it adheres more closely to the Jewish ceremonies and customs, while the Eoman attaches it- self to the natural year and common life. The former begins in the middle of September (Tisri), with the first Sunday after the feast of the Holy Cross ; the latter, with the beginning of Advent, four weeks before Christmas. Originally Easter was the beginning of the church year, both in the East and in the "West ; and the Apostolic Constitutions and Eusebius call the month of Easter the "first month" (corresponding to the month Nisan, which opened the sacred year of the Jews, while the first of Tisri, about the middle of our September, opened their civil year). In the Greek church also the lectione^ con- timicB of the Holy Scriptures, after the example of the Jewish Parashioth and Haphthoroth, became prominent, and the chiu'ch year came to be divided according to the four Evangelists ; while in the Latin church, since the sixth century, only select sections fi'om the Gospels and Epistles, called jpericojpes^ have been read. Another peculiarity of the Western church year, descending from the fourth century, is the division into four portions, of three months each, called Qxiatcniber^ separated from each other by a three days' fast. Pope Leo I. delivered several sermons on the quarterly Quatember fast," and urges especially on that occasion charity to the poor. Instead of this the Greek church has a division according to the four Gospels, which are read entire in course ; Matthew next after Pentecost, Luke beginning on the fourteenth of September, Mark at the Easter fast, and John on the first Sunday after Easter. So early as the fourth century the observance of the festi- ' Quatuor tempora. ° Sennones de jejunio quatuor temporum. 392 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. vals was enjoined under ecclesiastical penalties, and was re- garded as an established divine ordinance. But the most emi- nent cliurcli teachers, a Chrysostom, a Jerome, and an Augus- tine, expressly insist, that the observance of tlie Christian festi- vals must never be a work of legal constraint, but always an act of evangelical freedom ; and Socrates, the historian, says, that Christ and the apostles have given no laws and prescribed no penalties concerning it.^ The abuse of the festivals soon fastened itself on the just use of them, and the sensual excesses of the pagan feasts, in spite of the earnest warnings of several fathers, swept in like a wild flood upon the church. Gregory Nazianzen feels called upon, with reference particularly to the feast of Epipha- ny, to caution his people against public parade, splendor of dress, banquetings, and drinking revels, and says: "Such things we will leave to the Greeks, who worship their gods with the belly ; but we, who adore the eternal Word, will find om* only satisfaction in the word and the divine law, and in the contemplation of the holy object of our feast." ^ On the other hand, however, the Catholic church,