the feast of first-fruits, and afterward became also the feast of the giving of the law on Sinai, and in this twofold import was fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Ghost and the founding of the Christian church. " Both revelations of the divine law," writes Jerome to Fabiola, " took place on the fiftieth day after the passover ; the one on Sinai, the other on Zion ; there the mountain was shaken, here the temple ; there, amid fiames and lightnings, the tempest roared and the thunder rolled, here, also wdth mighty wind, appeared tongues of fire ; there the sound of the trumpet pealed forth the words of the laio^ here the cornet of the gospel sounded through the mouth of the apostles." The celebration of Pentecost lasted, at least ultimately, three days or a whole week, closing with the Pentecostal Octave, which in the Greek church (so early as Chrysostom) was called the Feast of all Saints and Marttes,^ because the martyrs are the seed and the beauty of the church. The Latin church, on the contrary, though not till the tenth (cen- tury, dedicated the Sunday after Pentecost to the Holy Trinity, ' Dies ascensionis ; eopT^ rris a.ya\ij\pfwT. * Dies pentecosfes ; irf vt e KoffTri, rifj-tpa rod Tlvevfiaros . ^ KvptaKi] T oiv ayicov iravroiv fiaprvprfdavTwv. The Western church kept a similar feast on the first of November, but not till the eighth century § 81. THE WOKSHIP OF MAKY. MAKIOLOGY. 409 and in the later times of the Middle Age, further added to the festival part of the church year the feast of Cokpus Cheisti, in celebration of the mystery of transubstantiation, on the Thursday after Trinity. It thus invested the close of the church year with a purely dogmatic import. Protestantism has retained the feast of Trinity, in opposition to the Antitrinitarians ; but has, of course, rejected the feast of Corpus Christi. In the early church, Pentecost was the last great festival of the Christian year. Hence the Sundays following it, till Ad- vent, were counted from Whitsunday.' The number of the Sundays in the second half of the church year therefore varies between twenty-seven and twenty-two, according to the time of Easter. In this part of the year we find even in the old lectionaries and sacramentaries some subordinate feasts in memory of great men of the church ; such as the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, the founders of the church (June 29) ; the feast of the chief martyr, Laurentius, the representative of the church militant (August 10); the feast of the archangel Michael, the representative of the church triumphant (Sep- tember 29). § 81. The Exaltation of the Virgin. Mariolofjy. Canisitis (R. 0.) : De Maria Virgine libri quinque. Ingolst. 1577. Lam- BEETiNi (R. 0.) : Comment. du£e de J. Christi, matrisque ejus festis. Patav. 1751. Peerone (R. 0.) : De Immaculata B. V. Marise con- ceptu. Rom. 1848, (In defence of the