Epiphany

EPIPHANY. - The Greeks called "epiphany" the manifestation of a god in person or in a dream or by miracle, or his return after an absence.

An epiphany of the divinity in the form of a bird or of a human figure has been supposed for the Minoan religion, on the basis of figurative monuments, but the claim is purely hypothetical. In historical times, inscriptions and literary tradition record epiphanies of individual divinities: Apollo, Zeus and Dionysus, who revealed himself periodically to his faithful, etc. It is characteristic of the Dioscuri to appear in order to save someone from danger,

2nd, for example, in the battle at Lake Regillus, a reduplicated appearance of the s. at the river Sagra. To a n. of Apollo was attributed in 279 B.C. the retreat of the Celts from Delphi without their having plundered the temple. Luisa Banni
EPIFANIA. - Feast commemorating the manifestations of Jesus Christ.

I. LITURGY

The Eastern origin of the feast is indicated by the Greek word: Ἐπιφάνεια. The first notice of its celebration is given by Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. 215) and concerns the practice of Gnostic heretics who thought that the divinity had been joined to humanity, in Jesus Christ, only at the moment of his Baptism in the Jordan. Perhaps this feast of the manifestation of the divinity was also observed in Catholic Churches, but as a minor solemnity. Origen does not speak of it, although he had an explicit occasion when listing the Christian feasts for Celsus, whereas in 304 at Heraclea it was considered a dies sanctus. In any case, in the East the same mystery was solemnized on this day that was commemorated in the West on Christmas Day, and indeed both feasts soon came to be celebrated everywhere as a kind of exchange: the East also celebrated Christmas and the West also Epiphany. But necessarily in both Churches the Epiphany became the theophanic day par excellence, linked therefore to the mystery of the Baptism of Jesus, during which the heavenly Father gave public testimony of the presence on earth of his Son. For this reason this day too was added to that of Easter for administering Baptism to the catechumens.

The first Western testimony of the feast is that of the pagan Ammianus Marcellinus for Vienne in the Dauphiné. A testimony from the Council of Saragossa of 380 is uncertain. St. Augustine and St. Leo the Great have left several sermons for this day. It seems, however, that Africa, Rome, Ravenna, and Milan, while recalling the Baptism of Jesus, perhaps because the practice of administering that Sacrament on this day was not observed there, immediately gave prominence, and in a notable way, to the mystery of another theophany, that of the Magi, in which Christ had manifested himself as King and Lord of all peoples. The monuments also support this thesis. Indeed the first to speak of the other theophanies, that of the Baptism and that of the wedding at Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle and showed himself God, is St. Ambrose, in the hymn composed by him and used in the Milanese liturgy for this day: but these additions reached Rome only after St. Gregory the Great and always remained at the margins of the feast. «It should rather be observed how the episode of the Baptism of Christ, which in the East prevailed in the liturgical formulas, was meant to express a great religious idea, namely the mystical marriage of Christ with the Church, through which she acquires the spiritual fruitfulness of generating ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto the children of God. The idea of the sacred marriage brought the wedding at Cana into the object of the feast, and finally, since the changing of water into wine was considered a type of the Eucharist, in Gaul there was added the commemoration of the other great miracle that was its symbol, the multiplication of the loaves» (Righetti, op. cit. in bibl. II, p. 76).

Particular ceremonies were linked to this feast.

The Council of Nicaea (325) had conferred on the patriarch of Alexandria, where astronomical studies were cultivated, the task of announcing each year on which day Easter would be celebrated, and he fulfilled it by sending to each Church a «festal letter». In Spain its contents were read at Christmas, but in Gaul and in Italy, at Aquileia, Milan, and Rome according to the most ancient testimonies (already St. Ambrose), this took place, and is still done, at the Epiphany immediately after the reading of the Gospel at Mass, by the deacon himself with a melody that recalls the beginning of the paschal Exultet.

Another ceremony is that of the blessing of water in memory of the Baptism of Jesus, celebrated in solemn form even today by the Greeks and in the past also in Italy in the territories of Magna Graecia. This water was carried into the homes, says an ancient ritual, as a most noble treasure. This was practiced also in the Milanese territory and perhaps only through the attraction of Christmas, more solemn (as a popular feast) than the Epiphany, it was moved to that solemnity.

