7 The development of the triduum

We have observed in the preceding chapter how the celebration of Pascha on a Sunday caused the focus of the feast to begin to shift from the death of Christ to his resurrection, and the significance of the Friday and Saturday from simply a preparatory fast to a commemoration of his death and entombment, albeit without any indication that these days as yet received any special liturgical expression of this understanding. Alongside this development in the third century, and in conjunction with it, a shift in the interpretation of the meaning of Pascha, from ‘passion’ to ‘passage’ – the passage from death to life – started to emerge, apparently beginning in Alexandria. Towards the end of the second century Clement of Alexandria had described the Passover as being humanity’s passage ‘from all trouble and all objects of sense’;1 and Origen in the middle of the third century developed this concept by challenging the traditional interpretation of Pascha:

Most, if not all, of the brethren think that the Pascha is named Pascha from the passion of the Savior. However, the feast in question is not called precisely Pascha by the Hebrews, but phas[h] … Translated it means ‘passage’. Since it is on this feast that the people goes forth from Egypt, it is logical to call it phas[h], that is, ‘passage’.2

While Clement had spoken of the Jewish observance as having begun ‘on the tenth day’ of the month, Origen clearly viewed the paschal events as having extended over three days, in fulfilment of Hosea 6.2, even if they were not yet liturgically celebrated in this way:

Now listen to what the prophet says: ‘God will revive us after two days, and on the third day we shall rise and live in his sight.’ For us the first day is the passion of the Savior; the second on which he descended into hell; and the third, the day of resurrection.3

At the same time, however, he could still speak of Easter Day as ‘the Sunday which commemorates Christ’s passion’.4

Fourth-century Christians gave this new interpretation a mixed reception. While some accepted it readily, others, especially in the West, continued to adhere to the older notion that the word meant ‘passion’.5 Even as late as the fifth century Augustine had to contend vigorously against the persistence of this false etymology among his contemporaries.6 Others instead combined the understanding of Pascha as ‘passage’ with the older focus on Christ’s sacrifice. So, for example, Athanasius, in his annual letter to the Christians of Egypt to announce the date when Easter would fall that year, could on one occasion describe the feast as a transition from death to life, and on another refer to the sacrifice of Christ.7 A similar combination of themes can be seen in Didymus of Alexandria:

When the spiritual spring arrives and the month of the first fruits is at hand, we keep the Crossing-Feast, called in the Hebrew tongue Pascha. On this day Christ has been sacrificed, in order that, consuming his spiritual flesh and his sacred blood, ‘we should feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’.8

This fusion of the two ideas is also found among a number of Western theologians in the late fourth century, including Ambrose and Augustine himself. 9

These factors appear to have been responsible for the widespread emergence of the idea of the feast as being a three-day unity (Greek, τριμερον; Latin triduum), comprising the commemoration of the death of Christ on Friday, his burial in the tomb on Saturday, and his resurrection on Sunday,10 although in the East the memorial of Christ’s repose in death on the Sabbath, the day of rest, was often joined with that of his descent into Hades.11 The concept of the triduum did not immediately catch on everywhere, however, and there are signs in some places of a reluctance to make the transition from the single unitive feast. So, for example, in northern Italy, while in some cities before the end of the fourth century Easter was focused upon the resurrection of Jesus, with his death being commemorated on Good Friday, in others there was a continuing emphasis on the Passion in the celebration of the paschal feast itself;12 and even in the fifth century Theodoret of Cyrrhus could speak of the ‘day of the saving passion, in which we solemnize the memory both of the passion and of the resurrection of the Lord’.13

The liturgical embellishment of the three days with ceremonies that gave particular expression to each of the specific themes is generally thought to have begun in Jerusalem in the late fourth century in response to the crowds of pilgrims who began to flock there and often joined in the celebration of the sacred season in the very places where the events of Christ’s Passion and resurrection were believed to have taken place. These liturgical innovations now stretched to the whole of the week before Easter and also to other parts of the year.14 We are fortunate in having a detailed description from the pilgrim Egeria, who visited the Holy City in the 380s. From this it is clear that the discovery of the true cross had led to the introduction of an occasion on the morning of Good Friday for its public display and veneration by all who wished, beginning at 8 a.m.:

The bishop’s chair is placed on Golgotha Behind the Cross, where he now stands, and he takes his seat. A table is placed before him with a cloth on it, the deacons stand round, and there is brought to him a gold and silver box containing the holy Wood of the Cross. It is opened, and the Wood of the Cross and the Title are taken out and placed on the table … Thus all the people go past one by one. They stoop down, touch the holy Wood first with their forehead and then with their eyes, and then kiss it, but no one puts out his hand to touch it. Then they go on to a deacon who stands holding the Ring of Solomon, and the Horn with which the kings were anointed. These they venerate by kissing them, and till noon everybody goes by, entering by one door and going out through the other.15

