basil can only be a “pastor or teacher.” Even for Gregory, then, the distinction between Peter and Basil can be considered one of time. In liturgical time, as in historical time, earlier saints precede later ones.

Thus, although the positions of these feasts are artificial, they are not, strictly speaking, arbitrary. There is nothing arbitrary about a position at the beginning of a liturgical calendar. It is a marked position, here attracting a marked category of feasts: the memorials of the earliest Christians. Even today, the beginning points of liturgical calendars are unique and themati-cally charged boundaries that signal or license the values of “origination” and “antecedence.”27 In the fourth century, a desire to exploit these values led at least one early Christian community to organize a series of apostolic memori-als around the 25 December axis.

It would not be surprising to learn that other clusters fitting Baumstark’s description follow a given feast (e.g., Easter, Epiphany, Christmas) because that feast once stood at the beginning of the liturgical year. Surprisingly, one of our three sources already gives us a parallel example for this phenomenon. On the Jerusalem Lectionary, the Epiphany inaugurates the liturgical year. Immediately following it, on the second day of its octave, is a second, redundant

26 These are marked with the recurring formula, “of the number of the ancient confessors,” a characteristic that also distinguishes them from the New Testament entries. A particu-larly early example of this type is Ignatius of Antioch (d. 105 ce; 17 October).

27 On the Byzantine calendar, for instance, these values thematically unite the Byzantine Induction or New Year (1 September) and the feast Nativity of the Theotokos (8 September), heightening the latter’s value of “origination”: “Today, O people, is the first fruit of our salvation. For behold, she who was chosen from all generations as Mother and Virgin and habitation of God, comes forth in birth from a barren woman.” (Sticheron at the Litija, 8 September). In Western Christianity, the liturgical year begins on the first Sunday of Advent, which is already associated to the “beginning” of salvation history by its anticipation of the incarnation of Christ. Of course, the association of the feast of the Nativity and the beginning of the liturgical year in the fourth century churches of Rome and Nyssa depended on the same theme. (Compare the eschatological overtones of the modern feast of Christ the King, which inverts these values from its position at the end of the liturgical year, immediately preceding the boundary.)



celebration of Stephen (7 January).28 Now, duplicate commemorations indi-cate “that the calendar implied in the lectionary was already a conflation of at least two earlier” sources.29 Evidently, the church of Jerusalem absorbed the 26 December feast of Stephen from a community that celebrated Christmas as the beginning of the liturgical year, but celebrated a second, native celebration of the martyr, positioned at the beginning of its own liturgical year. (The insti-tution of 7 January feast can be dated to a point after c. 415 ce, the discovery of Stephen’s relics.)30 Thus, on 7 January we see a commemoration of Stephen behind a live fault line of the calendar (6 January), and 27 December beside a point unmarked on the surface, but relevant from a diachronic perspective (25 December). Intriguingly, the position of both feasts can be explained by their proximity to the beginning of a liturgical calendar, though this has been obscured in the latter case. The 27 December feast stands as a relic, associated with no obvious axis on the calendar. This is also its situation on contemporary Christian calendars.

Admittedly, it is more difficult to see a similar arrangement in the 6th century East Syriac lectionary Baumstark cites.31 That calendar begins on the Epiphany but positions a cluster of New Testament commemorations behind Easter. It is

28 The stational liturgy of this, “the second day” of Epiphany, was held at the Martyrium of St. Stephen, and utilized the same readings read on the 27 December feast of Stephen (Psalms 5, 20; Acts 6:8-8:2; and the martyrological gospel, Jn. 12:24-26). Compare clearer references to a post-Epiphany commemoration of Stephen in the later East Syriac Lectionaries of the Church of the Forty Martyrs and of the Monastery of ʾAzīzāʿel in Tur Abdin. Note, however: the 7 January commemoration of John the Baptist on some of these calendars has a distinct origin from the feast of Stephen, having been created as a concomitant celebration to the commemoration of the Baptism of Christ on the Epiphany.

29 Fredrick Cornwallis Conybeare and A. J. Maclean, Rituale Armenorum (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger. 2005) 512.

