In the later Western service-books the thought of the Circumcision is given greater prominence, and intermingles with the thoughts suggested by the Octave. The feast of the Circumcision appears in the Greek Church in the eighth century[60]. =Commemoration of Passiontide; Holy Week= (the ‘Great Week,’ as it is styled in the East). The commemoration of the death of the Saviour is the primitive and essential element: other days were given places as the result of reflection, and of the desire to reproduce liturgically in a mimetic way the events of the Lord’s history during the last paschal week. We possess the early testimony of Tertullian for the _dies Paschae_, for so he names the day. He tells us that it was a public and general fast, and that the kiss of peace was omitted from the services of the Church[61]. But for Palm Sunday, _Coena Domini_, and the Great Sabbath we have no evidence till much later. It is from Palestine that we get the earliest notice of the rites of Palm Sunday. In her account of the ceremonies at Jerusalem ‘Silvia’ describes the procession of palm-bearers on the Sunday of the Great Week. The feast of Palms is also mentioned in the life of Euthymius, abbot in Palestine, who died at a very advanced age in A.D. 473. But in the West the carrying of palms does not appear earlier than the ninth century. The commemoration (_Natalis Calicis_) of the institution of the Eucharist on the night before the Lord suffered probably had its rise about the same time as Palm Sunday; and a certain mimetic character was given to the rites of the Thursday by delaying the celebration of the Liturgy till the evening. This was further enhanced in the Church of Carthage (A.D. 397), which in view of the original institution of the Eucharist having been after supper, made an express synodical declaration that the rule of fasting communion was binding ‘excepto uno die anniversario, quo coena domini celebratur[62].’ And St Augustine expressly affirms that the practice of the Church did not condemn communion after the evening meal on the Thursday in Holy Week[63]. The name _Dies Mandati_ (which has probably given us our _Maundy Thursday_) is not very ancient. In mediaeval times the particular mandate of the Lord was taken to be the feet-washing, before or during which were sung the words ‘Mandatum novum do vobis[64].’ At Rome, as late as the time of St Leo, in regard to the days specially observed in Holy Week, the only distinction from ordinary weeks seems to have been the commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist on Thursday. The adoration of the Cross on Good Friday (which we find at Jerusalem in the days of ‘Silvia’) and the mass of the pre-sanctified were later additions, and are regarded by Duchesne as having been introduced into the West in the seventh or eighth century[65]. The observances of the Saturday were those of the vigil of Easter.