An octave of the Epiphany was celebrated in the 4th century at Jerusalem, not before the 8th in the West. From 1836 in Rome the octave of the Epiphany is celebrated also in the church of S. Andrea della Valle (v. below).

Enrico Cattaneo

II. OCTAVE OF THE EPIPHANY

It is a liturgical cycle of sacred functions, instituted by Bl. Vincent Pallotti in Rome in 1836, in which, through the splendors of the Latin and Eastern liturgies, with preaching in the principal languages of the world, with the participation of the episcopate and of the foreign and national colleges, the unity and universality of the Catholic Church shine forth wondrously. The octave is celebrated in various parts of the world.

Giuseppe Ranocchini

III. ARCHAEOLOGY

The Epiphany is the scene from the Lord's infancy most frequently represented in early Christian art. St. Augustine explains the predilection for this scene; the Magi "were the first among the gentiles to know Christ the Lord" and these "first-fruits of the Gentiles merited to signify the salvation of all peoples" (Serm. 203, 3).

To the ternary number of the Magi, certain frescoes in the cemetery ad duas lauras form an exception, as does one of the mosaics of the triumphal arch of St. Mary Major and the reliquary of Sts. Celsus and Nazarius in Milan, monuments in which the Magi are only two; in Domitilla, moreover, there is an Epiphany with four Magi for reasons of symmetry. The Magi offer gold, frankincense and myrrh (Mt. 2, 11). Ever since the time of St. Irenaeus, in this threefold offering is recognized the attestation of Him who was being adored: "myrrh because He was coming to die and to be buried for the mortal human race; gold because He is the King of the kingdom without end (Lk. 1, 33); frankincense because God has manifested Himself in Judea (Ps. 75, 2) and has shown Himself to those who did not seek Him" (Contra haeret., 3, 9; PG 7, 870 ff.). The same concepts are expressed by Prudentius (Apoth., 642 ff.; PL 59, 975; id., Cathamas., 12, 19; ibid., 905). The gold is presented first in the form of a crown with a frontal gem (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 284, pl. 204, 2 and 3; 222, 6 and 7; 224, 5); the frankincense is mostly in globules or in a pyxis (id., op. cit., pl. 96); the myrrh is in ampullae (id., op. cit., pl. 223, 10) or in vessels, sometimes with the figures of the pounds (id., op. cit., pl. 219, 1; 225, 1 and 2).

The oldest representation of the Epiphany known thus far is the fresco in the so-called Greek chapel in Priscilla, which dates back to the middle of the 2nd century (G. Wilpert, Fraccio panis,

Paris 1896, pp. 24-25, pl. 7); the Madonna is seated with the Child on her lap; the three Magi approach reverently offering their gifts. This scene is then repeated in other paintings in the cemeteries ad duas lauras, Callisto, Domitilla, Maius, Marcellianus and Marcellianus, Traso (Wilpert, Pitture, pp. 176-83; E. Josi, Coesmeterium maius, in Ric. di arch. crist., 10 [1933], pp. 12-16; A. Bosio, Roma sotterranea, Rome 1632, p. 279), a fresco then lost and brought back to light in 1948. At Teano the E. was reproduced in mosaic on the tomb of a certain "Geminia Felicitas" of the year 370 (V. Spinazzola, Di un musaico cristiano e di altre antichità nel territorio di Teano, in Notizie degli scavi, 1907, pp. 697-703). It was also scratched on the burial slab of a certain Severa, today in the Lateran Museum (O. Marucchi, I monumenti del Museo cristiano pio lateranense, Milan 1910, pl. 57, 1). Christian sarcophagi offer more than sixty examples of the E. (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 283). In them camels sometimes appear behind the Magi as well.

