PASCHAL CANDLE. - It is a large candle, artistically decorated, blessed on Holy Saturday, and placed on a candlestick (often an artistic one, called the paschal candlestick) on the Gospel side of the high altar until the feast of the Ascension. It also serves in the rite of the blessing of the baptismal font on the vigils of Easter and Pentecost. The Easter candle must be lit at solemn Masses and at Vespers during Paschal time; it is extinguished after the Gospel of the solemn Mass of the Ascension.
ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE PASCHAL CANDLE
The derivation of the paschal candle from the daily synagogue practice of lighting a lamp at nightfall with a formula of blessing, or from the analogous practice in use in the basilica of the Anastasis in Jerusalem and described by the pilgrim Egeria (ca. 383-88), or, in any case, from the lighting of the lamp at the beginning of the primitive evening liturgical office (lucernare), is not proven.
The use of the paschal candle is part of and derives directly from the solemn illumination of the churches on the vigil of Easter, called by St. Augustine the "mater omnium vigiliarum" (Sermo 219), as is evident from the text of the Exultet itself (v.), which the most recent investigations attribute to St. Ambrose. From Eusebius it is known that Constantine had not only the church but the whole city illuminated on this vigil (De vita Constantini, IV, 22), and St. Augustine movingly describes the grandiose effect of the Paschal vigil illumination. The utilitarian needs of the liturgy, that is, the need to have available in the presbytery a light that would last the whole night, led to the use of a candle of extraordinary size, placed in the middle of the choir, which, from the 4th century onward, was the object of a particular blessing framed by a poetic eulogy of its material and its symbolism. Of this Laus cerei (Carmen cerei, Praeconium paschale) there are testimonies in St. Jerome (letter to the deacon Presidius of Piacenza, 384) and in St. Augustine (De civitate Dei, XV, 22), who is said to be the author of a similar eulogy. From this one may conclude that the particular use of the paschal candle, toward the end of the 4th century, was widely diffused in Italy, and perhaps in Africa. It is then found in Spain and in Gaul.
It is not easy, however, to trace its concrete history, since the uses and rites varied according to the churches. Let it suffice to follow the paschal candle through the Roman use. The Lib. Pont. (I, p. 225) attributes to Pope Zosimus a constitutum according to which he would have granted to the suburban churches the faculty of blessing the paschal candle, which suggests that in Rome the use of blessing the candle was not introduced. Indeed the Ordo Romanus attributed by Fr. Silva-Tarouca to John "archicantor" of the Vatican basilica (680) does not speak of the paschal candle but simply of "candles" to be blessed, perhaps identical to the two torches mentioned by the Ordines known as those of St-Amand and of Einsiedeln (9th century). In these two Ordines as well there is no word of the paschal candle, but only of two torches (faculae), which, as the Ordo of St-Amand attests, at every time of the year always and everywhere accompany the pope in his functions. They are carried by two regional subdeacons, who, on Holy Saturday, come out with the pope from the sacristy, station themselves, during the readings, near the pulpit, then descend to the font, where, in due course, they immerse them in the baptismal water, and then follow the pope into the consignatorium and at Mass.
The Ordo Romanus I (nos. 32 and 39, part revised in the 9th century) speaks of the fire to be set aside on Holy Thursday to preserve it in a lamp until
Holy Saturday (in the time of Pope Zachary there were three lamps). Then on Holy Saturday, the great paschal candle is lit at once from this lamp, carried in procession into the church, but without singing, and placed before the altar on a great candlestick. The Praefatio follows, that is, the Paschal proclamation, and then from the great paschal candle the two torches are lit, which then accompany the pope in the various rites. The appendix (no. 9) repeats the matter in a more concise form, but as bearers of the two torches it names two notaries. The sacramentaries of the same period (9th century) inform us that the paschal candle was blessed with the prayer Veniat, currently in use for the blessing of the five grains of incense. But the text itself reveals even today, despite some unfortunate adaptations, that it was destined to bless the great lighted candle (incensum = lighted) and that, once the function was over, it was broken into pieces and distributed to those present as a sign of blessing. When the word incensum in ecclesiastical language became exclusively used for incense in the strict sense, the formula Veniat served in the early Middle Ages for blessing the five grains.
Meanwhile the custom arose of lighting, outside the church, a great fire, struck from a stone, with which the paschal candle was then lit. Indeed, in the Ordo XII of Cencio camerario (1188, later Honorius III), we learn that the new fire was placed at the top of a long reed, carried in procession, singing three times Lumen Christi, to the paschal candle, which was at once lit and placed on its candlestick. In the Ordo XIV of Card. Gaetano Stefaneschi (1311) there appears for the first time the harundo, 3 ½ cubits high, with the triplex candela.
The so-called Roman Pontifical of the 12th century likewise contains the rite of the Ordines Romani XII and XIV, but with a particularity: the deacon, before singing the Paschal proclamation, cuts into the candle a cross, the letters alpha and omega, and the year. This was, it seems, a particular use of the Lateran basilica, as is gathered from the Ordo of Card. Prior Bernardo (before 1176). In other churches, especially in France, the list of the feasts of the year was cut into it. In Rome, on the other hand, according to the Venerable Bede, it was customary to cut the festal calendar on a great candle which then remained exposed throughout the year, on the occasion of Christmas. The dimensions of the paschal candle have always been notable: the Exultet calls it a "columna," but in the Middle Ages they were sometimes so enormous that it had to be lit from the ceiling.
The paschal candle, although originating from practical needs, also immediately acquired
(from M. Avery, The Exultet Rolls of South Italy, Princeton University 1936, pl. XIV) PASCHAL CANDLE - Blessing of the baptismal font with immersion of the candle ("descendat virtus Spiritus tui"). Exultet roll of Bari (11th century); the miniature is placed in the opposite direction to the writing so as to be seen by the people - Bari, archive of the Cathedral.
a symbolic interpretation of its own, as appears from the most ancient texts of the Paschal proclamation: it was compared to the risen Christ, to Christ the light, set alongside the pillar of fire that guided the people of Israel through the Red Sea, image of Baptism and of the liberation of the Christian chosen people. On the symbolism of the paschal candle see Amalarius (De eccl. officiis, I, 18: PL. 105, 1033; ed. J. M. Hanssens [*Studi e Testi*, 139], Vatican City 1948, pp. 111-113), John Beleth and William Durandus.
The use of fixing the five grains of incense in the paschal candle is of medieval origin; they are mentioned in the Sacramentary of Ratoldus (10th century), and in the time of the Micrologus (after 1086) their use was already common.
John Beleth, in his Divinorum officiorum explicatio (chaps. 105-109), later than 1165, mentions the inscription, in the paschal candle, of the five grains of incense, but does not speak of their blessing; he does mention, however, the blessing of two other lesser candles besides that of the paschal candle, to symbolize the two testaments. William Durandus (d. 1296), who in his very well-known Rationale divinorum officiorum (VI, 80) summarizes the whole liturgical and symbolical doctrine of the Middle Ages, does not yet know the blessing of the grains of incense, symbols of the aromas used by the pious women and of the five wounds of the Lord. - See Pl. LXXXII.
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Giuseppe Löw