The main service of the day, however, was an extensive liturgy of the word that began at midday in the courtyard between the Cross and the Anastasis:

They place the bishop’s chair Before the Cross, and the whole time between midday and three o’clock is taken up with readings. They are all about the things Jesus suffered: first the psalms on this subject, then the Apostles [the Epistles or Acts] which concern it, then passages from the Gospels. Thus they read the prophecies about what the Lord would suffer, and the Gospels about what he did suffer … and between all the readings are prayers, all of them appropriate to the day … Then, when three o’clock comes, they have the reading from St John’s Gospel about Jesus giving up the ghost, and, when that has been read, there is a prayer, and the dismissal.16

Although a service of the word took place on every Friday in the year at Jerusalem, it was normally at 3 p.m. rather than midday, and hence both the change of time and the choice of readings reflect the particular significance of the day.17 In addition to the other normal daily services on this day, there was one more act of devotion to commemorate the final event of Good Friday: after evening prayer, the community went to the Anastasis where ‘they read the Gospel passage about Joseph asking Pilate for the Lord’s body and placing it in a new tomb. After the reading there is a prayer, the blessings of the catechumens and then the faithful, and the dismissal.’18 This was followed by a vigil during the night, as on all Fridays in Lent.19

It is questionable as to how far we should speak of these Jerusalem practices as being ‘imitated’ elsewhere. Not only, as indicated above, was there at first an apparent reluctance in some places to adopt the triduum at all, what actually went on in other parts of the world, and especially in the West, did not closely resemble the particular customs of the Holy City. While the veneration of the cross captured popular imagination and spread to other churches of the East, no attempt was made to copy every one of the other practices in exact detail everywhere. Even the dissemination of this particular devotion was impeded at first by the need to obtain a fragment of the true cross from the Jerusalem church, although Cyril of Jerusalem acknowledges that even in his time small pieces of the wood were being distributed throughout the world.20 Thus we hear of public veneration of a fragment of the cross at Antioch on Good Friday and of other relics of the Passion, most notably the lance which was said to have pierced Christ’s side, at Constantinople during the last three days of Holy Week.21 At Rome, on the other hand, while the Good Friday liturgy from quite early times seems to have included readings appropriate to the day,22 it was otherwise indistinguishable from any Friday in the year, and it is not until the end of the seventh century that there is evidence of the adoption of the veneration of the cross on that day, a development perhaps influenced by the practice at Constantinople or derived directly from Jerusalem.23 The papal liturgy involved an elaborate procession with the relic to the Church of the Holy Cross, its veneration, and then the traditional service of the word followed. It is interesting to note that the ritual directions speak of the arrival at the church as being ‘at Jerusalem’, suggesting that the procession was seen as a symbolic pilgrimage to the Holy City. In other churches at Rome there was no procession, and the veneration followed rather than preceded the service of the word. Later, the ceremony spread throughout the West, with ordinary wooden crosses being used where relics were lacking.24

At Jerusalem there were no special services on the Saturday, and with regard to the paschal vigil, Egeria simply says that they kept it ‘like us’, but with one addition: the newly baptized were taken immediately to the Anastasis where after a hymn the bishop said a prayer for them before returning to the Martyrium (the great church on Golgotha). There the Eucharist was celebrated, but immediately after the dismissal, the whole congregation returned to the Anastasis, ‘where the resurrection Gospel is read’ and the Eucharist celebrated for a second time.25 Apart from the resurrection Gospel reading, which was a feature of every Sunday morning’s liturgy in the Jerusalem tradition,26 the second celebration of the Eucharist did not include a liturgy of the word, according to the Armenian Lectionary.27 Why the Eucharist should have been repeated at all is not clear: was it so that the resurrection could be celebrated on the very site where it had happened?28 We encounter a similar repetition on Holy Thursday and on the day of Pentecost.29 The only source for the contents of a paschal vigil from a significantly earlier date than this is the Didascalia, which speaks simply of the reading of the Prophets, Psalms and Gospel, with prayers and intercessions. By ‘Prophets’ it is likely that the Hebrew Scriptures in general are meant, since they were all seen as being prophetic of the Christ-event, and indeed further on the author uses the term ‘Scriptures’ instead when describing the vigil.30