In non-sepulchral art the scene is carved on a marble vase of the 4th century purchased by Fr. Marchi for the Kircherian Museum, now in the National Museum at the Terme (R. Garrucci, Storia dell'arte cristiana, VI, Prato 1880, p. 33, pl. 427, 5-6). It also appears sometimes in gilded glasses (id., Vetri ornati di figure in oro, Rome 1864, pl. 4, nos. 7, 8, 9, 10). Altogether characteristic is the scene of the E. in the mosaics of the triumphal arch in S. Maria Maggiore (432-40). On a jeweled throne the Lord is seated in tunic and pallium, with a nimbus and a cross on his head; behind the throne four winged angels and above the star. Two Magi with a tiara on their heads approach with the gifts. The E. is also carved in one of the panels of the wooden door of S. Sabina in Rome of the 5th century; to the same century belongs the ambo of Thessalonica, today in the Museum of Constantinople. The marble slabs found at Carthage (v.) in the basilica of Dumous-el-Karita, dated between the 5th and 6th centuries, also offer the scene of the E. (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, III, pp. 53-55, fig. 279). And again in ivories, as in the capsellae of S. Nazario in Milan and of Brivio, today in the Louvre, and in some metal ampullae now in the treasury of Monza, in bronze medals now in the Sacred Museum of the Vatican Library (G. B. De Rossi, in Bull. arch. crist., 1st series, 7 [1869], p. 53, pl. 1, nos. 9-10).

Enrico Josi

IV. ART

In the mosaics of S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, which date from the time of the emperor Justinian (527-65), beside the throne of the Virgin, who holds the child in her arms and to whom the three kings approach, there are two angels on each side. An angel is also beside the Virgin in the scene depicting the adoration of the Magi in the chair of Maximian, also in Ravenna.

(Int. Undersen)

Sometimes, already in the representations of that era - as in an ivory pyx of the Bargello in Florence to be assigned to the 6th cent. - the scene becomes complicated and is completed with that of the adoration of the shepherds. In one of the historiated columns of the ciborium of S. Marco in Venice, also of the 6th cent., the narrative is instead clear: after the arrival of the shepherds the Magi are seen appearing, one observes a sphere, another unrolls a scroll, the third points to a star. In Eastern representations the scene of the adoration is sometimes followed by that of the return of the Magi. These are generally guided by an angel. This iconographic detail soon passes from the East into the art of the West as well, and we see it in the 8th-cent. frescoes in S. Maria Antiqua and in the mosaic fragment from the chapel of John VII (705-707) in the old St. Peter's, now in S. Maria in Cosmedin, where, beside the throne of the Virgin, in addition to the angel there is Joseph. Around the year 1000 the crown replaces, on the heads of the Magi, the Eastern mitre, and the Virgin too increasingly often assumes that attribute of royalty. With the reflowering of the plastic faculties of the Romanesque age the scene of the adoration of the Magi assumes ever greater diffusion in sculpture. Thus in the portal of the baptistery of Parma, the work of Benedetto Antelami, thus in a 12th-cent. relief of the Archiepiscopal Palace of Fano and in another of the Pieve d'Arezzo, where together with the Magi there is an angel with a censer, while in the architrave of S. Andrea in Pistoia, which is of 1166, the Magi who are first depicted traveling on horseback are then seen standing as they approach the throne of the Virgin. In the pulpit of the church of Barga the little Jesus blesses the king nearest to him, while the other two approach on horseback. Numerous too are the representations of the scene in the sculpture of northern Europe; one recalls the compositions of the cathedrals of León, Chartres, Amiens, Paris, Reims, etc. In the 13th cent., moreover, the scene sometimes acquires a new naturalistic sense determined by the now free faculties of narrators, painters and sculptors. Thus at Forlì, in the lunette over the door of S. Mercuriale, the encounter takes place in the interior of the Virgin's house; one of the kings, having taken off cloak and crown, has hung them on a coat rack, the second has already removed his crown in an act of respect, the third is in the act of removing it. A evocation of the journey of the Magi is also found in the scene of the Adoration in the pulpit of Nicola Pisano in the baptistery of Pisa (1260), where in the crowded classical composition there find place, besides the angel, the three horses, while in the pulpit of the cathedral of Siena (1266-68) the same Nicola, this time in collaboration with his assistants, accentuates the naturalistic elements of the scene and represents one of the kings in the act of bringing to his lips a little foot of the infant Jesus. His son Giovanni imitates him in the pulpit of S. Andrea in Pistoia. But the most beautiful of these plastic representations of the 13th cent. was perhaps the one that Arnolfo di Cambio had composed with figures in the round for the crib of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome and of which the figures of the kings and that of Jesus still exist. In the last decade of the 13th cent., instead, Pietro Cavallini in the mosaic of the band below the apse semidome of S. Maria in Trastevere still imagines the throne in open countryside and the kings approaching it with gestures of homage as in the most ancient compositions of Christian art.

