The Agrension-Day. T was the fond custom of heathen nations whose origin was veiled in obscurity, to claim a descent from ancestral gods, or an ascent from the soil of the country which they occupied ; and the practice is not entirely without its parallel in the assumed derivation of Christian seasons. Although no mention of the celebration of the feast of Ascension occurs in the writings of the earliest fathers, as Justin Martyr, Cyprian, and Clement of Alexandria; and although Origen omits it from his list of the Christian festivals, it is claimed by St. Augustine as one of those solemn anniversaries, which, being observed through all the Church, were to be referred, on account of their universality, to the appointment of the Apostles themselves, or to the authority of general Councils.† From the fact of certain immunities to slaves being provided for at the recurrence of Ascension-day, by the Apostolical Constitutions (Lib. viii., c. 33), it has been concluded that it was established not later than the second * half of the third century. Its commemoration is recognized by St. Chrysostom among the other principal holydays of the Crucifixion, the Passion, the Resurrection, *Contra Celsum; Lib. viii., c. 22. Epistolæ; Ad Inquisitiones Januarii; Ep. liv. and the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit; and he styles it "the illustrious and refulgent day of the Assumption of the Crucified."* St. Augustine speaks of it as the day on which we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord to Heaven."+ 66 The Council of Agde, A.D. 506, and the Council of Orleans, A.D. 511, severally made decrees to enforce, under heavy ecclesiastical penalties, the regular and decent observance of this festival. And in the previous century, Proclus, Archbishop of Constantinople, who died in 447, in his enumeration of the five great festivals, gave the fourth place to that which "declared the ascent into Heaven of Him who was our Firstfruit."§ Thefact of the primitive obscurity of the festival of the Ascension may be understood from the probability of its having to achieve a gradual emergence into individuality and pre-eminence above the rest of the fifty days which, intervening between the Resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, were all grouped together in one extended season of Pentecost. On this quinquagesimal duration of the period was the boast of Turtullian founded, when, addressing his heathen opponents, he challenged them :-" Gather all the festivals of the Gentiles, and put them together into one sum; they will not be able to rival this single one of Pentecost." The dawning of the more particular distinction of the day of Christ's Ascension may, as Joachim Hildebrand infers from the manner of its mention by St. Augustine, be fixed in the early part of the fourth century.T In the Apostolical Constitutions the day of our Lord's * Homily, In Ascensionem Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Oratio iii. De Incarnatione Domini. || De Idololatria: c. xiv. De Diebus Festis Libellus: Festum Ascensionis. FULFILMENT OF REDEMPTION. 225 Assumption into Heaven is called rýv åváλnyiv; and more fully in an Oration ascribed to Epiphanius, τὴν ἀνάληψιν τοῦ Κυρίον ημων Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Another title for this day which was anciently in considerable vogue was Επισωζομένη, ἡμέρα επισωζομένης, or σωζομένης ; for the reason, as has been generally supposed that the Ascension was the completion of the work of human redemption, and of the whole polity and economy of the Christian system. The words of St. Chrysostom favour this hypothesis:-"On this day the reconciliation between God and man is perfected; on this day the ancient enmity is destroyed, and the protracted war concluded; on this day a marvellous and unexpected peace is restored to us. * * * * * * * * * After God in His anger had destroyed man and beast from off the earth by a universal deluge, we, who had been shown to be unworthy to be lords of earth, are exalted to the hope of Heaven; we, who were not fit to receive dominion below, are advanced to a kingdom which is above. We ascend higher than the heavens, and take possession of a royal throne; and that very nature of ours, against which the cherubim were set to guard the gate of Paradise, is this day set above the cherubim."* Amongst the moderns, Ascension-day has no great variety of vernacular names. In Germany it is known as Himmelfahrtstag; and sometimes as Non-tag, because nones were kept with singular splendour, out of respect to a tradition that at this hour our Lord ascended to Heaven. In some parts of the south of France it was termed Bread-Thursday, from a distribution of bread which was then made to the poor; whilst in England it is popularly known as Holy Thursday. Ascension-Day is one of the twelve feasts which—the Paschal Feast standing alone and above all-the Oriental church calls by the name of Great, in contradistinction to the other classes known respectively as Middle and Little. * Homily, .In Ascensionem Domini Nostri Jesu Christi. It is one of the seasons at which the English Church especially enforces upon its members the duty of receiving the Holy Communion; and it is one of the six Holydays for which proper liturgical offices are appointed. Although, as we have seen, it began to assume a more strictly defined individual life late in the third, or early in the fourth, century, Ascension-day was never less than a time for the delivery of special discourses, having for their object the exhortation of the faithful to lift up their souls to accompany the ascended Christ to the heavenly places where His power and glory were manifested. The honours paid to the Ascension came gradually to include observances which to an educated spiritual taste appear to overstep the marches that separate piety from superstition and burlesque. "As for any such ridiculous pageantry," are the words of Bingham, "as has been used in some places to represent Christ's Ascension in the church, by drawing up an image of Christ to the roof of the church, and then casting down the image of Satan in flames, to represent his falling as lightning from Heaven, with abundance more of the same kind (which the curious reader may find described by Hospinian out of Naogeorgus), the ancient Church was wholly a stranger to it; this being the invention of later ages, when superstitious ceremonies had debased religion into sport and ridicule, and made the great things of God's Law look more like ludicrous pomp and comedy, than venerable mysteries of the Christian faith."+ Foreshadowings of the Ascension of Christ are to be found in various typical representations and prophetic utterances recorded in the Old Testament Scriptures; and these the several offices for the day of its commemoration set forth with a singular completeness. The ascent of Moses to the Mount in order to receive from God the Law which was to be the rule of Israel, finds its antitype in the *De Festis Christianorum. † Antiquities of the Christian Church. SINGULAR GLORY OF CHRIST'S ASCENSION. 227 Ascension of Christ in order that from the heights of His glory He might dispense "a new law, the law of faith." This latter Ascension was further and recurrently represented" by the High Priest's being appointed once every year to enter into the Holy of Holies; which showed that the High Priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, was to enter into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us (Heb. ix, 11, 12), all the Jews believing that the tabernacle did signify this world, and the Holy of Holies the highest heavens. Wherefore, as the High Priest did pass through the rest of the tabernacle, and with the blood of the sacrifice enter into the Holy of Holies, so was the Messias to offer up Himself a sacrifice to pass through all the courts of this world, and with His blood to enter into the highest heavens, the most glorious seat of the majesty of God."* It would be difficult to demonstrate fully the relation of type and antitype between the translation of Enoch, the fiery rape of Elijah, and the Ascension of Christ. Yet these are events which have ever been objects of legitimate comparison-a comparison that has generally taken the complexion of a contrast of which all the stupendous circumstances were on the side of a greater and unique glory to the Saviour of mankind. Enoch was Enoch was "taken;" Elijah was carried upwards; but Christ, propriâ virtute, perforce of His divine nature, Himself ascended. They owed their elevation to an agency external to themselves; He owed His to His own inherent power. "It is to be expressly noted," says Gregory the Great, "that Elias is said to have ascended in a chariot, that it might be openly and abundantly demonstrated that even a righteous man requires assistance foreign to himself. The aids which Elias received, he received at the hands of angels, for not even to the * Nelson's Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England. |