CHAP. IV. An Account of the Laws made to secure the Bodies and Graves SECT. 1.-The old Roman Laws very severe against Robbers of Graves, and all Abuses and Injuries done to the Bodies of the Dead.-2. This seve rity continued for the most part under the Christian Emperors, with some additional Circumstances.-3. No Indulgence allowed to Robbers of Graves by the Emperors at the Easter Festival.-4. For this Crime a Woman was allowed by the Laws to give a Bill of Divorce to her Husband.-5. One Reason tempting Men to commit this Crime, was the rich Adorning of the Heathen Sepulchres.-6. A more plausible Pretence was taken up from the Laws, that ordered all Heathen Altars and Images to be demolished.-7. A Third Reason was, to get the Relics of Martyrs to sell and make Gain of them.-S. A peculiar Custom in Egypt to keep the Bodies Embalmed and Unburied in their Houses above Ground.-No Religious Worship allowed to be given to Relics THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. BOOK XX. OF THE FESTIVALS OBSERVED IN THE CHAP. I. Of the Distinction to be made between Civil and SECT. 1.-What meant by the civil Festivals. HAVING hitherto taken a distinct view of the great services of the ancient Church in the several parts of her Liturgy, and the administration of her sacraments, and the exercise of discipline, I come now to give an account of the lesser kind of observations relating to her festivals, and days of fasting, and marriage rites, and funeral rites, all which may, in some measure, be comprized under the general name of the service of the Church. In speaking of the festivals, it will be necessary first of all to distinguish the ecclesiastical festivals from the civil. For some were purely ecclesiastical, others purely civil; and others (as festivals of greater account) were both ecclesias tical and civil. All Sundays throughout the year, and the VOL. VII. B fifteen days of the paschal solemnity, were festivals both in the ecclesiastical and civil account. For they were not only days of more solemn religious observation, but also days of vacation from law-suits and prosecution of secular business. Other festivals were purely of ecclesiastical account: for they were days of religious assembly, but not entirely days of vacation. Others were purely civil festivals, that is, days of vacation from law-suits and secular affairs, but not distinguished by any peculiar character of religious observation. Of this sort were the feriæ æstivæ, or the thirty days of harvest; and the feriæ autumnales, or the thirty days of vintage; and three days under the common name of the kalends of January; one day called the natalis urbis Romæ, the foundation of Rome; and another the natalis, or foundation of Constantinople; and four days called the natales imperatorum, including both their natural birth-days and their civil birth-days, that is, their inauguration to the empire. Of all which, because there is frequent mention made of them in the ancient writers, and laws, and canons, it will not be amiss to speak a little more particularly in the entrance of this discourse. SECT. 2. Of the Feriæ æstivæ, or Thirty Days of Vacation in the Harvest Month, and the Feriæ autumnales. All these are comprehended in one law of Theodosius and Valentinian junior, under the general name of feriæ forenses, days of vacation or rest from pleadings in the civil courts of judicature. Where all days in the year are appointed to be juridical,1 except the two months of harvest and vintage, Cod. Theod. lib. ii. tit. 8. de Feriis. leg. 2. Omnes dies jubemus esse juridicos. Illos tantum manere feriarum dies fas erit, quos geminis mensibus ad requiem laboris indulgentior annus accepit, æstivis fervoribus mitigandis, et autumnis fætibus decerpendis. Kalendarum quoque Januariarum consuetos dies otio sancimus. His adjicimus natalitios dies urbium maximarum Romæ atque Constantinopolis, quibus debent jura deferre, quia et ab ipsis quoque nata sunt. Sanctos quoque paschæ dies, qui septeno vel præcedunt numero, vel sequuntur, in eâdem observatione numeramus. Necnon et dies solis, qui repetito in se calculo revolvuntur. Parem necesse est haberi reverentiam nostris etiam diebus, qui vel lucis auspicia, vel ortus imperii protulerunt. and the kalends of January, and the natales of the two great cities, Rome and Constantinople, and the birth-days of the Emperors, and