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289 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Peseta and Festivals

haps led to the exclusion of this festival from the national observances.

Detailed examination leads to the conclusion that festivals of an agricultural character became religious observances, and at the same time the earlier character of family or local celebration changed and took a national form. The separation

from the natural circumstances of their g. Changes celebration is marked by exact deterin Charac- mination of dates, while new occasions ter of Fes- of purely religious significance came tivals. in, such as the two purifications of

Ezekiel and the day of atonement. Deuteronomy is the turning-point, where the festivals still have as a motive rejoicing before Yahweh (xiv. 26, xvi. 11); but the first step toward the separation of the festivals from the environment of nature amid which they arose and the determination of a religious purpose was taken in the centralization of the cultus. Only in the case of the Passover the Priest Code breaks with Deuteronomy and Ezekiel and makes the celebration a home affair, and the lamb loses its sacrificial character. The festal character of these celebrations was not wholly lost under the Priest Code, as is shown by the feast of booths; and Lev. xxiii. still retains recollection of the connection of the three principal feasts with agriculture. The question whether these three, the feasts of unleavened bread, Pentecost and tabernacles, were instituted prophetically by Moses or arose among the Hebrews by adoption from the Canaanites has been variously answered. But Judges ix. 27 gives an account of a festival analogous to the feast of booths. No ground exists, however, for deriving from that source the celebration of the Sabbath (cf. Amos viii. 5). On the other hand the assertion that a Sabbath rest could not originate among a pastoral people is contradicted by facts from the life of the Arabs. The new moon festival probably arose under nomadic conditions, in spite of the silence of the earliest legislation. That the sheep-shearing festival was pre-Mosaic is clear from Gen. xxxviii. 13, and that the Passover had pre-.Mosaic antecedents is shown by Ex. iii. 18, v. 3, viii. 21 sqq., etc. Just what its character was in its earliest form is not clear, except that the connection with the first-born which it always had suggests that it was the occasion of presenting the first-fruits to deity. An Arabic festival of the same purport existed.

Besides the festivals already mentioned, two arose in later times. One of these is Purim, the origin of which Esther purports to give, called in II Magic xv. 36 the Day of Mordecai. In Maccabean times arose the feast of the dedication of the temple, beginning on the eighth of Kislew, celebrating the purification of the temple after its defilement by Antiochus Epiphanes (I Mace. iv. 59; II Mace. x. 7, and doubtless the title of Ps. 30). See the articles on the different festivals; also SYNAGOGUE. (F. BUHL.)

II. Christian: The primitive Church apparently knew no special feast-days at the first. With the abrogation of the Mosaic law, its feasts also ceased, and it passed for perverted Judaizing legality to retain them (cf. Rom. xiv. 5; Gal. iv. 9-11; Col. IV.-19

ii. 16). The original theory was that for a redeemed Christian every day was a feast-day. At the same time, the need of common

I. Sunday devotional festivals in which all could and take part led to the practise of keep- Sabbath. ing these on the day of the week which from the beginning enjoyed a cer tain distinction as that of the Lord's resurrection (see SUNDAY; cf. Acts xx. 7; I Cor. xvi. 2; Rev. i. 10; Epistle of Barnabas xv. 9; Ignatius, Ad Magnesios, ix. 1; Justin, I Apol., lxvii.). The Sabbath too was observed to some extent, espe cially in the East and among the Jewish Christians. Yet it was secondary to Sunday; only the Apostolic Constitutions demand the like solemnity for both. In the Roman Church, fasting was observed on the Sabbath; but Gregory the Great declared the pro hibition of labor on the Sabbath to be the work of Antichrist-a decision which later contributed a cause for ecclesiastical separation of East and West. The early Church also came to observe Wednesdays and Fridays as days of prayer and partial fasting in commemoration of the condemnation and cruci fixion of Jesus (see FASTING, II.).

There were also annually recurring feasts in the earliest time. Probably the paschal feast (see EASTER) was always celebrated in some way, preeminently by the Jewish Christians in connection with their former celebration of the

z. Annual Passover, for memorial of the cruci- Feasts. fixion and resurrection of Jesus. It was succeeded by a fifty-day season of rejoicing, from which afterward Ascension and Pentecost (qq.v.) grew forth with peculiar solem nity, and was preceded by a season of mourn ing, attended with fasting of varying length and observance. The institution of these festal cele brations was held to be an affair of ecclesiastical ordering, and often required special justification in the light of New Testament liberty. The first Christian festival which had no connection with feasts of Israel is that of the Epiphany (q.v.). It was fixed on a definite day of the year (Jan. 6) and is thus an " immovable feast," unlike Easter and the festivals dependent on it, which vary from year to year (see CHURCH YEAR; EASTER), and hence are known as " movable feasts." The Epiphany was originally the festival of Christ's baptism. The nativity festival (see CHRISTMAS) first occurs in the West from the middle of the fourth century. In the East, so late as the fifth century, they still celebrated both the birth and baptism of the Lord on Epiphany. In the sixth century, the feast of the circumcision of Christ was introduced as the octave of Nativity; preceding that time, the first of January had been widely observed as a penitential day, with attendant fast ing, in order to restrain Christians from the pagan new year festivities (see NEw YEAR FESTIVAL). The Christmas feast was ushered in by a preliminary festal season (see ADVENT), originally of longer duration, but afterward restricted to four weeks; this, too, was a season of penance and fasting in the West (see FASTING, II.).

The three principal festivals, Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, which with their preceding and