30 Egeria, writing c. 381, describes a gathering at the Martyrium on the second day of the Epiphany octave, almost thirty years before the construction of the Martyrium of Stephen. Evidently, “the enshrining of the bones of the city’s most famous martyr was evidently important enough to induce a change in the stational pattern”; the commemorations were relocated to the new Martyrium for Stephen (John F. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and Meaning of Stational Liturgy, OCA 228 [Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute. 1987] 94, 282-283; also Baldovin 1989, 36-37). With that change came a new set of readings drawn from the 27 December feast, creating a second commemoration of Stephen (Talley 1991, 132).

31 This is the “Mesopotamian” calendar also cited by Nardone 1981, 242. It is reproduced in: F. C. Burkitt, “The Early Syriac Lectionary System,” The Proceedings of the British Academy 10 (1921-23) 306ff.

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conceivable that Easter once stood at the head of the Mesopotamian liturgical year. After all, the African churches inaugurated the sanctoral cycle around Easter.32 The juxtaposition of both movable and immovable martyr commem-orations on the East Syriac lectionary may reflect an earlier shift from a lunar arrangement, anchored on Easter, to a solar arrangement, inaugurated on the feast of the Epiphany. But even if we cannot confirm that Easter once stood at the head of the Mesopotamian liturgical year, we can safely say that the block was attracted to Easter as an “axial element” on the East Syriac calendar.33 If that axis has not licensed the value of “antecedence” to these feasts, it has cer-tainly imparted the notion of “highest honor.” Once again, we are again dealing with no mere feast, but one sitting on a unique liturgical fault line with definite thematic values to license. For this reason, Baumstark’s categorization of this type of feasts deserves reevaluation. Rather than say that these feasts charac-teristically follow “immediately after a great Feast in the Liturgical Year,” we should say that they were positioned at key axes or boundaries on the calendar precisely from an attraction to the particular values licensed by those boundar-ies (e.g., “highest honor,” “antecedence,” “origination”). This model allows us to transcend Baumstark’s merely descriptive approach to these feasts, and begin to isolate the reasons why they have come to occupy their attested positions.

4 Sequence of the Feasts

4.1 StephenBy failing to see the proximity of the 26 December feast of Stephen to the beginning of the liturgical year, Baumstark also missed the most startling fact about this feast’s position in particular. On the Syriac Martyrology, Stephen is not just first among the apostles; he is first among all saints. It cannot be coin-cidental that the martyrology begins with a commemoration of Christianity’s first martyr. In fact, the entry itself privileges his identity as the Protomartyr in its description: “the first confessor, at Jerusalem, Stephen the Apostle, the chief of the confessors.” The arrangement is striking. As the “first-born of the martyrs”34 and the martyr of martyrs, Stephen sits at the head of days in the

32 Thus, the first entry on the Calendar of Carthage falls on 19 April. 33 Though Baby Varghese uses this expression with respect to the West Syriac tradition, it is

no less true of the East Syriac (Baby Varghese, West Syrian Liturgical Theology [Burlington, VT: Ashgate. 2004] 143).

34 Hesychius of Jerusalem “A Homily in Praise of Stephen the First Martyr” 4, tr. Allen, P. in: Let us Die that We May Live, ed. Pauline Allen, Boudewijn Dehandschutter, Johan Leemans, and Wendy Mayer (New York; Routledge, 2003), 196.



Syriac Martyrology, presiding over the entire choir of martyrs that follows. This is hardly surprising since at this stage, “what girded the entire Christian calen-dar was the celebration of the martyrs.”35 The Syriac Martyrology reveals a time when the stature of Stephen was so great that his feast anchored the litur-gical year itself.36

Stephen occupies no less of an exalted position on the Cappadocian calen-dars. With the conclusion of Christmas, the annual sanctoral cycle could begin. The very first place within that cycle was accorded Stephen, “the first to have paved the way for the chorus of martyrs.” In his homily for the feast,37Asterius of Amasea (d. 410 ce) boldly defends the priority of Stephen’s feast over the commemoration of the apostles celebrated on the next day. The intensity of the Protomartyr’s cult in the Amasean church is obvious:

. . . Stephen the thrice-blessed [was] first to sanctify the earth with his own blood, by a pious context, second in time after the apostles but first by his brave deeds.

Don’t be displeased, Peter, don’t be irritated, James, nor discontented, John, if I not only compare the man with your love of wisdom, but even want to assign him something more. . . .

