HOLY THURSDAY. See Holy Week, § 4.

HOLY WATER: Water over which the prayer of consecration has been offered, which is then used symbolically in ceremonial lustration. Purifications in religion and worship by means of water were familiar both to the Oriental and 'to the classical systems of antiquity. On this point Egyptians, Indians, Persians, and Semites stood on a common ground. The custom is found in ancient and later Judaism (see Defilement and Purification, Ceremonial). There was a vessel provided for the lustration of priests in both Tabernacle and Temple. Greeks and Romans not only paid reverential honor to sacred wells, but vessels of water stood in the confines of ancient temples, lustration being accomplished by the individual or the priest. Under the influence of both Jewish and heathen precedent Christianity introduced similar forms of purification. Tertullian speaks of the custom of washing the hands before prayer (De oratio, xi.), and the Apostolic Constitutions witness to the same habit (viii. 32). A bowl of water (see Cantharus) was provided in the atrium of the basilica (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., X., iv. 40). In this connection the old inscription was frequently applied, " Cleanse not only the face, but lawlessness," and on the vessel before old St. Paul's Church in Rome there was the inscription: " Whoever thou art who approachest the sacred shrine of Paul, venerated for its merits, wash as a suppliant thy hands in the font." In celebrating the Lord's Supper, the hands of those who received, as well as the hands of the ministering priest, were washed (of. the authorities cited in DCA, i. 758-759). These lustrations were symbolic acts and were made with unblessed water, which was distinguished from that which the Church used in the sacrament of baptism. The effects of this sacrament were associated with the blessing of the water, and the sphere of the benediction was superstitiously extended, as was done in the case of the bread in the Lord's Supper (Tertullian, Ad uxorem, ii. 5), being regarded as efficacious in sickness and as a protection against demons. But this development required considerable time. Lustrartion and baptism were for a time found side by side; then a third element was introduced in the fourth century, blessed water or holy water. The blessing element originated from the sacrament, the free use of it from the custom of lustration. The increase of popular superstition caused this combination. A formula for benediction occurs in the Apostolic Constitutions (viii. 29; Eng. transl. in ANF, vii. 494), and the conferrer of the benediction was the bishop or, in exceptional cases, the presbyter. Stories of miracles made the custom popular. In order to regulate the usage and to protect it against the extension of superstitious practises, at the be- ginning of the Carolingian age the benediction of water was made an ordinary act of worship. A formula was established for it in the Gregorian Sacramentary, which became the standard and is found in the Roman Ritual. Its connection with the superstition of the ancient Church is evident, especially shown by the fact that in exorcism a prayer was offered beseeching the banishment of the evil one, while the closing petition in the blessing of holy water also mentions the driving away of demons and diseases, freeing the recipients from all evil, and asking that the spirit of pestilence may not reside there, and that all acts of envy of the latent enemy may be averted. Salt was mixed with the water, through an apocryphal direction of Pope Alexander I.; the altar was first sprinkled, then the ministry and clergy, and then the people; the faithful were allowed to take the holy water home for sprinkling the sick, houses, fields, and so on. Holy water is used by the Church for numerous benedictions, besides those mentioned above. It is kept in church in a special movable vessel or in a permanent holy water stoop. Probably the earliest example of this stoop came from Tunis, and dates from about the fifth century. More certainly applied to this use was a Byzantine marble urn (cf. F. X. Kraus, RealencyklaWie der christlichen Alterhimer, ii. 980, Freiburg, 1886). Perhaps in the catacombs vessels of holy water were placed to protect the dead from evil spirits. There is an old example of a bronze vessel in the Vatican museum; the first certain representation of a basin is on the ivory cover of the well-known sacramentary of Drogo of the ninth century. Various forms came into use later on (cf. K. Atz, Die chrialiche Kunst in Wort and Bild, p. 547, Regensburg, 1899). The Greek Church maintains the close connection between holy water and baptismal water. It distinguishes between the great consecration (on the evening before Epiphany or on Epiphany) and the lesser consecration (whenever occasion requires). Orientals practise also the blessing of rivers or the sea.

(Victor Schultze.)

Bibliography: Bingbam, Origines, XI., s.; H. Pfannenschmid, Dal WeAwaaser im heidnischen and christlichen %ultus, Hanover, 1889; F. Probst, Sakramente and Sakramentalien in den d rei ersten christlicAen Jahrhundertsn, pp. 74-83, Tübingen, 1872; R. de Fleury, La Meese, part v., Paris, 1887; A. von Maltzew, Bitt-, Dank- and W eiheGottesdienste der orthodox-katholischen Kirche des Morgen landes, Berlin, 1897; John, Marquis of Bute, and E. W. Budge, The Blessing of the Waters on the Eve of the Epiphany, London, 1901; H. Usener, in Archio for Religions misaensccha/t, viii (1904), 290 sqq.; Cabral, Dictionnaire, part 3av., cola. 886-713 (brilliant and minute, deals with the formulae, many of which it collates); HL, rii. 1262-1283.