When, at an early date, the Roman emperor made a law forbidding the Courts to sit on Good Friday, this did not make it a festival. On the contrary, the Church Order of the period of Constantine expressly declares that “both it and Holy Saturday are days of sorrow, and not feasts.”[154] Accordingly, there was enjoined upon all whose health enabled them to observe it, an unbroken fast lasting over the two days, directly based upon St Mark ii. 20. For, as the eighth canon of the fourth Synod of Toledo says, “The whole Church is wont to spend Good Friday in fasting and sorrow, on account of our Lord’s Passion.” There is scarcely any other point on which such liturgical agreement exists in all lands and in all periods of Christian antiquity as on this. The above-named Synod mentions with reprobation a mistaken expression of grief, _i.e._ in many places the churches were shut up for the whole day, and no services, neither divine office nor sermon, were held (seventh canon). The Synod does not blame the omission of Mass, for this was universal. This sentiment of sorrow was outwardly manifested, after the introduction of liturgical colours, by the fact that on Good Friday, black vestments were worn.[155] In the Middle Ages, discussion arose over the question why the days of the saints’ deaths were kept as festivals, but Good Friday as a day of mourning. The monk Helperich, who lived at St Gall at the end of the ninth century, replied; Christ, unlike the saints, attained to no higher degree of glory through His death. He died not for His own sake but for us. The Jews, His enemies, rejoiced over His death, but the apostles bewailed and lamented.[156] It may be observed here that in Würtemburg, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Reuss ä. L., Altenburg, and Lippe, Good Friday is one of the days of penitence and prayer, but, on the other hand, wherever Calvinism is in the ascendent, the dogmatic significant of the day, as the day of our redemption has been partially changed. There it ranks as a Church festival, and in other respects is given up to excursions and entertainments, just as if someone would pass the day of his father’s death in rejoicings, because a rich inheritance had fallen to him. The Good Friday services began at night with mattins, at which the lights were extinguished in the same manner as on the previous day. In addition, the low tone in which the devotions were pitched, and the omission of the _Gloria Patri_ at the end of the psalms, gave outward expression to the sentiment of sorrow.