Yes, you are the elder of the disciples, holy Peter, proclaiming Jesus Christ before all others. But when you were announcing the word of the Gospel . . . this one entered the stadium, carrying off the crown of the contest. He went to heaven and was glorified, even when you were still on earth. And the climax was that the father Himself and the Son summoned him by a wonderful vision. . . . Let us also consider you, James, brother of John. You were the preacher of Christ, His second prey, after Peter. Who wouldn’t admire your faith? You were simply called and without hesitation

35 Vadiliki M. Lamberis, Architects of Piety: The Cappadocian Fathers and the Cult of the Martyrs (New York: Oxford University. 2011) 14. Also, Nardone’s comment that in this period, “sainthood was still associated with martyrdom” (Nardone 1981, 242).

36 Greg.Nyss., In Sanct. Steph. Protomartyris. 1 (PG 46,704). Notably, the same principle com-pletes our understanding of the 7 January commemoration of Stephen on the Jerusalem Lectionary. The rationale underlying Stephen’s position on the second day of the Epiphany octave has escaped contemporary scholars (consider Talley’s comment on the memorial: “the reason for this station so shortly after [the Epiphany] is less than clear” [Talley 1991, 132]). The solution to this problem is immediately obvious in light of our discussion here. Once again, Stephen occupies the first date following the beginning of the liturgical year (which, for the Jerusalem church, fell on Epiphany). In this, we can recognize a deliberate attempt to honor him before every other martyr.

37 On the attribution to Asterius, see discussion in Bovon 2003, 289, no. 61.

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you followed. You left your boat, and your father Zebedee. You suffered for faith eagerly, I recognise: Herod, the tyrant, slew you with the sword, though much later than Stephen. But why should I name them one by one? Our man took away before all other saints the prize of martyrdom, being the first to meet the devil in battle and to vanquish him. . . .38

For Asterius, there is no need to extend the comparisons further. As the Protomartyr, Stephen is first among the saints, and all other commemorations must give way to his.

4.2 Martyrdom as Ordering PrincipleAsterius’ comparisons suggest that the martyrological tone of Stephen’s feast extended into the commemorations that followed it.39 Notably, all the names united in the block suffered martyrdom, with one possible exception, John.40 Even still, the “Persian sage” Aphrahat would link the same five names together in his list “of martyrs, of confessors, and of the persecuted,” ranking them in a manner analogous to the late December order:

Great and excellent is the martyrdom of Jesus. He surpassed in affliction and in confession all who were before or after. And after Him was the faithful martyr Stephen whom the Jews stoned. Simon (Peter) also and Paul were perfect martyrs. And James and John walked in the footsteps of their Master Christ.41

From this it appears that Gregory was mistaken in his characterization of these days as memorials of the “apostles and prophets.” More likely, our late December block was instituted to memorialize New Testament martyrs, or more broadly, confessors.42 This seems especially evident when we compare

38 Aster. Amas., “A Homily on Stephen the First Martyr,” 2-3. 39 Also review Greg. Nyss., Laud. Alt. S. Steph. Protomartyris, 1 (PG 46,721ff.), which is actually

a homily for the 27 December feast of Peter, James, and John.40 That exception is, of course, John, who is generally not considered a martyr, except in

sources relying on a purported statement of Papias. (See Culpepper, R. Alan, John, the Son of Zebedee: The Life of a Legend [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000], 171ff.; cf. Greg. Nyss., Laud. Alt. S. Steph. Protomartyris 1 [PG 46,731], cited later in the text of this study, which assumes John did not die violently).

41 Aphrahat, Demonstrations XXI, “On Persecution,” 23 (NPNF 2-13). It is conceivable that Aphrahat’s sequence reflects the order of a parallel group of commemorations known in his community, though no records support this possibility.

42 For this reason, the Holy Innocents eventually found a place on this order (so the Calendar of Carthage). Certainly, their presence is partly owed to their association with Christmas;



Stephen’s position in this block to his position on the analogous block in the East Syriac lectionary:

Sunday The Great Sunday of the Resurrection [Easter]Monday John the BaptistTuesday Peter and Paul, ApostlesWednesday Holy ApostlesThursday BishopsFridaySaturday Stephen43

The East Syriac order illustrates what one might expect of a block uniting New Testament figures without a martyrological tone. It outlines the spiritual hier-archy of the church (cf. Gregory of Nyssa), opening with John the Baptist (the “greatest” “born of women” [Mt. 11:11]), and continuing through the chief apos-tles Peter and Paul to the larger choir of apostles, down to the bishops. Stephen, as a deacon, finds a place near the end of this block. Our block, on the other hand, accords Stephen the highest place, and then moves through a series of early confessors for the faith.

