saints (two from the Bible, three from the church universal, and two from the Gothic church). ' The latter is found in the Acta Sanct. Jun. torn. vii. p. 176 sqq. ' Printed in Angelo Mai, Script, vet. nova collect, torn. v. P. 1, pp. 66-68. Comp. Krafft, Kirchengeschichte der germanischen Volker. Yol. i. Div. 1, pp. 385-387. M6 THIRD PEEIOD. A.D. 311-590. There are, liowever, still earlier lists of saints' days, accord- ing to the date of the holiday ; the oldest is a Roman one of ' the middle of the fourth century, which contains the memorial days of twelve bishops of Rome and twenty-four martyrs, to- gether with the festival of the birth of Christ and the festival of Peter on the twenty-second of February. Such tables are the groundwork of the calendar and the martyrologies. At first each community or province had its own catalogue of feasts, hence also its own calendar. Such local registers were sometimes called diptycha ' {hL'7rrv')(a)^ be- cause they were recorded on tables with two leaves ; yet they commonly contained, besides the names of the martyrs, the names also of the earlier bishops and still living benefactors or persons, of whom the priests vrere to make mention by name in the prayer before the consecration of the elements in tlu^ eucharist. The spread of the worship of a martyr, wliich usually started from the place of his martyrdom, promoted the interchange of names. The great influence of Rome gave to the Roman festival-list and calendar the chief currency in the West. Gradually the whole calendar was filled up w^ith the names of saints. As the number of the martyrs exceeded the number of days in the year, the commemoration of several must fall upon the same day, or the canonical hours of cloister devotion must be given up. The oriental calendar is richer in saints from the Old Testament than the occidental.^ With the calendars are connected the Martyr ologia^ or Acta Martyrum^ Acta Sanctormn^ called by the Greeks Meno- logia and Mencea.^ There were at first only "Diptycha" and ' From SiTTTuxor, folded double. ^ The Roman Catholic saint-calendars have passed, without material change, to the Protestant church in Germany and other countries. Recently Prof. Piper in Berlin has attempted a thorough evangehcal reform of the calendar by rejecting the doubtful or specifically Roman saints, and adding the names of the forerunners of the Reformation and the Reformers and distinguished men of the Protestant churches to the list under their birthdays. To this reform also his Evangelischer Kalender is devoted, which has appeared annually since 1850, and contains brief, popular sketches of the Catholic and Protestant saints received into the improvoii calendar. Most English and American calendars entirely omit this list of saints. ^ From ^1^1', month ; honco, month-register. The Greek Menolojies, fi-qyuXo- § 86. TUE CHRISTIAN CALENDAR. ACTA SANCTORUM. 447 " Calendaria martyrum," i. e., lists of the names of the martyrs commemorated by tlie particular church