The authority for the dedication festival is our Lord's observing the feast of the dedication of the Temple. This festival has an octave: as also had the Jewish feast, though the Passover and feast of Tabernacles had not. 'But this festival specially denoteth that eternal dedication, in which that other church, the holy soul, shall be so dedicated and united to God that it shall never be transferred to other uses: which will take place in the octave of the Resurrection.' The Psalms for the office of the festival are the _Domini est terra, Judica me Domine, Deus noster refugium, Magnus Dominus, Quam dilecta, Fundamenta ejus_, and _Domine Deus_ (Durandus, Book VII, 48). APPENDIX H ON THE DEDICATION OF A CHURCH The following particulars are extracted and condensed from Martene's invaluable work: and as his account is not easily accessible, and somewhat long, it has been thought well to subjoin them here. {197} Churches were often, in the primitive ages, dedicated by more than one bishop. Constantine having completed a magnificent church at Jerusalem, invited the prelates, then assembled in council at Tyre, to assist in its consecration (Euseb. _Vit. Const._ iv, 43; Sozomen. i, 46). Constantius his son, having finished a church erected by his father at Antioch, Eusebius of Nicomedia, the intruding patriarch of Constantinople, summoned a council under pretence of consecrating the church, however much in reality to decide against the Catholic doctrine of Consubstantiality. Ninety-seven bishops were present (Sozomen. iii, 5). So it was also in the Western Church. This is proved by the Preface to the Fourth Council of Aries, holden in 524: which begins, 'When the priests of the Lord had assembled in the will of God to the dedication of the church of S. Mary at Aries.' In the time of S. Louis, Pope Pascal I consecrated the church of S. Vincent, with the Sacred College of Bishops and Cardinals. About the year 1015, the crypt of the monastery of S. Michael was consecrated by S. Bernard of Hildersheilm and two other bishops; and three years afterwards, the church being finished, it was consecrated by the same S. Bernard with three other bishops (_Vita S. Bernardi._ cap. xxxix, xl).