4.3 James, John, Peter, PaulWhat scheme orders the elements in our block?44 Let us return to our prelimi-nary reconstruction:

Preliminary Reconstruction

Dec. 26 Stephen 27 (Peter) James, and John 28 (Peter) and Paul

however, it may also follow their identity as innocent victims of violent death as a broad-ened expression of the original theme of martyrdom.

43 Adapted from Burkitt 1923, 310-11. Also compare the order of the Assyrian post-Epiphany commemorations described in Duchesne 1919, 266.

44 This is a surprisingly neglected question in the literature, but one worth exploring. After all, if the late December position of this block is artificial, the individual position of each of its constituents is artificial, and in liturgy, artificial positions are rarely random. If we can exclude external explanations for their individual positions within this self-contained unit (e.g., historic anniversaries), then we have every reason to search for internal explanations.

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K.-H. Uthemann cited the multiple positions attested for Peter as evidence that the block was still young in the late fourth century, “noch nicht allzu sehr festge-schrieben und darum beweglich ist.”45 Is it possible to penetrate beyond this fluidity, and reconstruct the block’s original form? I believe so.

Peter’s memorial may have been (1) a core element of the block transferred from one date to the other in local variations, or (2) a secondary addition to the block, independently developed in (at least) two sites, which in turn selected different dates for the feast.46 However, the latter seems unlikely due to Peter’s stature among the apostles, and the fame of his martyrdom. His feast should be an original element of either the 27 December or 28 December dates. Let us consider the two possibilities descriptively. On the one hand, the Cappadocian grouping of “Peter, James, and John” (the inner three disciples of Jesus) evokes such episodes as the Transfiguration and Gethsemane.47 By privileging mem-bers of the Twelve over Paul, the ordering principle here is hierarchical. By contrast, the Nicomedian grouping of “Peter and Paul” reflects martyrologi-cal traditions that united the two as far as Rome (cf. the joint 29 June feast for Peter and Paul) and Mesopotamia (cf. Aphrahat’s pairing of the two), and unites the two names in the block that died “in Rome.”48 In its favor, this vari-ant is undoubtedly more peculiar, prioritizing James and John over apostles of higher stature, namely, Peter and Paul. It is easy to imagine a scenario where the commemoration of Peter was moved closer to the head of the order, given his stature as “chief of the apostles.” Nevertheless, it is not inconceivable that an original feast to Peter, James, and John could have been broken up by Peter’s natural attraction to Paul, his fellow martyr in Rome.

I believe a comparison of the geographical range of each variant resolves this stalemate. As a few studies have observed, the Cappadocian variant can also be reconstructed for the church of Antioch at the time of Chrysostom. This indicates a range extending from Central Turkey to at least Northern Syria. On the other hand, the Nicomedian variant underlies the late December entries of the Jerusalem Lectionary, as noted earlier. The block is also attested in sixth

45 K.-H. Uthemann “Ein Enkomion zum Fest des Hl. Paulus am 28. Dezember. Edition des Textes (CPG 4850) mit Einleitung.” Philohistôr. Miscellanea in honorem Caroli Laga Septuagenarii, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 60 (Leuven: Peeters. 1994) 119-20. Uthemann also cites evidence that a joint feast to Peter and Paul is not evinced in the Antiochene homilies of John Chrysostom.

46 Only the first of these options would require further reconstruction.47 Uthemann 1994, 119.48 Ibid.



century North Africa.49 The widespread provenance of this variant strongly suggests that it is the basic form of the block, which originally spread across the world in the fourth century (otherwise, we might have to postulate mul-tiple instances of the 27 to 28 December shift in far-reaching sites). It is also the earliest attested form of the block, predating mention of the Cappadocian vari-ant by some 20 years (given the reconstructed c. 360 date). The Cappadocian variant, on the other hand, must be a secondary, regional variation of the block, spreading between churches in direct contact. Secondary changes could occur in this region because the liturgical year in use in (at least some of) these churches, including Nyssa, began on 25 December. By preserving the axis around which these commemorations were organized, these churches would have best understood the consequences of shifting an element in the order as heightening or reducing privilege. A desire to shift Peter forward in the block to reflect his stature makes best sense in these communities.