But soon, at Padua, Giotto, in 1305, confers new austere monumentality on the scene by placing the Virgin on a mystic throne between Joseph and the Angel, while one of the kings, kneeling, brings to his lips the feet of the infant Jesus and his two companions assist standing; nearby are two camels and a groom. In the reliefs of the facade of the cathedral of Orvieto, the work of Lorenzo Maitani, the angels stretch a cloth behind the throne of the Virgin, which in the tabernacle of S. Michele in Florence, the work of Andrea Orcagna, becomes a bench adorned with twisted columns.

The act that one of the kings performs, generally the oldest, often bearded, that of kneeling beside the throne of the Virgin to kiss the feet of the infant Jesus, becomes ever more frequent in the 15th cent., when the composition, after Masaccio had still evoked it with most austere majestic impressiveness in the panel of Berlin, extraordinarily falls apart and almost shatters into numerous episodes, such as

(from Wilpert, Sarcofagi, nov. 58, 3)
EPIPHANY - The Magi discussing the appearance of the star that is high above the manger. Detail of a sarcophagus preserved in the Museum of Arles (4th century).

the long festive procession that accompanies the Kings and attends their homage. Among these compositions we shall recall that of Gentile da Fabriano in the Uffizi in Florence, the other by Benozzo Gozzoli in the chapel of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, and that of Sandro Botticelli also in the Uffizi, where in the king who approaches the group of the Virgin with the child one can recognize the likeness of Cosimo de' Medici and, among those admitted to the scene, Sandro Botticelli himself, and still others by Antonio Vivarini, by Mantegna, by Giovanni Bellini, etc. The composition takes on similar characteristics also in sculpture, as in the relief by Mino del Reame that is in Rome in S. Maria Maggiore, and in Northern art as, for example, in the Adoration of the Kings painted by Roger van der Weyden, now in the Pinakothek in Munich.

The painting and sculpture of the 16th century, and therefore those of the Baroque era, continued to represent the E. frequently under the aspect of the adoration of the Magi, without fundamentally modifying the character of the scene, if anything accentuating its festive tone, which, in a certain sense, finds its culminating expression in the late-17th-century Neapolitan presepi (v.) that at times attain the value and importance of true works of art.

Furthermore, it should be borne in mind how, alongside the major manifestations of the figurative arts just mentioned, popular art since the Middle Ages has left testimonies of the very highest interest in this field as well.

Emilio Lavagnino

V. FOLKLORE

In popular tradition the Epiphany is one of the most important feasts: an indication of this is the fact that the people call it Pasquetta or the first Easter of the year. It gives rise to numerous and manifold customs and beliefs, so that, in order to understand their meaning and character, it is necessary to trace them back to the different religious conceptions and manifestations by which they are inspired and to which they are connected.

In relation to one of the most important evocative aspects of the Epiphany, namely that of the Baptism in the Jordan, customs such as the solemn blessing of rivers are to be placed, which, until recent times, was performed in Egypt as well as in Eastern Europe. Thus, in some parts of Sicily it was customary (and in part still is) to immerse a Crucifix three times in holy water, or to carry it in procession along the shore and then throw it into the sea, whose water (according to the belief of the common people) became miraculously sweet at that moment. In Bulgaria the sacred images kept in the house, as well as the cross and the ploughshare, were brought to the spring or the river and washed: the frail and sick plunged into the river to be healed. Pre-eminent, however, is the complex of manifestations that recall the journey of the Magi and the offering of gifts to the Child Jesus. In the Tre Venezie, companies of young people go around the houses carrying a large revolving paper star, mounted on a wooden pole, inside which a small light is placed, and they sing lauds to Jesus, Mary and Joseph or even a « singaresca » that recalls the episode of the Magi. In Tuscany these representations are called befanate, and they are of two clearly different types: the sacred befanate reconstruct the journey of the three Kings of the East, and in them the Befana presents herself as a prophetess and soothsayer; the profane befanate, on the other hand, develop motifs similar to those of the bruscelli or mogliazzi, that is, the quarrels of one or more pairs of suitors, which end in marriage. But a true and proper sacred representation with numerous characters takes place in the province of Taranto on the farmstead called « La battaglia ». These, and others that could be mentioned, are to be considered as living relics of the ancient sacred drama that since the Middle Ages also recalled the scene of the visit of the Kings to the Divine Infant.

