prayers for him. Tertullian says that drought was removed by the prayers and fastings of the Christians'. Cyprian said that they continually made prayers and supplications for the repelling of enemies, for rain, for the removal or moderation of calamities. We find by the testimony of Sidonius, that supplications for rain and fine weather were customary in Gaul, before the middle of the fifth century". We read of the emperor Theodosius, in the fourth century, preparing for battle with his enemies, by fasting and prayer to God during the whole night, and by going with the priests and people, and praying in sackcloth in all the churches. Basil, in a homily delivered during a season of famine and drought, complains that the people did not attend the church to make their litany. And we read that a solemn litany, or supplication, on account of a great earthquake, was celebrated at Constantinople in the time of the emperor Theodosius the younger, and the patriarch Proclus, about A. D. 430%. It appears from all these circumstances, that

public supplications and prayers to God, on occasions of especial urgency, were certainly prevalent in the church during the fourth and fifth centuries. It also is manifest, that supplications were made by the church on the same occasions, from the earliest ages: and there is no improbability that these supplications may always have been made in public assemblies of the church. We know that such supplications were accompanied by fastings; and when we reflect that in the second and third centuries, the Christians were accustomed to meet in church for the purpose of divine worship, on the ordinary fasts of the fourth and sixth days of the week', we may see good reason for thinking that they also met together to celebrate the fasts, which were enjoined on occasions of great moment. They certainly did assemble for this purpose in the fourth century, both in the eastern and western churches; as we may perceive by the instances above cited from Basil, and the life of Theodosius the Great; and therefore they probably had done so long before.

These supplications were called litanies in the eastern churches, from whence the name passed to the west. Here they were called rogations or supplications, until the name of litany became more prevalent than any other. It is probable that the prevalence of the name of litany in the west, may have arisen from the derivation of processional supplications from the eastern to the western churches. I have already observed that processions could only have commenced in the fourth century, when the

I See Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, book xxi. c. 3, § 4.

persecutions had terminated; and in fact there is no notice of any such custom until that century.

Rogations, or litanies, were customary in Gaul in the fifth century, as we learn from Sidonius, who observes that they were principally for the purpose of praying for rain or fine weathers; but it appears that they were not celebrated at that time with the regularity, solemnity, and devotion which afterwards attended on them. Mamertus, bishop of Vienne in Gaul, on occasion of several dreadful calamities, which about the year 450 fell on the people of that diocese, instituted solemn litanies, or rogations, on the three days immediately preceding the feast of Ascension. These three days acquired shortly the appellation of rogation days, because they were the only days of the year which were annually set apart for the purpose of celebrating litanies or rogations. The rogation days of Mamertus were before long received throughout Gaul; and they were also received in the English church at an early period, as the council of Cloveshoe appointed that these three days should be kept holy, after the manner of former times". In Spain they were received at a later period; and at Milan the three rogation days were not celebrated before Ascension, but in the week after. However, though these three days were set apart for supplications or litanies every year, litanies were also celebrated whenever any particular circumstance rendered it desirable; as,

for instance, during drought, or continual rain, &c. In the next century after that in which Mamertus lived, another annual litany or rogation was established in the diocese of Auvergne, or Clermont, by Gallus, A. D. 545, who, on occasion of a plague in the city, directed an annual procession from Clermont to the church of St. Julian the Martyr".

At Rome, no doubt, litanies were in use at an early period, since we find that in the time of Gregory the Great, A. D. 590, the appellation of litany had been so long given to processional supplications, that it was then familiarly applied to those persons who formed the procession. Hence when this patriarch gave directions for the celebration of a sevenfold litany, on occasion of a great pestilence, he spoke thus: "Let the litany of clergy depart from "the church of St. John Baptist, the litany of men "from the church of St. Marcellus, the litany of "monks from the church of St. John and St. Paul, "the litany of virgins from the church of Cosmas "and Damian, the litany of married women from "the church of St. Stephen, the litany of widows "from the church of St. Vitalis, the litany of the 66 poor and the children from the church of St. Ce"cilia-." These different litanies were all to go in procession to some one principal church, where a solemn service was performed. Thus commenced the Litania Septena in the Roman church, which was entitled Litania Major, and was celebrated on the twenty-fifth of March. This litany or rogation does not appear to have been adopted soon by the

W

Gregor. Turon. Hist. lib.

iv. c. 5.

* Vita Gregorii a Joanne

Diacono, lib. i. c. 42, p. 37, tom. iv. Oper. Gregor. edit. Benedict.

Gallican church, which preferred the season of rogations appointed by Mamertus; and though formerly received in England, it has long been abolished amongst us. These annual litanies of the western churches appear never to have been received by the oriental churches. Though we frequently read of litanies and processions in the monuments of the east, yet it does not seem that they have ever adopted the seasons of rogation which Mamertus and Gregory appointed. However, they had annual supplications also. Thus we read that an annual litany was celebrated in commemoration of the great earthquake in the reign of the emperor Justinian'. But the litanies of the patriarchate of Constantinople seem only to be celebrated now on occasions of some peculiar urgency, as, for instance, in the time of drought, peril of earthquake, pestilence, storms", &c. And these certainly appear to have been originally the proper seasons for litanies.

SECTION III.

THE SERVICE PERFORMED IN SUPPLICATIONS.

We have no distinct account of the nature of the service which was used on occasions of peculiar supplications during the earliest ages. That the people fasted and prayed on such occasions, we learn from Tertullian; and it may be considered highly probable, that during the first three centuries the services at such times differed but little from that of ordinary fast days. On the weekly fast days the church in some places assembled at the sixth hour, or twelve o'clock, and the service consisted of psal

y Cedrenus, cited by Goar, Rituale Græc. p, 770.

z See Goar, Rituale Græc. p. 766. 770, &c.