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darkucss. . . Is he to bo thought in his right mmd
who offers for a gift the light of candles and wax tapers
to the author and giver of light? . . . But their
Gods, because the^ are of the earth, need h^ht that
they need not be in darkness" (" Institut. Div.", VI,
ii) . In like manner, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, towards
the end of the same century, observes: "Let .not our
dwelling-place blaze with visible li^ht and resoimd
with mmstrelsy, for this indeed is the custom of the
Greek holy-month, but let us not honour God with
these things and exalt the present season with unbecoming rites, but with purity of soul and cheeriuhiess
of mind and with lamps which enlighten the whole
body of the Church, i. e. with divine contemplations
and thoughts" (Orat., v, 35). The rhetorical char-
acter of such passages makes it dan^rous to draw
inferences. It may well be that the writers are
merely protesting against the illuminations which
formed part of the ordinary reU^ous cultus of the
emperors, and wish to state forcibly the objections
agSLinst a similar practice which was beginning to
find favour among Christians. It is, at any rate, cer-
tain that even earlier than this the hturgical use
of lights must have been introduced. The decree
of the Spanish Council of Illiberis, or Ehira (about
A. D. 305), is too obscure to afford a firm basis for
argument (see Hefele-Leclercq, **nist. des Conciles",
I, 212). Still this prohibition, "that candles be not
lighted in a cemetery during the day, for the spirits
of the saints ought not to be disquieted " (can. xxxiv),
at least shows that the practice — ^which we know to
have been long in use among pagans — of burning
lights, for some syml)olicaI or superstitious reason, even
in the daytime, was being adopted among the Chris-
tians also. To discuss in detail the perplexing and
seemingly inconsistent references of St. Jerome to
the use of lights would not be possible here. But
two facts stand out clearly: (1) that he admitted the
existence of a pretty general custom of burning can-
dles and lamps in honour of the martyrs, a custom
which he apologizes for without unreservedly ap-
proving it; and (2) that the saint, though he denies
that there is any general practice among the Christians
of burning lights during the davtime, still admits at
least some instances of a [lurely liturgical use of light.
Thus he says: "Apart from honouring the relics of
martyrs, it is the custom, through all the Churches of
the East, that when the gospels are to he read lights
are kindled, thoueh the sun is already shining, not,
indeed, to dispel darkness, but to exhibit a token of
joy . . . and that, under the figure of bodily light,
that light may be set forth of which we read in the
psalter ' thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to
my paths'" (C. Vieilantium, vii). This testimony is
particularly valuable because it so clearly refutes any
exclusively utilitarian view of the use of lights in the
churches.
From Eusebius, St. Paulinus of Nola, the " Peregri- natio iEtheris" (Pilgrimage of iEtheria), and other authorities, we have abundant evidence that the Christians of the fourth century, and probably earlier still, upon Easter eve and some other solemn festivals, made a great display of lamps and candles of all kinds. Moreover, this does not seem to have been confined to the nocturnal vigil itself, for St. Paulinus, in de- scribing the feast of St. Felix to whom his church was dedicated, tells us in verse how "the bright altars are crowned with lamps thickly set. Lights are burnt, odorous with waxed papyri. They shine by night and day; thus night is radiant with the brightness, of the day, and the day itself, bright in heavenly beauty, shmes yet more with light doubled by countless lampa" (" Poem.", xiv, " Nat. " iii, in P. L., LXI, 467). Stillthis poetical language may very possibly mean no more thain that in a rather dark church it was found desirable to keep the hunps burning even in daytime upon great festivalz, when there was a lurge concourse
of people. It tells us nothing of any use of lights
which IS liturgical in the stricter sense of the word.
The same may be said of various references to the
festal adornment of churches with lamps and candles
which may be found in the writings of the Christian
poet Prudentius (cf. P. L., LIX. 819, 829; and LX.
300). Still, when we find in the newly discovered
- * Testament of our Lord " (1. 19) an injunction regarding church buildings, that " all places should be lighted
both for a type and also for reading", it seems clear that St. Jerome was not alone in attaching a mysti- cal significance to the use of lights. Henc« we may infer that before the days (about a. d. 475) of the liturgical homilist Narsai (see Lamps and Lampa- DARU) the use of lamps and candles around the altar during the Liturgy had become universal.
It imould be added that no great importance can be attached to the mention by St. Paulinus of Nola, of "a perpetual light" in the church ("continuum scy-
?hus argenteus aptus ad usum"; cf. P. L., LXI, 539). his certainly cannot be assumed to have been in- tended as a mark of respect to the Blessed Sacrament reserved for the sick. In the days before the inven- tion of matches the continuance of some source of fire from which a light could ]ye readily obtained was a matter of great convenience. Such a perpetual light seems to Imve been usually kept up, then as now, in Jewish synagogues (cf. Ex., xxvii, 20; Lev., xxiv, 2). but it was only the later Talmudists who discovered in this a purpose of honouring the Torah, or Books of the Law, preserved in the Ark. The same utilita- rian design probably underlay any Christian practice, which, after all, is not very widely attested, of keeping a light perpetually burning in the church.
But to return to the liturgical use of lights in the stricter sense, there are not wanting many considera- tions to suggest that, despite the lack of direct evi- dence, this practice is probably of very much older date than tiie fourth century. To begin with, the seven-branched "candlestick", or more accurately lamp-stand, was a permanent element in the Temple ritual at Jerusalem and more than one Jewish festival (e. g. the Dedication feast an<l that of Tabernacles), was marked by a profuse use of lights. Moreover, the Apocalypse (i, 12; iv, 5; xi, 4), in the prominence wnich it gives to the mention of candlesticks and lamps, is proha!>ly only echoing the more or less litur- gical concpptions already current at the time. Again, the fact that the Liturgy was at first no doubt cele- brated in the evening (cf. I Cor., xi, 21), ^s also the necessity that the faithful should often assemble by stealth (as in the catacombs) or in the early hours of the morning (cf. PHny, "Epp", X, n. 97 — ante hicem convenire; and Tertullian, "De Cor.", iii — aiitclucanis caHbus)y render it highly probable that artificial light must have come to be regarded as an ordinary adjunct of the Liturgy. Hence the use of lamps and can- dles was probably continued even when not actually needed, just as, in more modern days, the bishop^a bugia, which in the beginning served an entirely practi- cal purpose, has come in time to Ix? pun?ly ceremonial. It is also noteworthy that early representations of the Last Supper nearly always give prominence to the lamp, while something of the same kind obtains in the first rude sketches of Christian altars. In any caiMj, lamps and chandeliers are conspicuous amongst tlio earliest recorded presents to churches (see the " LiUfr Pontificalis", ed. Duchesne, passim; and cf. the in vi*ri- tory of Cirta, a. d. 303, in Morcelli, "Africa ChrJHif- ana", II, 183; and Beissel, "Bilder aus der alU'Ur'mis Kunst", 247).
Both in ancient and modern times, tlu* rt*\trtmrh has l)een leveled against the Church tliiit in Imt I'v.rt^ monial use of lights she has taken over wit himi, K/Tupli? the sensuous and often idolatrous itrwAlivrH ttl |i(i^Ar>- ism. For this charge there is very liltl*? r«^l jjnii/i**- tion. To begin with, it must In* ttwUU^ii that waA
