Octave

OCTAVE. - The extension of a liturgical feast over eight days.

I. IDEA AND ORIGINS

The prolongation of any solemn celebration, civil or religious, is a natural thing; it suffices to think, for example, of the celebrations for the dead which, among many peoples, and independently of the form of religion, are protracted, especially in the case of distinguished dead, over several days (three, seven, nine; novendials), as well as of nuptial celebrations prolonged through an entire week. Even the dedications of temples to worship, especially if of great religious or patriotic importance, were protracted over several days.

The Old Testament too presents some examples of ritual celebrations protracted for a week: such as the feast of Passover, which in reality was composed of two solemnities: Passover in the strict sense (14 nīsān), and the feast of unleavened bread (15-21 nīsān); the feast of Tabernacles, which consisted of the feast itself, which lasted from the 15th to the 21st of tūrf, and of a day of popular festivities, the 22nd of tūrf. Likewise the dedications of the Temple of Jerusalem were always protracted for eight days: at the time of the first dedication of the Temple of Jerusalem under Solomon (II Kings 8:62 ff.); as under Zerubbabel; after the exile (Ezra 3:8 f.; 6:13 ff.) and in the age of the Maccabees (Macc. 4:36 f.; 10:1 ff.), which met with the favor of the symbolic-mystical explanations, so much in vogue among the Easterners of Hellenistic culture, from whom it passed to the Fathers and then to ancient and medieval writers. The number eight was considered, to limit ourselves to a single point, as the perfect number (v. the innumerable explanations of the Fathers concerning the 8 Beatitudes); therefore as a number that symbolizes supreme perfection, that is, the end of human existence, paradise or glory in God. The octaval celebration was therefore considered as a kind of anticipation of eternal Beatitude, prefigured also mystically in the fact that the apostle Thomas, absent at the first appearance of the Lord, after His Resurrection was present and was converted and became a partaker of Christ's joy after eight days.

