been ceremonial or symbolical.[1] Again, according to the Acta
2nd and 3rd centuries.
of St Cyprian (d. 258), his body was borne to the grave praelucentibus
cereis, and Prudentius, in his hymn on the
martyrdom of St Lawrence (Peristeph. ii. 71, in Migne,
Patr. lat. lx. 300), says that in the time of St
Laurentius, i.e. the middle of the 3rd century, candles
stood in the churches of Rome on golden candelabra. The gift,
mentioned by Anastasius (in Sylv.), made by Constantine to
the Vatican basilica, of a pharum of gold, garnished with 500
dolphins each holding a lamp, to burn before St Peter’s tomb,
points also to a custom well established before Christianity
became the state religion.
Whatever previous custom may have been—and for the earliest ages it is difficult to determine absolutely owing to the fact that the Christians held their services at night—by the close of the 4th century the ceremonial use of lights had become firmly and universally established Jerome and Vigilantius. in the Church. This is clear, to pass by much other evidence, from the controversy of St Jerome with Vigilantius.
Vigilantius, a presbyter of Barcelona, still occupied the position of Tertullian and Lactantius in this matter. “We see,” he wrote, “a rite peculiar to the pagans introduced into the churches on pretext of religion, and, while the sun is still shining, a mass of wax tapers lighted.... A great honour to the blessed martyrs, whom they think to illustrate with contemptible little candles (de vilissimis cereolis)!” Jerome, the most influential theologian of the day, took up the cudgels against Vigilantius (he “ought to be called Dormitantius”), who, in spite of his fatherly admonition, had dared again “to open his foul mouth and send forth a filthy stink against the relics of the holy martyrs” (Hier. Ep. cix. al. 53—ad Ripuarium Presbyt., in Migne, Patr. lat. p. 906). If candles are lit before their tombs, are these the ensigns of idolatry? In his treatise contra Vigilantium (Patr. lat. t. xxiii.) he answers the question with much common sense. There can be no harm if ignorant and simple people, or religious women, light candles in honour of the martyrs. “We are not born, but reborn, Christians,” and that which when done for idols was detestable is acceptable when done for the martyrs. As in the case of the woman with the precious box of ointment, it is not the gift that merits reward, but the faith that inspires it. As for lights in the churches, he adds that “in all the churches of the East, whenever the gospel is to be read, lights are lit, though the sun be rising (jam sole rutilante), not in order to disperse the darkness, but as a visible sign of gladness (ad signum laetitiae demonstrandum).” Taken in connexion with a statement which almost immediately precedes this—“Cereos autem non clara luce accendimus, sicut frustra calumniaris: sed ut noctis tenebras hoc solatio temperemus” (§ 7)—this seems to point to the fact that the ritual use of lights in the church services, so far as already established, arose from the same conservative habit as determined the development of liturgical vestments, i.e. the lights which had been necessary at the nocturnal meetings were retained, after the hours of service had been altered, and invested with a symbolical meaning.
Already they were used at most of the conspicuous functions of the Church. Paulinus, bishop of Nola (d. 431), describes the altar at the eucharist as “crowned with crowded lights,”[2] and even mentions the “eternal lamp.”[3] For their use at baptisms we have, among much other Practice in the 4th century. evidence, that of Zeno of Verona for the West,[4] and that of Gregory of Nazianzus for the East.[5] Their use at funerals is illustrated by Eusebius’s description of the burial of Constantine,[6] and Jerome’s account of that of St Paula.[7] At ordinations they were used, as is shown by the 6th canon of the council of Carthage (398), which decrees that the acolyte is to hand to the newly ordained deacon ceroferarium cum cereo. As to the blessing of candles, according to the Liber pontificalis Pope Zosimus in 417 ordered these to be blessed,[8] and the Gallican and Mozarabic rituals also provided for this ceremony.[9] The Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, known as Candlemas (q.v.), because on this day the candles for the whole year are blessed, was established—according to some authorities—by Pope Gelasius I. about 492. As to the question of “altar lights,” however, it must be borne in mind that these were not placed upon the altar, or on a retable behind it, until the 12th century. These were originally the candles carried by the deacons, according to the Ordo Romanus (i. 8; ii. 5; iii. 7) seven in number, which were set down either on the steps of the altar, or, later, Eastern Church. behind it. In the Eastern Church, to this day, there are no lights on the high altar; the lighted candles stand on a small altar beside it, and at various parts of the service are carried by the lectors or acolytes before the officiating priest or deacon. The “crowd of lights” described by Paulinus as crowning the altar were either grouped round it or suspended in front of it; they are represented by the sanctuary lamps of the Latin Church and by the crown of lights suspended in front of the altar in the Greek.