This, then, is our definitive reconstruction of the basic form of the block:

Reconstruction

Dec. 26 Stephen 27 James and John 28 Peter and Paul

As noted above, the most peculiar aspect of this sequence is the position of James and John above Peter and Paul. It is precisely this anomaly that betrays the ordering principle of the block.

Can it be coincidental that the second day of the block commemorates the second martyr identified in the book of Acts: the apostle James, the son of Zebedee (Acts 12:1-2)? I propose that the martyrology tradition underlying this sequence of feasts takes its inspiration from Acts, and assigns its first and second entries to the purported first and second martyrs of Christian history: Stephen and James. Only the honor of James as Christianity’s second martyr would justify a position in the sequence immediately following Stephen, but preceding apostles of greater stature (Paul, and perhaps also Peter). In this

49 The Calendar of Carthage (c. 505-523) attests the block in an altered form, replacing John the Evangelist with John the Baptist: “27 December. Of saint John the Baptist and of the apostle James whom Herod killed” (complete calendar in Acta Sanctorum 65 November II.1, ed. Giovanni Battista de Rossi and Louis Duchesne [Brussels, 1894] 69-72). Additionally, the feast of Peter and Paul appears only on its Western date (29 June), in its absence, a feast to “the Holy infants whom Herod killed” has come to occupy the 28 December date.

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light, it appears John’s claim to the 27 December feast is secondary to that of his brother. John shares his brother’s commemoration through his frequent pairing with him in the gospels (e.g., Lk. 5:10; 9:54), and their blood relation-ship. This pairing occurs even in the record of James’ death in Acts (“[Herod] had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword”; Acts 12:2). Nevertheless, it is James’ death that is fundamental to the feast; the skeletal principle of the block is historical order of martyrdom.

In the absence of a witness to a 27 December feast for James alone, I will not reconstruct such a feast here. Nevertheless, that such a feast existed is not outside the realm of possibility. At some point in this internal reconstruction, John seems thematically superfluous. Furthermore, if martyrdom is an orga-nizing principle of these feasts, John seems all the more out of place, since many fourth century Christians did not consider him a martyr. Intriguingly, the 27 December homily of Gregory of Nyssa highlights both the martyrologi-cal spirit of the late December commemorations and the dubious position of John within that context:

Thus Peter radiates with much holiness and reverence when he is sus-pended upside down on a cross in order not to equal himself with his Savior’s glory. . . . James was beheaded out of love for Christ his true head. As the Apostle says, Christ is the head of man and the entire church. Blessed John endured many, diverse conflicts and succeeded in various positions foster the religion. He endured an unsuccessful drowning attempt and was judged to be numbered among the martyrs’ chorus. [John] was held in esteem not by his suffering but by his desire to undergo martyrdom, a type of death that became an immortal tribute to the one who by his death graced the churches.50

By taking great lengths to defend the commemoration of John as a “martyr” after Stephen and beside Peter and James, despite his never having been killed, Gregory betrays the anomalous position of John in this block of feasts.

Ironically, John’s higher profile in the Christian tradition eventually came to eclipse James’ claim to the feast. The later Hieronymian Martyrology will identify the date primarily with John, but neglect his brother James, confusing or replacing him with “James, the brother of the Lord”:

50 Greg. Nyss., Laud. Alt. S. Steph. Protomartyris 1 (PG 46,729-31), tr. Richard (Casimir) McCambly and David Salomon.



Adsumptio S. Joannis evangelistae; et Ordinatio episcopatus S. Jacobi fratris domini, qui ab apostolis primus est Judaeis Hierosolymis est episcopus ordi-natus et tempore paschali martyrio coronatus.51

In the current Roman Martyrology, 27 December is set aside for John the Evangelist with no trace of James at all.

