The Origins of Feasts, Fasts and Seasons in Early Christianity
Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson
Alcuin Club Collections 86
A PUEBLO BOOK
Liturgical Press
Collegeville, Minnesota
Published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
36 Causton Street
London SW1P 4ST
and in the United States of America and Canada in 2011 by
Liturgical Press
Collegeville, MN 56321
Copyright © Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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Scripture quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952 and 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
SPCK ISBN 978-0-281-06054-2
United States Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Liturgical Press ISBN 978-0-8146-6244-1
Thomas Julian Talley, 1924–2005
1 The Lord’s day in the Apostolic age?
2 Continuing traces of the Sabbath in later Christian practice
3 Sunday in the fourth century
4 The Christian week: Wednesday and Friday
5 The Quartodeciman celebration
7 The development of the triduum
8 Pentecost: the great fifty days
10 The emergence of Lent and Holy Week
15 25 December: two competing theories
19 The first martyrs and saints
Index of ancient authors and subjects
The authors gratefully acknowledge the permission granted by the following copyright holders to reproduce extracts from translations of ancient sources contained in the works listed. Where not otherwise attributed in the notes, translations of other primary sources are by the authors.
Every effort has been made to ...
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About The Origins of Feasts, Fasts and Seasons in Early ChristianityThe liturgical year is a relatively modern invention. The term itself only came into use in the late sixteenth century. In antiquity, Christians did not view the various festivals and fasts that they experienced as a unified whole. Instead, the different seasons formed a number of completely unrelated cycles and tended to overlap and conflict with one another. In early Christianity, the fundamental cycle was that of the seven-day week. Taken over from Judaism by the first Christians, this was centered on Sunday rather than the sabbath. As the early Church established its identity, the days of the week set aside for fasting came to be different from those customary among the Jews. There also existed an annual cycle related to Easter. Drawing upon the latest research, the authors track the development of the Church’s feasts, fasts, and seasons, including the sabbath and Sunday, Holy Week and Easter, Christmas and Epiphany, and the feasts of the Virgin Mary, the martyrs, and other saints. |
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