To trace the gradual elaboration of the symbolism and use of ceremonial lights in the Church, until its full development and systematization in the middle ages, would be impossible here. It must suffice to note a few stages in the process. The burning of lights before the tombs Development of the use. of martyrs led naturally to their being burned also before relics and lastly before images and pictures. This latter practice, hotly denounced as idolatry during the iconoclastic controversy (see Iconoclasm), was finally established as orthodox by the second general council of Nicaea (787), which restored the worship of images. A later development, however, by which certain lights themselves came to be regarded as objects of worship and to have other lights burned before them, was condemned as idolatrous by the synod of Noyon in 1344.[10] The passion for symbolism extracted ever new meanings out of the candles and their use. Early in the 6th century Ennodius, bishop of Pavia, pointed out the three-fold elements of a wax-candle (Opusc. ix. and x.), each of which would make it an offering acceptable to God; the rush-wick is the product of pure water, the wax is the offspring of virgin bees,[11] the flame is sent from heaven.[12] Clearly, wax was a symbol of the Blessed Virgin and the holy humanity of Christ. The later middle ages developed the idea. Durandus, in his Rationale, interprets the wax as the body of Christ, the wick as his soul, the flame as his divine nature; and the consuming candle as symbolizing his passion and death.
- ↑ This symbolism—whatever it was—was not pagan, i.e. the lamps were not placed in the graves as part of the furniture of the dead—in the Catacombs they are found only in the niches of the galleries and the arcosolia—nor can they have been votive in the sense popularized later.
- ↑ “Clara coronantur densis altaria lychnis” (Poem. De S. Felice natalitium, xiv. 99, in Migne, Patr. lat. lxi. 467).
- ↑ “Continuum scyphus est argenteus aptus ad usum.”
- ↑ “Sal, ignis et oleum” (Lib. i. Tract. xiv. 4, in Migne, xi. 358).
- ↑ In sanct. Pasch. c. 2; Migne, Patr. graeca, xxxvi. 624.
- ↑ ϕῶτα τ᾽ ἐφάψαντες κύκλῳ ἐπὶ σκευῶν χρυσῶν, θαυμαστὸν θέαα τοῖς ὁρῶσι παρεῖχον (Vita Constantini, iv. 66).
- ↑ “Cum alii Pontifices lampadàs cereosque proferrent, alii choras psallentium ducerent” (Ep. cviii. ad Eustochium virginem, in Migne).
- ↑ This may be the paschal candle only. In some codices the text runs: “Per parochias concessit licentiam benedicendi Cereum Paschalem” (Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “Cereum Paschale”). In the three variants of the notice of Zosimus given in Duchesne’s edition of the Lib. pontif. (1886–1892) the word cera is, however, alone used. Nor does the text imply that he gave to the suburbican churches a privilege hitherto exercised by the metropolitan church. The passage runs: “Hic constituit ut diaconi leva tecta haberent de palleis linostimis per parrochias et ut cera benedicatur,” &c. Per parrochias here obviously refers to the head-gear of the deacons, not to the candles.
- ↑ See also the Peregrinatio Sylviae (386), 86, &c., for the use of lights at Jerusalem, and Isidore of Seville (Etym. vii. 12; xx. 10) for the usage in the West. That even in the 7th century the blessing of candles was by no means universal is proved by the 9th canon of the council of Toledo (671), “De benedicendo cereo et lucerna in privilegiis Paschae.” This canon states that candles and lamps are not blessed in some churches, and that inquiries have been made why we do it. In reply, the council decides that it should be done to celebrate the mystery of Christ’s resurrection. See Isidore of Seville, Conc., in Migne, Pat. lat. lxxxiv. 369.
- ↑ Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “Candela.”
- ↑ Bees were believed, like fish, to be sexless.
- ↑ “Venerandis compactam elementis facem tibi, Domine, mancipamus: in qua trium copula munerum primum de impari numero complacebit: quae quod gratis Deo veniat auctoribus, non habetur incertum: unum quod de fetibus fluminum accedunt nutrimenta flammarum: aliud quod apum tribuit intemerata fecunditas, in quarum partibus nulla partitur damna virginitas: ignis etiam coelo infusus adhibetur” (Opusc. x. in Migne, Patr. lat. t. lxiii.).
