The legislation concerning Christmas and Epiphany exhibits a good deal of vacillation, probably connected with the fact that these two festivals were not yet generally celebrated and recognised everywhere in the fourth century. They seem to have been originally mentioned in the law of 389, but to have been struck out by the redactors of the _Codex Theodosianus_.[43] It was only through the inclusion of the law in question in the Code of Justinian that they were finally marked as days on which the law-courts did not sit. This privilege had been already taken away from heathen festivals by a law of Valentinian and his colleague in 392.[44] Alongside these laws we find others forbidding games in the Circus and in the theatres. These interfered with the attendance of many persons at divine service as much as, or even more than, the proceedings in the law-courts, for they began early in the morning and lasted the whole day. Valentinian II. and his colleague, on the 19th June 386, re-enacted one of their earlier laws forbidding the performance of such plays on Sundays.[45] Through later legislation, it came to pass that the same held good for the seven days before and after Easter as well, and in 395 were added all the days of the year which were regarded as _feriæ_.[46] Finally, a law of Theodosius II. of 1st February 425, gives a list of all those days on which these spectacles (_theatrorum atque circensium voluptas_) were forbidden. These were all the Sundays of the year, Christmas, Epiphany, and the whole period from Easter to Pentecost.[47] In A.D. 400 Arcadius and Honorius forbade races on Sundays, plainly for the reason that they drew away the people from divine service.[48] In order to illustrate the increase in the number of festivals, we make use, as we have said, of the official decrees on the subject put forth by the authorities both in Church and State, where such are at our disposal. The service-books, which do not always give the distinction between _festa in choro_ and _in foro_ with precision, will be consulted when necessary. A list of feasts and sacred seasons appears for the first time in the fifth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, viz. the Birthday of our Lord (25th December), Epiphany, Lent, the Holy Week of the Passover, the Passover of the Resurrection, the Sunday after Easter, on which is read the Gospel of unbelieving Thomas, Ascension, and Pentecost. This gives the festivals in the fourth century. Other evidence of the same period, _i.e._ the sermons of Chrysostom and others, affords certain proof for the existence of five or six festivals only, according as Good Friday is included among them or not, viz. Christmas, Epiphany, the Passion, the Resurrection, the Ascension of Christ, and Pentecost.[49]