But many popular traditions of the Epiphany are understood only if one takes into account that the Epiphany is considered as the day of the beginning of the year. Thus the strenne and gifts are explained, especially to children, in their well-known propitiatory meaning. The people have created a symbolic figure in the Befana (from Epiphany), imagining her as a beneficent old woman who passes by night through the houses leaving her gifts in the little shoes and stockings of good children, and charcoal and other signs of her displeasure for the bad ones. In many Italian cities, for example, in Florence, in times past, large puppets representing the Befana were made and carried around: this gave rise to various processions of the different quarters, with frequent clashes and scuffles. The custom of gifts has given rise to special fairs, such as the one held in Rome in Piazza Navona (previously it took place in the small squares of S. Eustachio and dei Cappellari) and which culminates in a festive hubbub.

Still in relation to the distribution of strenne and gifts is to be placed the custom (widespread in Abruzzo, the Marche, Tuscany and many other regions) of groups of young people who on the evening of the vigil go from house to house singing a questing song (called the pasquella or befanata) and receiving offerings of eggs, sweets, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc.

A New Year's custom transferred to the Epiphany is also that of drawing lots and foretelling the future on this day. One of the most typical forms is the use of the focaccia and cake within which a bean is hidden and which is divided among the guests: the one to whom it falls by lot is named king of the bean and, in turn, he chooses the queen by throwing the bean into the glass of the woman chosen. This custom presents a very vast area of diffusion with the natural variants. In France, in ancient times, the custom was followed by the king in person, who went around accompanied by the grand baker and the grand cupbearer who brought sweets and wines for the august couple: the queen, however, was a lady chosen by him for this feast. In the division of the focaccia containing the bean, the portion « for God » or the « portion of the poor » is also made.

Manifold are the forms for drawing omens on the day
of the Epiphany. In Romagna the common people are wont to station themselves at a crossroads to listen to the words of passers-by and with them form a discourse from whose sense to foresee what will happen in the year. In Sicily (Ianello) it is believed that the wind that blows on the evening of January 6, at the moment of the sacred functions, will predominate all year. In Campania an olive leaf is thrown on the fire: if it jumps away, life will be assured; if it burns crackling, death will arrive within the year. In Friuli bonfires are lit and from the sparks and the smoke omens are drawn for the harvest. Fiery discs, called « ciduli », which are already made to roll down a slope, are an integral part of these fires.

Still in connection with the Epiphany, understood as a feast of the beginning of the year, is the custom of betrothals which in some countries, as in Val di Fiemme (Trentino), give rise to rites of a dramatic character (« maridazzi » for the feast of the « bandierà »). In Tuscany it was customary to choose on this day the befani, that is, a young man and a girl who began a kind of betrothal, which was often actually followed by marriage. In Campania merry companies on the evening of the vigil are wont to go beneath the windows of widowed women and indicate the name of a possible new husband: this is called « maritare le vedove ». There is no lack of relics of ancient agrarian propitiatory rites, beginning with the custom of bonfires. In Switzerland and other countries of central Europe noisy processions are made against two imaginary witches called Strudeli and Stratteli, held to be harmful to fruit harvests. And in the songs that the companies of children repeat during their questing processions there are frequent allusions and invocations for the good success of the crops.

The Epiphany is held by the common people to be a day of prodigies. It is said that at midnight the walls become of ricotta, and that the beasts speak among themselves, but to listen to their discourses is forbidden and whoever broke this rule would meet certain death. The traditional character of the feast of the Epiphany has been preserved fairly well even today, adapting itself to the tastes and needs of modern life - See plates XXXI-XXXII.