Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/123

F E S F E S 113 FESSLER, IGNAZ AURELIUS (1756-1839), a celebrated Hungarian ecclesiastic, historian, and freemason, was born on the 18th May 1756 at the village of Zurany in the county of Moson. His mother, who was a pious Roman Catholic, made every effort to secure for him a strict reli gious education. On the 9th July 1773 he joined the order of Capuchins as a novice, and in the following year he took the monastic vows, assuming the name of Innocen- tius. After living in disagreement with his superiors in different monasteries he was transferred to the Capuchin house at Vienna ; and while there, by means of a private letter, he drew the attention of the emperor Joseph II. to the irregularities of the monasteries. The searching in vestigation which followed raised up against him many implacable enemies. Released from the monastery by an imperial decree, he was in 1784 appointed professor of Oriental languages and hermeueutics in the university of Lemberg. In 1787 he brought out his tragedy of Sidney, which his enemies attacked so violently as pro fane and revolutionary that they compelled him to resign his office and seek refuge in Silesia. In Breslau he met with a cordial reception from Korn the publisher, and was, moreover, subsequently employed by the prince of Carolath as tutor to his sons. In 1791 Fessler was con verted to Protestantism, and in 1796 he went to Berlin, where he founded a humanitarian society, and was com missioned by the freemasons of that city to assist Fichte in reforming the statutes and ritual of their lodge. He soon after this obtained a Government appointment in con nexion with the newly-acquired Polish provinces, but in consequence of the battle of Jena (1806) he lost this office, and remained in very needy circumstances until 1809, when he was summoned to St Petersburg by Alexander I., to fill the post of court councillor, and the professorship of Oriental lan guages and philosophy at the Alexander-Newski Academy. This office, however, he was soon obliged to resign, owing to his alleged atheistic tendencies, but he was subsequently nominated a member of the legislative commission In 1815 he was deprived of his salary, but it was restored to him in 1817. In November 1819 he was appointed consistorial president of the Protestant communities at Saratov, and subsequently became chief superintendent of the Lutheran communities in St Petersburg. Fessler s numerous works are all written in German. In recognition of his important services to Hungary as a historian, he was in 1831 elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He died at St Petersburg, December 15, 1839, in the 84th year of his age. His most important works are Die Geschickten der Ungarn imd Hirer Landsassen, 10 vols.,- Leipsic, 1815-25; Marcus Aurelius, 3 vols., Breslau, 1790-92 (3d edition, 4 vols., 1799) ; Aristides und Themis- tokle*, 2 vols., Berlin, 1792 (3d edition, 1818); Attila, Koniy der Hunnen, Breslau, 1794 ; Mathias Corvinus, 2 vols., Breslau, 1793-94; and Die drei grossen Konige der Hungarn aus dem Arpadischen /Stamme, Breslau, 1808. See Fessler s Riickblicke auf seine siclzigjahrigc Pilgcrschnft, Breslau, 1824 (2d edition, Leipsic, 1851). FESTIVALS. A festival or feast 1 is a day or series of days specially and publicly set apart for religious observ ances. Whether its occurrence be casual or periodic, whether its ritual be grave or gay, carnal as the orgies of Baal and Astarte or spiritual a-s the worship of a Puritan Sabbath, it is to be regarded as a festival or " holy day " as long as it is professedly held in the name of religion. To trace the festivals of the world through all their variations would be to trace the entire history of human religion and human civilization. Where no religion is, 1 "To feast" is simply to keep a festum or festival. The etymo logy of tlic word is uncertain ; but probably it has no connexion with there can of course be no feasts ; and without civilization any attempt at festival-keeping must necessarily be fitful and comparatively futile. But as religion develops, festivals develop with it, and assume their distinctive character; and an advancing civilization, at least in its earlier stages, will generally be found to increase their number, enrich their ritual, fix more precisely the timn and order of their recurrence, and widen the area of their observance. Some uncivilized tribes, such as the Juangs of Bengal, the Fuegians, and the Anclamanese, have been described as having no word for God, no idea of a future state, and con sequently no religious ceremonies of any kind whatever. But such cases, doubtful at the best, are confessedly excep tional. In the vast majority of instances observed and re corded, the religiosity of the savage is conspicuous. Even when incapable of higher manifestations, it can at least take the form of reverence for the dead ; the grave-heap can become an altar on which offerings of food for the departed may be placed, and where in acts of public and private worship the gifts of survivors may be accompanied with praises and with prayers. That the custom of ghost-pro pitiation by some sort of sacrifice is even now very widely diffused among the lower races at least, and that there are also many curious " survivals " of such a habit to be traced among highly civilized modern nations, has been abundantly shown of late by numerous collectors of folk-lore and students of sociology ; and indications of the same pheno mena can be readily pointed out in the Rig- Veda, the Zend-Avesta, and the Pentateuch, as well as in the known usages of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. 2 In many cases the ceremonial observed is of the simplest ; but it ever tends to become more elaborate; and above all it calls for repetition, and repetition, too, at regular intervals. Whenever this last demand has made itself felt, a calendar begins to take shape. The simplest calendar is obviously the lunar. "The Naga tribes of Assam celebrate their funeral feasts month by month, laying food and drink on the graves of the departed." But it soon comes to be combined with the solar. Thus the Karens, " while habi tually making oblations, have also annual feasts for the dead, at which they ask the spirits to eat and drink." The natives of the Mexican valley in November lay animals, edibles, and flowers on the graves of their dead relatives and friends. The common people in China have a similar custom on the arrival of the winter solstice. The ancient Peruvians had the custom of periodically assembling the embalmed bodies of their dead emperors in the great square of the capital to be feasted in company with the people. The Athenians had their annual Ne/cvcrta or Ne/*rcia and the Romans their Feralia and Lemuralia. The Egyptians observed their three "festivals of the seasons," twelve "festivals of the month," and twelve "festivals of the half month," in honour of their dead. The Parsees, too, were re quired to render their afringans (blessings which were to be recited over a meal to which an angel or the spirit of a deceased person was invited) at each of the six seasons of the year, and also on certain other days. 3 In the majority of recorded instances, the religious feel ing of the savage has been found to express itself in other forms besides that of reverence towards the dead. The oldest literatures of the world, at all events, whether Aryan or Semitic, embody a religion of a much higher type than ancestor worship. The hymns of the Rig-Veda, for example, while not without traces of the other, yet indicate chiefly a worship of the powers of nature, connected with the regular recurrence of the seasons. Thus in iv. 57 we have 2 See Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 170, 280, 306. 3 Hang, Parsis, 224, 225. IX. - is