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EPIPHANY, FEAST OF
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See also:EPIPHANY, FEAST OF . The word epiphany, in See also:Greek, signifies an apparition of a divine being. It was used as a singular or a plural, both in its Greek and Latin forms, according as one epiphany was contemplated or several See also:united in a single See also:commemoration. For in the See also:East from an See also:early See also:time were associated with the feast of the See also:Baptism of See also:Christ commemorations of the See also:physical See also:birth, of the See also:Star of the Magi, of the miracles of See also:Cana, and of the feeding of the five thousand. The commemoration of the Baptism was also called by the Greek fathers of the 4th See also:century the Theophany or Theophanies, and the See also:Day of See also:Lights, i.e. of the See also:Illumination of Jesus or of the See also:Light which shone in the Jordap. In the See also:Teutonic See also:west it has become the Festival of the three See also:kings (i.e. the Magi), or simply Twelfth day. See also:Leo the See also:Great called it the Feast of the See also:Declaration; See also:Fulgentius, of the Manifestation; others, of the Apparition of Christ. In the following See also:article it is attempted to ascertain the date of institution of the Epiphany feast, its origin, and its significance and development. See also:Clement of See also:Alexandria first mentions it. See also:Writing c. 194 he states that the Basilidians feasted the day of the Baptism, devoting the whole See also:night which preceded it to lections of the scriptures. They fixed it in the 15th See also:year of' Tiberius, on the .15th or 11th of the See also:month Tobi, See also:dates of the See also:Egyptian fixed See also:calendar See also:equivalent to See also:January loth and 6th. When Clement wrote the great See also: 330, the feast was kept with zeal and splendour, and was with Easter and See also:Pentecost a favourite See also:season for Baptism.
We have See also:evidence of the 4th century from See also:Spain that a See also:long fast marked the season of See also:Advent, and prepared for the feast of Epiphany on the 6th of January. The council of
1 For its See also:text see The See also: This See also:anomaly we See also:account for below. The old editor of the Mozarabic See also:Liturgy, Fr. See also:Antonio Lorenzano, notes in his See also:preface § 28 that the Spaniards anciently terminated the Advent season with the Epiphany Feast. In See also:Rome also the earliest fixed See also:system of the ecclesiastical year, which may go back to 300, makes Epiphany the caput festorum or See also:chief of feasts. The Sundays of Advent See also:lead up to it, and the first Sundays of the year are " The See also:Sunday within the See also:octave of Epiphany," " the first Sunday after," and so forth. December 25 is no See also:critical date at all. In See also:Armenia as early as 450 a month of See also:fasting prepared for the Advent of the Lord at Epiphany, and the fast was interpreted as a reiteration of See also: But the salient event commemorated was the Baptism, and Chrysostom almost insists on this as the exclusive significance of the feast:—" It was not when he was See also:born that he became See also:manifest to all, but when he was baptized." In his commentary on See also:Ezekiel See also:Jerome employs the same See also:language absconditus est et non apparuit, by way of protest against an See also:interpretation of the Feast as that of the Birth of Jesus in See also:Bethlehem, which was essayed as early as 375 by See also:Epiphanius in See also:Cyprus, and was being enforced in Jerome's day by John, bishop of Jerusalem. Epiphanius boldly removed the date of the Baptism to the 8th of See also:November. " January 6 " (=Tobi u), he writes, " is the day of Christ's Birth, that is, of the Epiphanies." He uses the plural, because he adds on January 6 the commemoration of the water See also:miracle of Cana. Although in 375 he thus protested that January 6 was the day "of the Birth after the Flesh," he became before the end of the century a convert, according to John of See also:Nice, to the new See also:opinion that December 25 was the real day of this Birth. That as early as about 385, January 6 was kept as the physical birthday in Jerusalem, or rather in Bethlehem, we know from a contemporary See also:witness of it, the See also:lady See also:pilgrim of See also:Gaul, whose peregrinatio, recently discovered by Gamurrini, is confirmed by the old Jerusalem Lectionary preserved in Armenian.' Ephraem the Syrian See also:father is attested already by Epiphanius (c. 375) to have celebrated the physical birth on January 6. His genuine See also:Syriac See also:hymns confirm this, but prove that the Baptism, the Star of the Magi, and the See also:Marriage at Cana were also commemorated on the same day. That the same See also:union prevailed in Rome up to the year 354 may be inferred from See also:Ambrose. Philastrius (De /icier. ch. 140) notes that some ' These are Matt. iii. 1-11, xi. 2-15, xxi. 1-9; See also:Mark i. 1-8; See also:Luke iii. 1-18. The Pauline lections regard the Epiphany of the Second Advent, of the prophetic or Messianic See also:kingdom. 