The seventeenth century building, S. Pietro in Vincoli, on the Esquiline,
occupies the site of the church of the Apostles, reconstructed at the
expense of the imperial family between A.D. 432 and A.D. 440, where the
precious relics were deposited.
In connexion with this feast attention should be called to the fact that
in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology at Aug. 1, we find no reference
to the chains, but there is the particularly interesting entry: ‘At
Rome, dedication of the first church both constructed and consecrated by
blessed Peter the Apostle[91].’
=St Andrew= (Nov. 30). The Martyrologies agree in giving Nov. 30 as
the day of the martyrdom. The festival appeared early at Rome, and was
given a place of high dignity[92]. In fact there is authority for the
feast being kept at Rome in early times with no less solemnity than St
Peter’s Day. It will be remembered that in the prayer _Libera nos_ in
the Canon of the Mass Andrew is named together with Peter and Paul. The
Sacramentary of St Leo has four sets of ‘propers’ for masses on this
festival. It is a day of much importance in the Greek Church, as St
Andrew, the Protoclete, is reckoned the apostle of Greece. St Andrew is
the patron of the Russian Church[93]. Relics of St Andrew, said to have
been brought by a monk named Regulus from Patras to Scotland, gave the
name of St Andrew to the place in Fife previously known as Kilrymont; and
St Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland. In the Aberdeen Breviary
his day is a ‘greater double.’
Bishop Wordsworth remarks that St Andrew’s Day ‘is perhaps the only
festival of an Apostle claiming to be really on the anniversary of his
death.’ Nov. 30 is given as the day of his martyrdom in the apocryphal
_Acta Andreae_, describing his death at Patras[94].
=St James the Great= (July 25), the son of Zebedee, does not appear very
early. The day is not noticed in either the Leonine or the Gelasian
Sacramentary, and made its way to general acceptance but slowly. In the
canons of the Council of Oxford (A.D. 1222) it does not appear among the
chief festivals for general observance in England, although in England
it was certainly a _festum chori_ long before that date.
It would seem (Acts xii. 2, 3) that the death of James took place about
the time of the Paschal commemoration; the Coptic Kalendar marks St
James’s day on April 12, and the Syrian lectionary of Antioch on April
30, on which day also the Greek Church keeps a festival of St James,
using for the Epistle Acts xii. 1, etc. The placing of the festival in
the West so far from Easter as July 25, suggests that the latter date was
connected with some translation of relics, or such like.
As we have already seen (p. 16) the ancient Syriac Kalendar edited
originally by Wright, commemorates James together with his brother John
on Dec. 27.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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