II. DEVELOPMENTS

The first precise information about the celebration of a liturgical octave dates from the year 335, on the occasion of the solemn dedication of the Constantinian basilicas of Tyre and Jerusalem (Eusebius, Vita Const., III, 30). From the Iinerarium Artheriae (attributed to the years 393-94) it is further known that at that time in Jerusalem the octaves of Easter and Epiphany were celebrated (ed. H. Pétrée, Paris 1948, pp. 241, 205-207). St. Augustine, to pass over other testimonies, often speaks of octaves, especially that of Easter ("octava infantium", Sermo de temp., 228, 1: PL 38, 1101; "Celebratio feriarum octavarum", in De serm. Dīii in monte, 4, 12: PL 34, 1235; "in diebus sanctis octavarum", in De divinatione daem., I, 1: CSEL, XLI, 3, p. 599). The octave of Easter is intimately linked to the practice of Baptism, conferred during the Easter vigil, and to the daily participation of the neophytes in the liturgy, up to the removal of the white garments of Baptism. Consequently Pentecost too, likewise a baptismal solemnity, had an octave which became general only in the late Middle Ages, although the Roman Church accepted it very early. The octave of Easter, in the Theodosian Code, became a holiday also for civil purposes (Cod. Theod., II, 8, 2). The feast of Christmas, Roman in origin, soon had an octave, though of a sui generis kind, since from the outset the celebration of the "comites Christi" was interwoven with it, while the eighth day had a character of its own, as a Marian celebration. The octave of the Epiphany entered Western use from the East, where, as at Easter, Baptism was administered. Felix IV (III; 526-30) was believed to be the author of a decretal that ordered the celebration of the octave of the dedication of every church, basing itself on the usage of the synagogue; but the decretal, which entered the Decretum Gratiani (De consec., dist. I, c. 17), which also serves as the lesson of the II Nocturn of the eighth day of the dedication, is apocryphal. The Council of Mainz of 813 (Mansi, XIV, 73 ff.) mentions in all three octaves, two with eight feast days: Easter and Pentecost, and that of Christmas with 4 feast days plus the eighth. Amalarius (v.), besides the octaves of Easter, Pentecost, Christmas and Epiphany, recalls those of certain feasts of saints "eorum scilicet quorum festivitas apud nos clarior habetur" and mentions the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. He also proposes the idea, later repeated by medieval liturgists, that the feast itself of a saint refers to the "requies sanctorum", while the octave refers to the "resurrectio corporum" (Amalarius, Liber officialis, IV, chaps. 29, 32, 34, 35, ed. I. M. Hannsena [Studi e testi, 139], Vatican City 1938). The Micrologus (chap. 44) assures us that at that time, according to Roman practice, only the octaves "of Roman authority" were celebrated, and these only on the eighth day, not on the other days, except those of the Assumption and of St. Peter (PL 151, 1010). Honorius of Autun, in the celebrated Gemma animae (l. III, chap. 17: PL 172, 647) develops Amalarius's allegorical ideas concerning octaves, but without concrete dates. Sicard of Cremona, in his masterly Mitrale (l. V, chap. 7: PL 213, 225-33) inserts, following the octave of Christmas, a treatise on octaves, and enumerates those of Christmas, Epiphany, St. Stephen and companions, Easter and Pentecost. Radulf of Rivo, in the De canonum observantia, prop. 19 (ed. C. Mohlberg, Rad. de R., der letzte Vertreter der altröm. Liturgie, II, Münster 1915, p. 116 ff.) informs us that at that time, according to Roman practice, two kinds of octaves were observed, maiores and minores; the former with festal celebration on the first and eighth day, and on the Sunday falling within this time; while the others were celebrated only on the last day as a simple feast with three lessons. The greater ones were those of Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, Trinity, Corpus Christi, Assumption and Nativity of Mary, Peter and Paul; the lesser ones those of Andrew, Lawrence, Martin and, among certain orders (Carthusians), John the Baptist. But in his time the mendicant orders and not a few particular churches had already begun the use of octaves for an ever-growing number of particular feasts, and not only in the manner of the lesser ones, but with full celebration, at least with daily commemoration. It is no wonder, therefore, that St. Pius V in the reform of the liturgical books (Missal and Breviary) severely limited octaves; besides the great principal feasts, he permitted them only for the dedication of a church, for the feast of the titular and of the principal patron canonically chosen. The monastic calendar, approved under Paul V, has no octave of its own. In the edition of the Breviary of Urban VIII the octaves were excluded from 17 and 23 Dec. (the following feast of Christmas with its octave carried this limitation up to 2 Jan.) and from the whole of Lent. Certain octaves (Easter, Pentecost, Epiphany, Corpus Christi, Christmas, Ascension) practically had a privileged position with respect to the others, but the technical term "privileged octave" appears only during the 18th century among certain liturgists, while it entered official phraseology only with Pius X (1911-13).

III. CURRENT STATE

At present three kinds of octaves are distinguished: privileged, common, and simple. The privileged ones are in turn of three orders; the privilege consists in the fact that they must at least be commemorated and can never be omitted. The common octaves, on the other hand, yield to feasts of a higher rank; the simple octaves, introduced by Pius V, in the manner of the minor octaves of the Middle Ages, involve only a celebration on the eighth day. Since the past century the custom arose of requesting a privileged octave also for particular churches or religious families, for some important feast; thus, for example, for Venice the octave of Corpus Domini (1815); for Rome the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul (1883; Sacred Congregation of Rites, Decr. auth., n. 3581).

The universal Calendar currently has 7 privileged octaves, namely of the 1st order: Easter and Pentecost; of the 2nd order: Epiphany and Corpus Domini; of the 3rd order: Christmas, Ascension and the Heart of Jesus; 6 common ones: the Conception and Assumption of Mary; St. John the Baptist, the Patronage of St. Joseph, Sts. Peter and Paul, All Saints; and finally 5 simple ones: the Nativity of the Madonna, St. Stephen, St. John the Evangelist, the Holy Innocents and St. Lawrence. In addition there are the particular octaves for dedications, titular and principal patron saints, and, among religious, for the canonized founder.

In chronological order of introduction (for the more recent octaves) we have: 1243 (Innocent IV), the octave of the Nativity of Mary; 1264 and 1317, Corpus Domini; 1471-84 (Sixtus IV), All Saints; 1691-1700 (Innocent XII), the Immaculate Conception of Mary; 1911 (Pius X), the solemnity of St. Joseph; 1929 (Pius XI), the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Giuseppe Löw