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For the more important feasts, an office of nine lessons was established and this came to be known as a semi-double office, and later such feasts were called doubles. Hence, before the thirteenth century, we find celebrations of simple feasts, of semi-doubles and of doubles. And Durandus, who wrote in the thirteenth century, tells us of the existence of doubles major and doubles minor.
Every part of those buildings, even to the smallest decorations, was, as shown by any of the old writers on Religious Symbolism, such as Durandus, planned to symbolise some beautiful thought, aspiration, tradition, or religious belief.
Peter's cock, which so often answers the sunbeams from the spindly spire, and kindles and glitters there like a star, is rather empty of emblematic significance and soul-language. But what saith old Bishop Durandus? "The cock at the summit of the church is a type of the preacher.
Neither in the Latin or the Greek church is the mass of the pre-sanctified a Missa sicca or dry mass: in which not only the consecration, but also the communion, and all those prayers which are said over the holy Eucharist, used to be omitted. See Durandus in Rationali c. 1.
Durandus tells us, that they call Easter by the Greek and not by the Hebrew name, and that they keep not that feast upon the same day with the Jews, and all for this cause, lest they should seem to Judaise. How much more reason have we to abstain from the ceremonies of the church of Rome lest we seem to Romanise!
One can well understand the object which led the learned Rabbi Maimonides, the greatest savant of the Middle Ages, when addressing his pupils in the twelfth century, to command his hearers: "When you have discovered the meaning thereof, do not divulge it, because the people cannot philosophise nor understand that to the Infinite there is no such thing as Sex;" but later on the noted writer on Symbolism, Durandus, in the introduction to his book, is more explicit, and gives the real meaning as follows: "The Mystical Vesica Piscis ... wherein the Divinity and, more rarely, the Blessed Virgin are represented, has no reference, except in name, to a fish, but represents the Almond, the symbol of Virginity and self-production."
In the Christian church of the middle ages, gloves were always worn by bishops or priests when in the performance of ecclesiastical functions. They were made of linen, and were white; and Durandus, a celebrated ritualist, says that "by the white gloves were denoted chastity and purity, because the hands were thus kept clean and free from all impurity."
In order to sanctify the water still more, the Cardinal now pours into it, in the form of a cross, oil of catechumens and chrism; and mixes them with the water of the font, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This last ceremony is intended to signify, according to mystical interpreters, such as Amalarius, Honorius, Durandus, etc.
We prefer a middle course, and while we are willing to admit with Durandus and others an allusion in the wine and water to the blood and water which flowed from our Saviour on the cross, we maintain with the learned S. Isidore, S. Eligius, Benedict XIV and others, that we wash the altar, the symbol of Christ, from motives of respect to Him, who on this day washed the feet of His disciples.
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