2 Translated in Rituale Armenorum (Oxford, 1905).abolished the Epiphany feast and substituted a Birth feast. This was between 370 and 390. In 385 See also:Pope Siricius3 calls January 6 Natalicia, "the Birthday of Christ or of Apparition," and protests against the Spanish See also:custom (at See also:Tarragona) of baptizing on that day—another See also:proof that in Spain in the 4th century it commemorated the Baptism. In Gaul at See also:Vienna in 36o See also:Julian the Apostate, out of deference to See also:Christian feeling, went to church " on the festival which they keep in January and See also:call Epiphania." So See also:Ammianus; but See also:Zonaras in his Greek account of the event calls it the day of the Saviour's Birth. Why the feast of the Baptism was called the feast or day of the Saviour's Birth, and why fathers of that age when they call See also:Christmas the birthday constantly qualify and add the words " in the flesh," we are able to divine from Pope Leo's (c. 447) 18th Epistle to the bishops of See also:Sicily. For here we learn that in Sicily they held that in His Baptism the Saviour was reborn through the Holy Spirit. " The Lord," protests Leo, " needed no remission of sins, no remedy of rebirth." The Sicilians also baptized neophytes on January 6, " because baptism conveyed to Jesus and to them one and the same See also:grace." Not so, argues Leo, the Lord sanctioned and hallowed the See also:power of regeneration, not when He was baptized, but " when the See also:blood of redemption and the water of baptism flowed forth from his See also:side." Neophytes should therefore be baptized at Easter and Pentecost alone, never at Epiphany. See also:Fortune has preserved to us among the Spuria of several Latin fathers, Ambrose, See also:Augustine, Jerome and See also:Maximus of See also:Turin, various homilies for Sundays of the Advent fast and for Epiphany. The Advent lections of these homilists were much the same as those of the Spanish Liber comicus; and they insist on Advent being kept as a strict fast, without marriage celebrations. Their Epiphany lection is however Matt. iii. 1-17, which must therefore have once on a time been assigned in the Liber comicus also in See also:harmony with its See also:general scheme. The See also:psalms used on the day are, cxiii. (cxiv.) " When See also:Israel went forth," See also:xxviii. (See also:xxix.) " Give unto the Lord," and xxii. (See also:xxiii.) " the Lord is my Shepherd." The same lection of See also:Matthew and also Ps. xxix. are noted. for Epiphany in the Greek oration for the day ascribed to Hippolytus, which is at least earlier than 300, and also in See also:special old Epiphany See also:rites for the See also:Benediction of the See also:waters found in Latin, Greek, Armenian, Coptic, Syriac, &c. Now by these homilists as by Chrysostom,4 the Baptism is regarded as the occasion on which " the Saviour first appeared after the flesh in the See also:world or on See also:earth."' These words were classical to the homilists, who explain them as best they can. The baptism is also declared to have been " the See also:consecration of Christ," and "regeneration of Christ and a strengthening of our faith," to have been " Christ's second nativity." " This second birth See also:bath more renown than his first . . , for now the See also:God of See also:majesty is inscribed (as his father), but then (at his first birth) See also:Joseph the See also:Carpenter was assumed to be his father . . . he hath more See also:honour who cries aloud from See also:Heaven (viz. God the Father), than he who labours upon earth " (viz. Joseph).5 Similarly the old ordo See also:Romanus of the age of Pepin (given by Montfaulcon in his preface to the Mozarabic See also:missal in See also:Migne, Patr. See also:Latina, 85, See also:col. 46), under the See also:rubric of the See also:Vigil of the Theophany, insists that " the second birth of Christ (in Baptism) being distinguished by so many mysteries (e.g. the miracle of Cana) is more honoured than the first" (birth from See also:Mary). These homilies mostly belong to an age (? 300-400) when the commemoration of the physical Birth had not yet found its own day (Dec. 25), and was therefore added alongside of the Baptism on January 6. Thus the two Births, the physical and the 3 Epist. ad Himerium, c. 2. 