Later sources supply details of the readings that were used at the vigil. There is considerable variation from place to place both in the number of readings and in the particular biblical texts used, suggesting that no widespread ancient tradition of reading specific passages appropriate to the occasion had been inherited. So, for example, the Armenian Lectionary provides 12 readings from the Old Testament, with 1 Corinthians 15.1–11 and Matthew 28.1–20 as the Epistle and Gospel for the Eucharist which followed.31 Talley pointed out that the first three readings (the story of creation, Genesis 1.1—3.24; the account of the binding of Isaac, Genesis 22.1–18; and the narrative of the Passover, Exodus 12.1–24) constituted three of the four themes in a ‘Poem of the Four Nights’ in an expanded Targum on Exodus (the fourth being the coming of the Messiah), and suggested that they established a line of continuity with the Jewish Passover tradition, but Leonhard has subsequently demonstrated at length that this expansion is a later composition and does not have any connection with the Christian Easter.32 At Verona in northern Italy only six Old Testament readings were employed at the paschal vigil at the end of the fourth century (Gen. 1; Exod. 12; 14; Isa. 1; 5; Dan. 3); of these, the readings from Isaiah have no parallel in the Jerusalem series.33 There is no extant list of vigil readings associated with Rome prior to the eighth-century Gelasian Sacramentary, which has a series of ten, but as that book shows signs of some Gallican influence, Bernard Botte argued that the earliest known Roman practice was to have six readings, as was the case in northern Italy, although the passages chosen were somewhat different (Gen. 1; 22; Exod. 14; Deut. 31; Isa. 4; and Bar.).34 If correct, this means that neither Exodus 12 nor Daniel 3 was originally part of this tradition, although both are commonly found in other later Western lectionaries and Exodus 12 was read on Good Friday at Rome.

Finally, one other element in the vigil deserves to be mentioned: the lighting of the paschal candle. By the fourth century, daily evening worship throughout the year in many places began with a ceremonial lighting of the evening lamp, the Lucernarium, in which were recalled the gifts of the natural light of the day, the lamps to illuminate the night, and above all the light of Christ. The evening service that began the paschal vigil would have been no exception to this rule, but the ceremony inevitably took on a special significance in this particular context, and later centuries attached it to the vigil itself rather than to evening prayer and saw it as symbolizing the light of Christ risen from the dead, although Rome was very slow to incorporate the practice because its daily worship traditions were dominated by monastic forms that lacked a Lucernarium. While in Western traditions it remained at the very beginning of the vigil, in the East it was later moved to the end of the readings instead, where it constituted a dramatic climax and led into the Easter eucharistic celebration.35

Thus, not only had the occasion observed as the Christian Passover changed from 14/15 Nisan to the Sunday following, but its character too had been transformed in the course of the fourth century. From a primary emphasis on the sacrifice of Christ, the paschal lamb, it had shifted to an exclusive focus on his resurrection, with first the triduum and then the other days of Holy Week gradually emerging to commemorate the various events connected with the last days of his life.

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1 Stromateis 2.11.51.2; ET from Cantalamessa, p. 52.

2 Peri Pascha 1; ET from Cantalamessa, p. 53.

3 Homilia in Exod. 5.2; ET from Cantalamessa, p. 55.

4 Origen, Homilia in Isa. 5.2.

5 See, for example, Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti 96.1; 116.1; Commentarius in xiii epistulas Paulinas, on 1 Corinthians 5.7; Gregory of Elvira, Tractatus de libris SS. Scripturarum 9.9, 16, 20, 22; Chromatius of Aquila, Sermones 17A; ET in Cantalamessa, pp. 98–9, 104–5, 107. Even though Chromatius was familiar with a liturgically celebrated triduum in his church, he still continued to understand the paschal vigil as commemorating the death, repose in the tomb, descent into hell, and resurrection of Christ (see Sermones 16 and 17).

6 Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 120.6; In Johannis evangelium tractatus 55.1; ET in Cantalamessa, pp. 109–10.

7 Athanasius, Ep. festales 5, 42; ET in Cantalamessa, pp. 70, 72.

8 Commentarium in Zach. 5.88; ET from Cantalamessa, p. 79. The biblical quotation is from 1 Corinthians 5.7.

9 See, for example, Ambrose of Milan, De Cain et Abel 1.8.31; Ep. 1.9–10; De sacramentis 1.4.12; Gaudentius of Brescia, Tractatus 2.25–6; ET in Cantalamessa, pp. 95–6, 106. For Augustine, see the passages referred to in n. 6 above. But compare Maximus of Turin, whose homilies reveal a gradual progression of thought during his episcopate, until he can affirm unequivocally the concept of Pascha as ‘passing over’ in Sermones 54.1; ET in Cantalamessa, p. 108.

