JAN. 1. The Circumcision, [New Year's Day.] The festival of the Circumcision, on the eighth day after the Nativity, is kept as a holiday throughout Europe. It is of no great antiquity, as we find no mention of it till towards the end of the eleventh century; earlier writers speak of it as the Octave of Christmas. The circle or ring, which is used as the symbol for this day in the Clog almanacks, seems to have been appropriated as a Christian emblem from the earliest period; it is of frequent occurrence among the ornaments on the tombs of the early Christians in the catacombs at Rome, where it probably signified eternity; in the Clog almanacks it possibly has a double meaning, referring, as its form implies, to the Circumcision, and as the symbol of eternity, to New Year's Day. Frequently the dove is represented with this symbol in his beak, standing on a branch by the side of a saint, as S. Anne, on one of the curious glass vases found in these tombs, engraved on plate xviii. of Buonarrotti. JAN. 6. Epiphany. This Greek word signifies Manifestation, and has been of old used for this day wherein the star did appear to manifest Christ to the wise men. There are three manifestations of our Lord, commemorated jointly by the Church on the Feast of Epiphany, all of which, S. Chrysostom says, happened on the same day, though not in the same year. The first mani festation was of the star, the Gentiles' guide to Christ; the second, the manifestation of the Trinity at His Baptism, Luke iii. 22; the third, the manifestation of His glory or divinity, at His first miracle, of turning water into wine, John ii. 11a. The Magi, or wise men, are believed to have been three in number, and of the rank of kings or princes; the remainder of their lives, after the event recorded in the Gospel, was spent in the service of God; they are said to have been baptized by S. Thomas, and to have themselves preached the Gospel; their relics, after several translations, were removed to Cologne, the city of the three kings, in the twelfth century, a Sparrow's Rationale, pp. 105, 6, Oxon. |