Christmas.  Antiquity. “It was formerly taken for granted that Christ had actually been born on this day, and, accordingly, the learned were of opinion that the Church had observed it from the beginning, as the day of His birth.  Even at the present day it will be dfficult for many to give up this idea.  But there is no Christmas among the Christan feasts enumerated by Tertullian ([died] 220), Origen (185-254), and the recently published Testament of Jesus Christ.  On the contrary, there is clear proof that even in the fourth and fifth centuries it was unknown in some parts of the Church, where its introduction, at a later period, can be proved historically” (vide Kellner, op. cit., pp. 127-158).

Christmas is one of the great festivals.  In Rome there were two night Offices.  The first, celebrated at nightfall in the Papal chapel, begins with the antiphon of the first psalm in the nocturn.  It has nine lessons and the Te Deum.  About midnight a more solemn Office began, this time with the invitatory and psalm Venite.  The first of these Offices became the Office of the vigil.

In the Office of Christmas Day the lessons are read without the title of the book (Isaias) from which they are taken, because their author’s name was so often repeated during the Advent that each one knew their source, or because at Christmas God speaks to us by His Son, rather than by His prophet.  In the first response the Gloria Patri is said, to thank God for the great favour He has bestowed on us—­His Son, the Christ.  In the third nocturn, Alleluia is added to the antiphons, because the third nocturn typifies the time of grace, in which we should express the joy that is ours in the birth of the Saviour.  In this nocturn, too, are given three Gospel extracts, corresponding with the Gospels in the Mass of Christmas.  Matins are separated from Lauds by the first Mass because, it is said at midnight, and Lauds is a day Office.  At Prime the versicle of the little response is Qui natus est.

Rubrics.  Christmas is a primary double of the First Class.  The third of the new Tres Tabellae (S.C.R., January, 1912) in the new Breviaries gives the rules for concurrence of Vespers in the Octave of Christmas.

Feast of St. Stephen.  The worship of St. Stephen may be said to be as old as the Church herself, since St. Paul gave him the title of Martyr of Christ (Acts XXII. 20).  His name is to be found in the earliest liturgical sources, e.g., the Arian martyrology belonging to about 360 and in all calendars, ancient and modern, excepting the Coptic.  His cultus received great impulse from the discovery of his relics at Kaphar Gamala, on the shore of Lake Genesareth, and the wonderful miracles wrought by them, A basilica in his honour was erected, in Rome in the fourth century.

St. John the Apostle.  The commemoration of St. John on the 27th December was formerly united with that of St. James the Less.  In time, St. John’s feast only was celebrated on this date, and such was the case as early as the time of Bede.