5 Origin of the Feast

At the end of our discussion, it is worth asking: which church developed this block of festivals? Unfortunately, the definitive answer is probably lost to us. Still our discussion at least narrows the possibilities. As noted earlier, the feast of St. Stephen occupies 26 December precisely because this date represented the first possible position for a martyr commemoration in the liturgical year. Undoubtedly then, we are seeking a church that: (1) was already celebrating the Nativity on 25 December some time before the year 360 ce (the date of the Nicomedian source for the Syriac Martyrology), and (2) recognized that date as the beginning of the liturgical year. We are also keen to avoid any community that (3) does not attest this block of feasts by 360 ce, or (4) attests an estab-lished feast of Peter and Paul, as such a commemoration might have precluded the development of the 28 December feast. The first constraint eliminates a number of options, including Alexandria,52 Cappadocia,53 Constantinople,54 and two cities identified in previous studies as the source of the block: Jerusalem (so Dix)55 and Antioch (so Nardone).56 The second and fourth con-straints probably exclude a variety of sites in North Africa, including Carthage.57 The third and fourth certainly eliminate Rome.

51 Cod. Bernensis text; in Acta Sanctorum 63 November II.1, ed. Giovanni Battista de Rossi and Louis Duchesne (Brussels, 1894), 2.

52 Talley 1991, 140-141. 53 Roll 1995, 174. Talley 1991, 138.54 Talley 1991, 137-38.55 See sources cited in note 21.56 Nardone 1981, 242-43. In In Diem Natal., Chrysostom indicates that the feast was intro-

duced to Antioch only ten years before: c. 375 ce (PG 49,351). See discussion in Talley 1991, 138. This is the most serious oversight of Nardone’s discussion.

57 As noted earlier, the Calendar of Carthage (c. 505-523 ce) begins on 19 April. Moreover, it is clear the 29 June feast of Peter and Paul had spread to North Africa by the time of Augustine (Kunzler 2001, 441).

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The early date posited for the block points us towards a place of origin in or near the West. The 25 December Nativity feast originated the West,58 and it is in Western Europe that we consistently find it inaugurating the liturgical year.59 It is also safe to presume that these feasts developed some years after the introduction of Christmas, through a later, deliberate expansion of the church calendar to include the commemorations of apostolic martyrs. The first half of the fourth century is the most appropriate window for these developments.

6 Conclusion

Our study began as an attempt to understand the position of three feasts of the Christian year. At its conclusion, we have recovered the broader design of at least two fourth century calendars. This disproportionate return speaks to the forgotten profile of the post-Nativity commemorations, feasts that once anchored liturgical life of thousands of fourth and fifth century Christians.

It also speaks to the forgotten profile of Stephen in particular. It is common wisdom that Stephen’s cult catapulted into prominence with the purported discovery of his relics in 415 ce. However, our findings suggest that this cult was no less energized in a number of fourth century communities. It is per-haps in this climate that the later discovery of his relics is best understood. As communities accorded Stephen the highest position in their sanctoral cycles as the “martyr of martyrs” and “chief of the confessors,” the absence of his rel-ics became unbearable. The responsibility to produce them weighed heavily on the church of Jerusalem. In this light, we should understand the discovery of Stephen’s bones, and their enshrinement at a dedicated Martyrium, less as the cause of the Protomartyr’s widespread fame than as its consequence.

Finally, our conclusions highlight the power of boundaries in ritual time both to create and destroy symbolic design. In the fourth century, a liturgical axis positioned at 25 December attracted a particular block of commemora-tions and established them among the most prominent celebrations of the year. Unfortunately, the movement of that axis to other positions has long since eroded the profile of those feasts. Today, Stephen’s feast is eclipsed by the Nativity season that surrounds it except in a few nations with a special attachment to the saint. Ironically, the post-Nativity position that once ele-vated the profile of this feast now undermines it. Unsurprisingly then, this

58 Talley 1991, 85-87. This is also the testimony of Chrysostom: “this [feast], which has been from of old to the inhabitants of the West and has now been brought to us” (PG 49,351).

59 Charles K. Riepe, “Beginning the Church Year,” Worship 35 (1960) 147.



commemoration has received far less attention in the literature than its ancient prominence merits. I am confident that the exploration of the licens-ing processes and movements of parallel axes will resolve other outstanding questions in the sanctoral cycle, and update more than a few incorrect or incomplete “answers” to previous questions.

vigiliae christianae. 2014, vol. 68 issue 3, p290-309.pdf

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