their inauguration to the empire, and the fif teen days of Easter, which were festival both in the ecclesiastical and civil account, as also all Sundays throughout the year. Where it is rightly observed by Gothofred, that the other ecclesiastical festivals of Christmas, Epiphany, and Pentecost, were not as yet made festivals in the civil account. For at this time many of the judges were still heathens, and therefore juridical pleadings were allowed on these days, notwithstanding that they were kept with great solemnity and religious veneration among the Christians. But afterward, when Justinian repeated this law in his code,1 the prohibition of pleadings upon these days, and upon the passions of the Apostles, was inserted, together with a prohibition of all the public shews and games upon any of these solemnities, of which more hereafter. As to those festivals, which were purely civil, we are to observe, that some of them were of long standing in the Roman empire, and no new institution of Christians, but only reformed and regulated by them in some particulars, to cut off the idolatrous rites and other corruptions that sometimes attended them. The multitude of them was complained of by Tully, and therefore Augustus cut off thirty of them at once, turning those days, which were deputed for honorary games, into days of pleading, for the better prosecution of criminals, and greater expedition of justice, as Suetonius reports in his life. And a like reduction was made by Antoninus Philosophus, who is said to have added several judiciary days to the calendar, striking out many festivals, and appointing two hundred and thirty days in the year for hearing of causes, and dispatching business of 2 Cicero 1 Cod. Justin. lib. iii. tit. 12. de Feriis. leg. vii. cont. Verrem. 3 Sueton. Vit. Aug. cap. xxxii. Ne quod maleficium negotiumve impunitate vel mora elaberetur, triginta amplius dies, qui honorariis ludis occupabantur, actui rerum accommodavit. * Capitolin. Vit. Antonini Philosophi. p. 74. Judiciariæ rei singularem diligentiam adhibuit; fastis dies judiciarios addidit, ita ut ducentos triginta dies annuos rebus agendis, litibusque disceptandis constitueret. the law. The Christian emperors reduced the number of these festivals to a much shorter compass. For they cast away all festivals that were held in honour of the heathen gods: and though they brought in all Sundays in the year into the computation of civil festivals, and also the fifteen days of the paschal solemnity, yet the whole number did not amount to above one hundred and twenty-five: so that there remained two hundred and forty days still for public business of the law. And of those one hundred and twenty-five days that were exempt, sixty days or two months were only set apart as days of vacation from the law for the convenience of gathering in the harvest and the vintage. The one were called feriæ æstive, and the other feriæ autumnales. And these were ancient Roman festivals, mentioned by Statius1 and Aulus Gellius and Pliny, and after them by Ulpian the famous lawyer, who shews at large for what end they were appointed, that countrymen might not be molested in gathering their fruits at their proper seasons, except it were in some extraordinary cases, which required a more speedy decision before the Prætor. The schools of rhetoric had also their vacations at these seasons, as we learn both from Aulus Gellius and St. Austin. And because this sort of Feriæ had nothing of harm, but only convenience in them, they were continued without scruple by the Christian emperors, and established by their laws, as we have seen, upon consideration of the usefulness and necessity of them; leaving it to the judges of the several provinces of the world to determine precisely what time they should commence: for hey did not begin the harvest month, or the vintage month, every where on the same day, but some countries sooner and some later, according to the different state and condition of every climate. And so the observation of these two months continued, as Gothofred notes, to the time of the emperor Stat. Sylvar. lib. iv. Plin. lib. viii. ep. 19. • Digest. lib. ii. tit. 12. lib. ix. cap. 2. leg. ii. Gellius Noct. Attic. lib. ix. cap. 15. Juli, mense, quo maximè lites interquiescunt. de Feriis. leg. 1, 2, 3. 5 Aug. Confess. A 6 Gothofred. in Cod. Th. lib. ii. tit. 8. de Feriis |