SMITH, WILLIAM, AND CHEETHAM, SAMUEL. _A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities._ 2 vols. London, 1875, 1880. [The articles contributed by various scholars, as was inevitable, vary much in merit. Those on the festivals by the Rev. Robert Sinker are particularly valuable. This work is cited in the following pages as _D. C. A._] WORDSWORTH, JOHN, Bishop of Salisbury. _The Ministry of Grace._ London, 8vo., 1901. [This learned work, under a not very illuminative title, discusses, _inter alia_, with a thorough knowledge of the best and most recent literature of the subject, the development of the Church’s fasts and festivals. It stands pre-eminent among English works dealing with the subject.] [GASQUET, ABBOT, AND BISHOP, EDMUND. _The Bosworth Psalter._ London, 1908. Contains valuable information about some Mediaeval Kalendars, with discussions of them. Edd.] CHAPTER I THE WEEK The Church of Christ, founded in Judaea by Him who, after the flesh, was of the family of David, and advanced and guided in its earlier years by leaders of Jewish descent, could not fail to bear traces of its Hebrew origin. The attitude and trend of minds that had been long familiar with the religious polity of the Hebrews, and with the worship of the Temple and the Synagogue, showed themselves in the institutions and worship of the early Church. This truth is observable to some extent in the Church’s polity and scheme of government, and even more clearly in the methods and forms of its liturgical worship. It is not then to be wondered at that the same influences were at work in the ordering of the times and seasons, the fasts and festivals, of the Church’s year. _The Week and the Lord’s Day._ Most potent in affecting the whole daily life of Christendom in all ages was the passing on from Judaism of the Week of seven days. Inwoven, as it is, with the history of our lives, and taken very much as matter of course, as if it were something like a law of nature, the dominating influence and far reaching effects of this seven-day division of time are seldom fully realised. The Week, known in the Roman world at the time of our Lord only in connexion with the obscure speculations of Eastern astrology, or as a feature, in its Sabbath, of the lives of the widely-spread Jewish settlers in the great cities of the Empire, had been from remote times accepted among various oriental peoples. It would be outside our province to enquire into its origin, though much can be said in favour of the view that it took its rise out of a rough division into four of the lunar month. But, so far as Christianity is concerned, it is enough to know that it was beyond all doubt taken over from the religion of the Hebrews.