10 See, for example, for the East, Basil of Caesarea, Homilia 13.1; Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 1.3–4; Gregory of Nyssa, De tridui spatio; Pseudo-Chrysostom, Homilies on the Holy Pascha 7.4; ET in Cantalamessa, pp. 75–8; for the West, Ambrose, Ep. 23.12–13; Augustine, Ep. 55.14, 24; ET in Cantalamessa, p. 109.

11 The earliest clear witness to the observance of this day as the descent into Hades is in Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium from 373 to 394, Oration 5, For Holy Saturday 1: ‘Today we celebrate the feast of our Savior’s burial. He, with the dead below, is loosing the bonds of death and filling Hades with light and waking the sleepers …’ (ET from Cantalamessa, p. 77). See further Aloys Grillmeier, ‘Der Gottesohn im Totenreich: soteriologische und christologische Motivierung der Descensuslehre in der älteren christlichen Überlieferung’, Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 71 (1949), pp. 1–53, 184–203.

12 See, for example, Zeno of Verona, who seems to associate both the death and resurrection of Christ with the Easter vigil: Treatise on the Pascha 1.57; ET in Cantalamessa, pp. 94–5.

13 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Cure for the Greek Illnesses 9.24; ET in Cantalamessa, p. 81.

14 For the ceremonies of the rest of Holy Week, see below, pp. 114–19.

15 Egeria, Itinerarium 37.1–3; ET from John Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels (3rd edn, Warminster: Aris & Phillips 1999), pp. 155–6. Wilkinson fails to note that there is a lacuna in the text before the words ‘till noon’, and he also inadvertently repeats the phrase ‘till midday’ at the end of the sentence.

16 Egeria, Itinerarium 37.5–7; ET from Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, p. 156.

17 The Armenian Lectionary lists the specific readings used: eight from the Old Testament, eight from the New, and four from the Gospels. See Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, p. 187.

18 Egeria, Itinerarium 37.8; ET from Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, pp. 156–7.

19 See above, pp. 35–6.

20 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 13.4.

21 For Constantinople, see Robert F. Taft, ‘Holy Week in the Byzantine Tradition’ in Maxwell E. Johnson (ed.), Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 2000), pp. 155–81, here at pp. 160–2, and esp. n. 32.

22 Although extant sources for the Roman readings are all much later, it appears to be an older tradition that in preparation for Easter the accounts of the Passion from three of the four Gospels were chosen to be read successively on the three days in the preceding week on which a liturgy of the word would normally have occurred: Sunday (Matthew), Wednesday (Luke), and Friday (John), Mark being omitted because it was understood to be an abbreviation of Matthew.

23 For the latter possibility, see G. Römer, ‘Die Liturgie des Karfreitags’, Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 77 (1955), pp. 39–93, here at pp. 71–2.

24 See further Patrick Regan, ‘The Veneration of the Cross’ in Johnson, Between Memory and Hope, pp. 143–53.

25 Egeria, Itinerarium 38.1–2; ET in Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, p. 157.

26 See above, p. 27.

27 See Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, p. 188.

28 This is the suggestion of Gabriel Bertonière, The Historical Development of the Easter Vigil and Related Services in the Greek Church, OCA 193 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute 1972), pp. 68–70.

29 See below, pp. 74, 117.

30 Didascalia 5.19.1 and 6; ET in Cantalamessa, p. 83. See also above, p. 55.

31 Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, pp. 188, 193.

32 Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York: Pueblo 1986; 2nd edn, Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1991), pp. 3, 47–50; Clemens Leonhard, The Jewish Pesach and the Origins of the Christian Easter (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 2006), pp. 309–14, 317–423.

33 For further details, see Gordon P. Jeanes, The Day Has Come! Easter and Baptism in Zeno of Verona, ACC 73 (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1995); S. Gros, ‘La vigile pascale à Vérone dans les années 360–380’, Ecclesia Orans 18 (2001), pp. 11–23.

34 Bernard Botte, ‘Le choix des lectures de la veillée pascale’, Questions liturgiques et paroisssales 33 (1952), pp. 65–70, here at p. 66. Herman Schmidt, Hebdomada Sancta (Rome: Herder 1957), pp. 844–6, came to a similar conclusion, apparently independently, although he inserted Isaiah 54 in place of Baruch. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year, pp. 51–3, misunderstood Schmidt to mean that there were seven readings.

35 See Patrick Regan, ‘Paschal Lucernarium: Structure and Symbol’, Worship 82 (2008), pp. 98–118; Bertonière, The Historical Development of the Easter Vigil and Related Services in the Greek Church, pp. 29–58; A. J. MacGregor, Fire and Light in the Western Triduum, ACC 71 (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1992), pp. 299–308.