[Footnote 47:  Our divine Lord sometimes passed the night in prayer; and the early Christians, as Pliny informs his master Trajan, used to assemble before the light to sing a hymn to Christ.  Lucian as well as Ammianus Marcellinus complained of their spending the night in singing hymns.  S. Jerome in fine writes to Eustoch. (Ep. 22) that besides the daily hours of prayers we should rise twice and thrice at night.]

[Footnote 48:  In the mass and office for the dead several prayers and ceremonies otherwise prescribed are omitted:  so on this occasion, says Benedict XIV, “the church forgetting all things else thinks only of bewailing the sins of mankind, and condoling with Christ our Redeemer in His sufferings”.  As for the antiquity of this service, Martene remarks (lib.  IV, c. 22) that the order of the nocturnal and diurnal offices of holy-thursday is found, such as we now observe it, in the ancient Antiphonarium of the Roman church, and in that of S. Gregory published by B. Tommasi, so that there has been scarcely any variation during the last thirteen hundred years.]

[Footnote 49:  When the Pope officiates, the eight candles over the cancellata are lighted:  six are lighted for a Cardinal, and four for a Bishop.  Amalarius priest of Metz in the ninth century (De ordine antiphonarii), mentions the extinction of the lights in the office of these three days.  It would seem however, that it was not then customary at Rome, for Theodore, archdeacon of the Roman church, in answer to his enquiries had said to him “I am usually with the Apostolic Lord at the Lateran, when the office of Coena Domini (Holy Thursday) is celebrated, and it is not customary to extinguish the lights.  On Good Friday there is no light of lamps or tapers in the church in Jerusalem (Santa Croce) as long as the Apostolic Lord offers up solemn prayers there, or when the cross is saluted”.  This latter custom is still continued.]

[Footnote 50:  In confirmation of this explanation we may observe, that the candle is placed behind the altar after the Benedictus during the anthem alluding to Christ’s passion, and remains there while the verse ‘Christ became obedient unto death’ the psalm Miserere, and the prayer which mentions the crucifixion, are sung.]

[Footnote 51:  See such opinions ap.  Benedict.  XIV, De festis Lib. 1, c. 5.  The system of Du Vert, who would reject all mystical and symbolical significations attributed to the church-ceremonies, has been satisfactorily confuted by Langlet, Le Brun, Tournely and other divines.]

[Footnote 52:  Tartini’s and Pisari’s lasted only one year each.]

[Footnote 53:  Persons, who go immediately after the service in the Sixtine chapel to S. Peter’s, are generally in time for part if not the whole of the Miserere sung in that Basilic.  The compositions of Fioravanti the late, Basili the present, master, and Zingarelli, are sung there.]