4 See also:Horn. I. in Pentec. op. torn. ii. 458; " With us the Epiphanies is the first festival. What is this festival's significance? This, that God was seen upon earth and consorted with men." For this See also:idea there had soon to be substituted that of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. 5 See the See also:Paris edition of Augustine (1838), tom. v., Appendix, Sermons cxvi., cxxv., exxxv., cxxxvi., cxxxvii.; ef. torn. vi. See also:dial. quaestionum, xlvi. ; Maximus of Turin, Homily See also:xxx. spiritual, of Jesus were celebrated on one and the same day, and one homily contains the words: " Not yet is the feast of his origin fully completed, and already we have to celebrate the See also:solemn commemoration of his Baptism. He has hardly been born humanwise, and already he is being reborn in sacramental See also:wise. For to-day, though after a See also:lapse of many See also:annual cycles, he was hallowed (or consecrated) in See also:Jordan. So the Lord arranged as to See also:link rite with rite; I mean, in such wise as to be brought forth through the Virgin and to be begotten through the See also:mystery (i.e. See also:sacrament) in one and the same season." Another homily preserved in a MS. of the 7th or 8th century and assigned to Maximus of Turin declares that the Epiphany was known as the Birthday of Jesus, either because He was then born of the Virgin or reborn in baptism. This also was the classical See also:defence made by Armenian fathers of their custom of keeping the feast of the Birth and Baptism together on January 6. They argued from Luke's gospel that the Annunciation took See also:place on See also:April 6, and therefore the Birth on January 6. The Baptism was on Christ's thirtieth birthday, and should therefore be also kept on January 6. See also:Cosmas Indicopleustes (c. 550) relates that on the same grounds believers of Jerusalem joined the feasts. All such reasoning was of course apres coup. As late as the 9th century the Armenians had at least three discrepant dates for the Annunciation—January 5, January 9, April 6; and of these January 5 and 9 were older than April 6, which they perhaps borrowed from Epiphanius's commentary on the Gospels. The old Latin homilist, above quoted, hits the mark when he declares that the innate See also:logic of things required the Baptism (which must, he says, be any how called a See also:natal or birth festival) to fall on the same day as Christmas —Ratio enim exigit. Of the See also:argument from the 6th of April as the date of the Annunciation he knows nothing. The 12th century Armenian See also:Patriarch Nerses, like this homilist, merely rests his See also:case against the Greeks, who incessantly reproached the Armenians for ignoring their Christmas on December 25, on the inherent logic of things, as follows: " Just as he was born after the flesh from the holy virgin, so he was born through baptism and from the Jordan, by way of example unto us. And since there are here two births, albeit differing one from the other in mystic import and in point of time, therefore it was appointed that we should feast them together, as the first, so also the second birth." The Epiphany feast had therefore in its own right acquired the name of natalis See also:dies or birthday, as commemorating the spiritual rebirth of Jesus in Jordan, before the natalis in carne, the Birthday in the flesh, as Jerome and others call it, was associated with it. This idea was condemned as Ebionite in the 3rd century, yet it influences Christian writers long before and long afterwards. So See also:Tertullian says: " We little fishes (pisciculi), after the example of our great See also:fish (1xO5) Jesus Christ the Lord, are born (gignimur) in the water, nor except by abiding in the water are we in a See also:state of salvation." And Hilary, like the Latin homilists cited above, writes of Jesus that " he was born again through baptism, and then became Son of God," adding that the Father cried, when he had gone up out of the water, " My Son See also:art See also:thou, I have this day begotten thee " (Luke iii. 22). " But this," he adds, " was with the begetting of a See also:man who is being reborn; on that occasion too he himself was being reborn unto God to be perfect son; as he was son of man, so in baptism, he was constituted son of God as well." The idea frequently meets us in Hilary; it occurs in the Epiphany hymn of the orthodox Greek church, and in the Epiphany hymns and homilies of the Armenians. A letter is preserved by John of Nice of a bishop of Jerusalem to the bishop of Rome which attests a temporary union of both feasts on January 6 in the holy places. The faithful, it says, met before See also:dawn at Bethlehem to celebrate the Birth from the Virgin in the See also:cave; but before their hymns and lections were finished they had to See also:hurry off to Jordan, 13 m. the other side of Jerusalem, to celebrate the Baptism, and by consequence neither commemoration could be kept fully and reverently. The writer