The dominant influence of the Roman Church in Europe carried eventually the main features of the Roman Kalendar into all regions of the West. In early times at Rome the anniversary of a martyr was ordinarily kept, not in the various churches of the city and suburbs, but at the particular cemetery or catacomb where he was buried, or at the tomb within some church which had been erected over the place where his remains rested. Outside the walls, and at various distances along the great roads that led from the city, most of these commemorations were celebrated. As M. Batiffol has put it, with substantial correctness, ‘the old Roman _Sanctorale_ is the _Sanctorale_ of the cemeteries[40].’ It is a striking and impressive illustration of the looking of the Western peoples to Rome for guidance in matters of religion that even obscure saints buried in the cemeteries of the neighbourhood of the Apostolic See now have places in the religious commemorations of all the remotest Churches of the Roman obedience. The study of the origins of the Kalendar of the city of Rome illustrates the general proposition that the martyrdoms of a particular city or district form the main feature of each local Kalendar. To enter into detail in respect to the early Kalendars of the other provinces and dioceses of Europe, even when the scanty evidence surviving makes the enquiry possible, is too large a task to be attempted here. The account of the commemorations of the early martyrs may be brought to a close by calling attention to a festival of general and perhaps universal observance before the fifth century—the festival of the pre-Christian martyrs, the seven Maccabees, on Aug. 1. It was not unnatural in the age of persecution, or when the memories of the great persecutions were still fresh, to fasten upon the Old Testament story of heroic constancy. After the Feast of St Peter’s Chains in the West, and the Procession of the Holy Cross in the East had displaced it from a position of primary importance, it was not wholly forgotten; and even now in both East and West in a subsidiary manner the memory of the Maccabees is still preserved in the services of the Church on Aug. 1. Chrysostom speaks of the celebration being attended in his day by a great concourse of the faithful, and we possess three homilies of his for the festival. Augustine shows us that the festival was observed in Africa in his time, and mentions that there was a church called after the Maccabees at Antioch, a city named, he makes a point to inform us, after their persecutor, Antiochus Epiphanes. There are still extant sermons for the festival preached by Gregory Nazianzen, and, at a later date, by Pope Leo the Great. CHAPTER III THE LORD’S NATIVITY: THE EPIPHANY: THE FESTIVALS WHICH IN EARLY TIMES FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY ON THE NATIVITY