CHRISTOLOGY
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CHRISTOPHER
be a papal compliment to the imperial church on its
patronal feast. The three stations are thus accounted
for, for by 1143 (cf. Orel. Romani in P. L., LXXVIII,
1032) the pope abandoned distant St. Peter's, and
said the third Mass at the high altar of St. Mary
Major. At this third Mass Leo III inaugurated, in
800, by the coronation of Charlemagne, the Holy
Roman Empire. The day became a favourite for
court ceremonies, and on it, e. g., William of Nor-
mandy was crowned at Westminster.
The history of the dedication of the Oratorium Prcesepis in the Liberian basilica, of the relics there kept and their imitations, does not belong to this discussion [cf. articles, Crib; Relics. The data are well set out by Bonaccorsi (II Natale, Rome, 1903, eh. iv)], but the practice of giving dramatic, or at least spectacular, expression to the incidents of the Xativity early gave rise to more or less liturgical mys- teries. The ordinaria of Rouen and of Reims, for instance, place the ojfeium pastorum immediately after the Te Deum and before Mass (cf. Ducange, Gloss, rned. et inf. Lat., s. v. Pastores); the latter Church celebrated a second "prophetical" mystery after Tierce, in which Virgil and the Sibyl join with O. T. prophets in honouring Christ. (For Virgil and Xativity play and prophecy see authorities in Com- paretti, "Virgil in Middle Ages", p. 310 sqq.) "To out-herod Herod", i.e. to over-act, dates from Herod's violence in these plays. St. Francis of Assisi in 1223 originated the crib of to-day by laicizing a hitherto ecclesiastical custom, henceforward extra-liturgical and popular. The presence of ox and ass is due to a misinterpretation of Is., i, 3, and Hab., hi, 2 (" Itala" version), though they appear in the unique fourth- century "Nativity" discovered in the St. Sebastian catacombs in 1877. The ass on which Balaam rode in the Reims mystery won for the feast the title Fes- tum Asinorum. (Ducange, op. cit., s. v. Festum; see Asses, Feast of). The degeneration of these plays in part occasioned the diffusion of noels, pastorali, and carols, to which was accorded, at times, a quasi- liturgical position. Prudentius, in the fourth cen- tury, is the first (and in that century alone) to hymn the Nativity, for the "Vox clara" (hymn for Lauds in Advent) and "Christe Redemptor" (Vespers and Matins of Christmas) cannot be assigned to Ambrose. "A solis ortu" is certainly, however, by Sedulius (fifth century). The earliest German Weihnachts- lieder date from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the earliest noels from the eleventh, the earliest carols from the thirteenth. The famous "Stabat Mater Speciosa" is attributed to Jacopone da Todi (1230- 1306); "Adeste Fideles" is, at the earliest, of the seventeenth century. These essentially popular airs, and even words, must, however, have existed long be- fore they were put down in writing.
Pagan customs centring round the January calends gravitated to Christmas. Tiele (Yule and Christmas, London, 1899) has collected many interesting exam- ples. The strenoe (ftrennes) of the Roman 1 January il'ittcrly condemned by Tertullian, de Idol., xiv and \, and by Maximus of Turin, Horn, ciii, de Kal. gen- til., in P. L., LVII, 492, etc.) survive as Christmas presents, cards, boxes. The calend fires were a scan- dal even to Rome, and St. Boniface obtained from Pope Zachary their abolition. But probably the Yule-log in its many forms was originally lit only in view of the cold season. Only in 1577 did it become a public ceremony in England; its popularity, how- ever, grew immense, especially in Provence; in Tus- cany, Christmas is simply called ceppo (block, log — Bonaccorsi, op. cit., p. 145, n. 2). Besides, it became connected with other usages; in England, a tenant had tin- right to feed at his lord's expense as long as a wheel, i. e. a round, of wood, given by him, would burn; the landlord gave to a tenant a load of wood on the birth of a child; Kindsfuss was a present given
to children on the birth of a brother or sister, and even