therefore begs the pope to look in the archives of the See also:Jews brought to Rome after the destruction of Jerusalem,697 and to ascertain from them the real date of Christ's birth. The pope looked in the See also:works of See also:Josephus and found it to be December 25. The letter's genuineness has been called in, question; but revealing as it does the Church's See also:ignorance of the date of the Birth, the inconvenience and precariousness of its association with the Baptism, the recency of its See also:separate institution, it could not have been invented. It is too tell-See also:tale a document. Not the least significant fact about it is that it views the Baptism as an established feast which cannot be altered and set on another date. Not it but the physical birth must be removed from January 6 to another date. It has been shown above that perhaps as early as 38o the difficulty was got over in Jerusalem by making the Epiphany wholly and solely a commemoration of the miraculous birth, and suppressing the commemoration of the Baptism. Therefore this letter must have been written—or, if invented, then invented before that date. Chrysostom seems to have known of it, for in his Epiphany homily preached at Antioch, c. 392 (op. vol. H. 354, ed. See also:Montt), he refers to the archives at Rome as the source from which the date December 25 could be confirmed, and declares that he had obtained it from those who dwell there, and who observing it from the beginning and by old tradition, had communicated it to the East. The question arises why the feast of the Baptism was set on January 6 by the See also:sect of See also:Basilides ? And why the great church adopted the date ? Now we know what sort of considerations influenced this sect in fixing other feasts, so we have a See also:clue. They fixed the Birth of Jesus on Pachon 25 (= May 20), the day of the Niloa, or feast of the descent of. the See also:Nile from heaven. We should thus expect January 6 to be equally a Nile festival. And this from various See also:sources we know it was. On Tobi 11, says Epiphanius' (c. 370),'every one draws up water from the See also:river and stores it up, not only in See also:Egypt itself, but in many other countries. In many places, he adds, springs and rivers turn into wine on this day, e.g. at Cibyra in See also:Caria and See also:Gerasa in See also:Arabia. See also:Aristides Rhetor (c. 16o) also relates how in the See also:winter, which began with Tobi, the Nile water was at its purest. Its water, he says, if drawn at the right time conquers time, for it does not go See also:bad, whether you keep it on the spot or export it. Galleys were waiting on a certain night to take it on See also:board and transport it to See also:Italy and elsewhere for libations and lustrations in the Temples of See also:Isis. " Such water," he adds, " remained fresh, long after other water supplies had gone bad. The Egyptians filled their pitchers with this water, as others did with wine; they stored it in their houses for three or four years or more, and recommended it the more, the older it See also:grew, just as the Greeks did their wines." Two centuries later Chrysostom, as we have seen, commends in identical terms the water blessed and drawn from the rivers at the Baptismal feast. It is therefore probable that the Basilidian feast was a Christianized See also:form of the blessing of the Nile, called by Chabas in his Coptic calendar Hydreusis. Mas`udi the Arab historian of the loth century, in his Prairies d'or (See also:French trans. Paris, 1863, ii. 364), enlarges on the splendours of this feast as he saw it still celebrated in Egypt. Epiphanius also (Haer. 51) relates a curious celebration held at Alexandria of the Birth of the See also:Aeon. On January 5 or 6 the votaries met in the holy See also:compound or See also:Temple of the See also:Maiden (Kore), and sang hymns to the See also:music of the See also:flute till dawn, when they went down with' torches into a See also:shrine under ground, and fetched up a wooden idol on a bier representing Kore, seated and naked, with crosses marked on her brow, her hands and her knees. Then with flute-playing, hymns and dances they carried the See also:image seven times See also:round the central shrine, before restoring it again to its dwelling-place below. He adds: " And the votaries say that to-day at this See also:hour Kore, that is, the Virgin, gave birth to the Aeon." Epiphanius says this was a See also:heathen rite, but it rather resembles some Basilidian or Gnostic commemoration of the spiritual birth of the Divine See also:life in Jesus of the Christhood, from the older creation the See also:Ecclesia. The earliest extant Greek text of the Epiphany rite is in a ' Perhaps Epiphanius is here, after his wont, transcribing an earlier source. Euchologion of about the year 795, now in the Vatican. The prayers recite that