nally as much a festival of Christ as of Mary, especially in the Greek church. It is supposed to have been introduced by Pope Gelasius in 494, though by some said not to have arisen till 542 under Justinian I., in consequence of a great earth- cpake and a destructive pestilence. Perhaps it was a Chris- tian transformation of the old Roman lustrations or expiatory sacrifices (Februa, Februalia), which from the time of Numa took place in February, the month of purification or expiatioi;/ To heathen origin is due also the use of lighted tapers, with which the people on this festival marched, singing, out of the church through the city. Hence the name Candlemas.* 3. The Ascension, or Assumption rather, of Mary " is cele- brated on the 15th of August. The festival was introduced by the Greek emperor Mauritius (582-602) ; some say, under Pope Gelasius (f 496). In Rome, after the ninth century, it is one of the principal feasts, and, like the others, is distinguished with vigil and octave. It rests, however, on a purely apocryj^hal foundation. The entire silence of the apostles and the primitive church teachers respecting the departure of Mary stirred idle curiosity to all sorts of inventions, until a translation like Enoch's and Elijah's was attributed to her. In the time of Origen some occursus ; inraTrdvTT] , Or vnavrr), or inrdvTricT is rov Kvpiov (the meeting of the Lord with Simeon and Anna in the temple). ' Comp. Luke ii. 22 ; Lev. xii. 2-1. The apparent incongruity of Mary's need of purification with the prevalent Roman Cathohc doctrine of her absolute purity and freedom from the ordinary accompaniments of parturition (even, according to Paschasius Radbert, from the flow of blood) gave rise to all kinds of artificial expla- nations. Augustine derived it from the consuetudo legis rather than the necessitaa expiandi purgandique peccati, and places it on a par with the baptism of Christ. (Quaest. in Heptateuchum, 1. iii. c. 40.) ^ Luke ii. 22-38. ^ Februarius, from Februo, the purifying god; like Januarius, from the god Janus. Februare = purgare, to purge. February was originally the last month. ■* Festum candelaruin sive lumimim. ^ Koi>r)o-is, or ava\7n|/ix ttjs 017^05 06oto'kou, festum assumptionis. § 83. THE FESTIVALS OF MAET. 427 were inferring from Luke ii. 35, that she had suffered martyr- dom. Epiphanius will not decide whether she died and was buried, or not. Two apocryphal Greek writings de transitu Marice, of the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth cen- tury, and afterward pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Gregory of Tom's (f 595), for the first time contain the legend that the soul of the mother of God was transported to the hea- venly paradise by Christ and His angels in presence of all the apostles, and on the following morning' her body also was translated thither on a cloud and there united with the soul. Subsequently the legend was still further embellished, and, besides the apostles, the