Volume 1

A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood.

Date:: [between 1890 and 1899?]

Credit: A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

1018/1096 (page 998)

$with the empress to a public service of thanks- giving, they both offered frankincense and candles (Corippus, u. s. ii. 9, 71; comp. v. 317). A wax candle was offered at the tomb of St. Eucherius of Orleans, A.D. 738, by a woman whom he had converted {Vita S. Euc'ier. § 10; Acta SS. 0. B. iii. 599). XIV. The Liber Pontificalis (Anastat. Bib’ioth. n. 85) tells us that Sergius I. A.D. 687, ordered that on the feast “ of St. Simeon, which the Greeks call hypapante, a litany {i.e. procession) should go forth from St. Adrian’s, and the people meet it at St. Mary’s.” The Greeks had observed the feast for some time (with what ceremonies we cannot say); but this appears to be its introduction at Rome. Sergius was a Syrian of Antioch by birth, and was more likely to bring in an eastern custom than many of his predecessors. This feast (Feb. 2) was afterwards called the Purification of St. Mary, and was marked by so profuse an use of lights that it acquired the name of Missa Luminum (Candlemas). Lights are not mentioned in the above account, nor by the interpolator who in the 9th century or later adapted Gregory Xyssen’s Sermon de Occursu Domini to the feast; but they were so common in processions at Rome, that they were probably carried in it from the first; especially as the words of Simeon (Luke ii. 32) suggested them as appropriate to the occasion. The earliest witness to their use however is Bede, 730, who says that the festi- val took the place of the old lustrations of February: “ This custom of lustration the Christian religion did well to change, when in the same mouth, on the day of St. Mary, the whole people with the priests and ministers go in procession through the churches and suitable parts of the city with the singing of hymns, all carrying in their hands burning wax lights, given them by the pontiff” {De Temp. Bat. 10). The only other witness before the death of Charlemagne is Alcuin, in a sermon (in Hypa- panti, § 2) before that prince : “ The solemnity of this day, while it is unknown to some Christians, is held by many in greater honour than the other solemnities of the year; but above all in that place, where the Catholic Church has obtained the primacy in its chief pastor, is it held in so great reverence, that the whole populace of the city collected together, shining with huge lights of wax candles, cele- brate the solemn rites of masses, and no one without a light held in his hand enters the approach to a public station;—as if, in sooth, being about to offer the Lord in the temple, yea, to receive also the light of faith, they are out- wardly setting forth by the sacred symbolism (religione) of their offering that light where- with they shine inwardly ” (Baluz. Miscell. ed. Mansi, ii. 52). Martene and others have cited similar references to the lights of this festival, which, if genuine, would be earlier than Bede, from homilies ascribed to St. Floy, bishop of Noyon, A.D. 64-0, and Ildefonsus, bishop of Toledo, 657 ; but those homilies are by careful critics assigned resjiectively to the 9th and 12th centuries. See Oudin in nn. it will be observed that Bede speaks of the candles as “given” by the bishop of Rome. He does not say “ blessed.” Similarly, Pseudo- Alcuin (De Div. Off. Hittorp. 2,J1): “They receive all a single wax candle from the hand of the pontiff.” Amalarius, A.D. 827 (De Etcl. Off. iv. 33) and Rabanus, 84-7 (De Institt Cleri^ ii. 33), also mention the lights, but not any benediction. Nor can we find any form of blessing in any sacramentary written before the 9th century. There is one in a Tours missal of that age, but so inferior in composition that it can hardly be older than the missal itself. We give it here :— “A Prayer at the Blessing of the Li/hts. 0 God, the true light (lumen), propagator and author of the light (lucis) everlasting, pour into the hearts of Thy faithful the brightness of perpetual light (luminis); and (grant) that whosoever in the holy temple of Thy glory are adorned with lamps of present lights, being purified from the contagions of all vices, may be able to be presented unto Thee, with the fruit of good works, in the temple of Thy heavenly habitation ; for the,” &c. (Martene, de Ant. Keel. Bit. iv. 15, 5). [W. E. S.] LILIOSA, martyr; commemorated Aug. 27 (Usuard. Mart.); Bede as Libiosa same day. LILY. Though this flower may be con- sidered as a scriptural symbol from St. Matt. vi. 28, no particular meaning seems to have at- tached to it at any early date. The npiva of that pasvsage may be the scarlet anemones which every traveller must have observed in the Holy Land during the spring, or rather, as the writer is inclined to fancy, the delicate and lovely cyclamens which flower in great plenty in both spring and^ autumn in the valley of Jeho- shaphat. The early Christian decorators made little generic distinction in the wreaths of flowers they painted or carved on graves. The Italian use of the lily may probably date from Giotto and the early Florentine Renaissance, and would then refer to the red or white Giglio of the city arms. The subject of the Annunciation, so frequently treated from the earliest Byzantine or Lombard-Romanesque dates, would sooner or later bring the favmurite flower of Florence and of France® in special pictorial relation to the blessed Virgin. In later days, it is considered as the lily of the tribe of Judah, and accordingly forms a symbolic essential to pictures of the Annunciation (GueueLault, Dictionnaire desMonu- mentSy s. v.). But as a .symbol, carved or painted, it is either ethnic or mediaeval, though used to convey the idea of virginal beauty in Cant. ii. 2, 16, &c. Its connexion with the lotus, dwelt on by Auber (SymboHsme, iii. 546), is not made out, and appears to be simply architectural, and founded on the convex or concave form of the bells of capitals of columns (1 Kings vii. 19, 22). See Rusk in. Stones of Venice, ii. 128, 242, 137. The following meanings are attached to the lily in the Clavis attributed to Melito of Sardes (Spicilegium Solesimnse, iii. p. 47.)). It is fairest of flowers, and so resembles Him (Cant. ii. 1). It is golden on white, it has petals and six leaves, both perfect numbers, representing perfect deity and humanity. It posses.ses both beauty and medicinal virtue (“membris medetur adustis ”), and so resembles the mother of God, who has pity on sinners. » No earlier than Philip Augustus (Auber, vol. ill. p. 547).$