at His baptism Christ hallowed the waters by His presence in Jordan,' and ask that they may now be blessed by the Holy Spirit visiting them, by its power and inworking, as the streams of Jordan were blessed. So they will be able to purify soul and See also:body of all who draw up and partake of them. The hymn sung contains such clauses as these: " To-day the grace of the Holy Spirit hallowing the waters appears (iruIatverai. , cf. Epiphany) To-day the systems of waters spread out their backs under the Lord's footsteps. To-day the unseen is seen, that he may reveal himself to us. To-day the Increate is of his own will ordained (lit. hath hands laid on him) by his own creature. To-day the Unbending bends his See also:neck to his own servant, in See also:order to See also:free us from See also:servitude. To-day we were liberated from darkness and are illumined by light of divine knowledge. To-day for us the Lord by means of rebirth (lit. palingenesy) of the Image reshapes the Archetype." This last clause is obscure. In the Armenian hymns the ideas of the rebirth not only of believers, but of Jesus, and of the latter's ordination by John, are very prominent. The See also:history of the Epiphany feast may be summed up thus:- From the Jews the Church took over the feasts of Pascha and Pentecost; and Sunday was a weekly commemoration of the Resurrection. It was inevitable, however, that believers should before long See also:desire to commemorate the Baptism, with which the See also:oldest form of evangelical tradition began, and which was widely regarded as the occasion when the divine life began in Jesus; when the See also:Logos or Holy Spirit appeared and rested on Him, conferring upon Him spiritual See also:unction as the promised See also:Messiah; when, according to an old See also:reading of Luke iii. 22, He was begotten of God. Perhaps the Ebionite Christians of See also:Palestine first instituted the feast, and this, if a fact, must underlie the statement of John of Nice, a late but well-informed writer (c. 950), that it was fixed by the disciples of John the Baptist who were See also:present at Jesus' Baptism. The Egyptian gnostics anyhow had the feast and set it on January 6, a day of the blessing of the Nile. It was a feast of Adoptionist complexion, as one of its names, viz. the Birthday (Greek yevieX a, Latin Natalicia or Natalis dies), implies. This explains why in east and west the feast of the physical Birth was for a time associated with it; and to justify this association it was suggested that Jesus was baptized just on His thirtieth birthday. In Jerusalem and See also:Syria it was perhaps the Ebionite or Adoptionist, we may add also the Gnostic, associations of the Baptism that caused this aspect of Epiphany to be relegated to the background, so that it became wholly a feast of the miraculous birth. At the same time other epiphanies of Christ were superadded, e.g. of Cana where Christ began His miracles by turning water into wine and manifested forth His glory, and of the Star of the Magi. Hence it is often called the Feast of Epiphanies (in the plural). In the West the day is commonly called the Feast of the three kings, and its early significance as a commemoration of the Baptism and season of blessing the waters has been obscured; the Eastern churches, howeve., of See also:Greece, See also:Russia, See also:Georgia, Armenia, Egypt, Syria have been more conservative. In the far East it is still the season of seasons for baptisms, and in Armenia See also:children born long before are baptized at it. Long ago it was a baptismal feast in Sicily, Spain, Italy (see Pope See also:Gelasius to the Lucanian Bishops), See also:Africa and See also:Ireland. In the See also:Manx See also:prayer-See also:book of Bishop See also:Phillips of the year i6ro Epiphany is called the "little Nativity " (La nolicky bigge), and the Sunday which comes between December 25 and January 6 is " the Sunday between the two Nativities," or Jih duni oedyr 'a Nolick; Epiphany itself is the " feast of the water See also:vessel," lail ymmyrt uyskey, or " of the well of water," Chibbyrt uysky. s.v. brict9aveca; Cotelerius In constit. Apost. (See also:Antwerp, 1698), See also:lib. v. cap. 13; R. See also:Bingham, Antiquities (See also:London, 1834), bk. xx.; Ad. Jacoby, Bericht fiber See also:die Taufe Jesu (See also:Strassburg, 19o2); H. See also:Blumenbach, Anliquitates Epiphaniorum (See also:Leipzig, 1737); J. L. Schulze, De feaso Sanctorum Luminum, ed. J. E. Volbeding (Leipzig, 1841) ; and K. A. H. Kellner, Heortologie (See also:Freiburg See also:im See also:Breisgau,1906). (See also the works enumerated under CHRISTMAS.) (F. C. C.) -See also:mar. same idea is frequent in Epiphany homilies of Chrysostom See also:ana other 4th-century fathers. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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