to the farm animals on that of Christ, the universal
little brother. (Tiele, op. cit., p. 95 sqq.) Gervase
of Tilbury (thirteenth century) says that in England
grain is exposed on Christmas night to gain fertility
from the dew which falls in response to "Rorate
Cceli"; the tradition that trees and flowers blossomed
on this night is first quoted from an Arab geographer
of the tenth century, and extended to England. In
a thirteenth-century French epic, candles are seen
on the flowering tree. In England it was Joseph of
Arimathea's rod which flowered at Glastonbury and
elsewhere; when 3 September became 14 September,
in 1752, 2000 people watched to see if the Quainton
thorn (Crataegus prircnx) would blow on Christmas New
Style; and as it did not, they refused to keep the New
Style festival. From this belief of the calends prac-
tice of greenery decorations (forbidden by Archbisho'i
Martin of Braga, c. 575, P. L., LXXIII — mistletoe was
bequeathed by the Druids) developed the Christmas
tree, first definitely mentioned in 1605 at Strasburg,
and introduced into France and England in 1840
only, by Princess Helena of Mecklenburg and the
Prince Consort respectively. Only with great cau-
tion should the mysterious benefactor of Christmas
night — Knecht Ruprecht, Pelzmartel on a wooden
horse, St. Martin on a white charger, St. Nicholas and
his "reformed" equivalent, Father Christmas — be as-
cribed to the stepping of a saint into the shoes of
Woden, who, with his wife Berchta, descended on the
nights between 25 December and 6 January, on a
white horse to bless earth and men. Fires and blaz-
ing wheels starred the hills, houses were adorned,
trials suspended, and feasts celebrated (cf. Bonaccorsi,
op. cit., p. 151). Knecht Ruprecht, at any rate
(first found in a mystery of 166S and condemned in
1680 as a devil) was only a servant of the Holy Child.
But no doubt aboriginal Christian nuclei attracted
pagan accretions. For the calend mumming; the
extraordinary and obscene Modranicht; the cake in
honour of Mary's "afterbirth", condemned (692) at
the Trullan Council, can. Ixxix; the Tabulae Fortunes
(food and drink offered to obtain increase, and con-
demned in 743), see Tiele, op. cit., ch. viii, ix — Tiele 's
data are perhaps of greater value than his deduc-
tions — and Ducange (op. cit., s. vv. Cervula and
Kalenda?). In England, Christmas was forbidden by
Act of Parliament in 1644; the day was to be a fast
and a market day; shops were compelled to be open;
plum puddings and mince pies condemned as heathen.
The conservatives resisted ; at Canterbury blood was
shed; but after the Restoration Dissenters continued
to call Yuletide "Fooltide".
Besides the works mentioned in the article see also. Die (iesehiehte des deutschen Weihnaehts (Leipzig, 1S93); Maw- hardt. WeihnacMsbluthen in Silte u. Sags (Berlin. 1864); Kietschel, Waknachten in Kirche, Kunst u. Vulkslehei, I'.i.lr feld and Leipzig. 190:2'; Schmid, Darstelluini der (J, hurt < m ,i.r taldmden Kunst (1S901; Miller, he costumanzi del Xntnlr (Hume, 1SSOI; C'orrieri, // Xatale nelle lelteraturt M Xord in Cosmos Calk. (December. 1900 i; Erbes. Das .-> . M.irti/rologium, etc., in Zeitschr. f. Kirehent7eseh. (1905', IV 1 1906', I: Bardenhewer, Marin VerkOnaioung (Freiburg, 1905); de Kersaint-Gilly, Fetes de Noel en Provence (Mont- pellier, 1900': De Coussemaker, Dromes lituraiqucs du I Ave (Paris. 18611; Docket, Diet, des mysteres in Mic.nf ' encyel.theol., XLIII; Peremks, Diet, de Xmls, ibid. LXIII; Smith and Cheetham, Diet. Christ. Antie/., s. v. Christmas.
Cyril Martixdale. Christology. See Jesus Christ.
Christopher, Saint (Gr. xp<v t{ ". Christ, epipav, to bear. Lat. Christophorus , i. e. Christ bearer . a martyr, probably of the third century. Although St. Christopher is one of the most popular saints in the East and in the West, almost nothing certain is known about his life or death. The legend says. A heathen king (in Canaan or Arabia', through the prayers of his wife to the Blessed Virgin, had a son. whom he called Offerus (Offro. Adokimus. or Repre- bus) and dedicated to the gods Machine! and Apollo.
