From Origin To Middle Ages
The practice may have had its origins in the Old Testament eight-day celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:36) and the Dedication of the Temple (2 Chronicles 7:9). However, the number "eight" may also be a reference to the Resurrection, which in the early church was often referred to as the "eighth day". The "eighth day" may also refer to the "new creation" following the second coming of Christ, which is beyond time.
For this reason, early Christian baptistries and tombs typically were shaped as octagons. The practice of octaves was first introduced under Constantine I, when the dedication festivities of the basilicas at Jerusalem and Tyre, Lebanon were observed for eight days. After these one-off occasions, annual liturgical feasts began to be dignified with an octave. The first such feasts were Easter, Pentecost, and, in the East, Epiphany. This occurred in the fourth century and served as a period of time for the newly baptized to take a joyful retreat.
The development of octaves occurred slowly. From the 4th century to the 7th century, Christians observed octaves with a celebration on the eighth day, with little development of the liturgies of the intervening days. Christmas was the next feast to receive an octave. By the 8th century, Rome had developed liturgical octaves not only for Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas, but also for the Epiphany and the feast of the dedication of a church. From the seventh century, saints' feasts also began to have octaves (an eighth-day feast, not eight days of feasts), among the oldest being the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, Saint Lawrence and Saint Agnes. From the twelfth century, the custom developed of liturgical observance of the days between the first and the eighth day, as well as the eighth day. During the Middle Ages, octaves for various other feasts and saints were celebrated depending upon the diocese or religious order.
Read more about this topic: Octave (liturgical)
Famous quotes containing the words origin, middle and/or ages:
“Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses in the movement wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity.—In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“but as an Eagle
His cloudless thunderbolted on thir heads.
So vertue giv’n for lost,
Deprest, and overthrown, as seem’d,
Like that self-begott’n bird
In the Arabian woods embost,
That no second knows nor third,
And lay e’re while a Holocaust,
From out her ashie womb now teem’d
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deem’d,
And though her body die, her fame survives,
A secular bird ages of lives.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)