All Saints' Day, Venice, 1907
The Festival of All Saints, which falls to be observed to-day, November 1st, is one of the oldest, not only in the calendar of the Christian Church, but in the…
From: Unknown To: 1907 C.E.
Location: Venice
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“All Saints’ Day” from Venetian Discourses, Drawn from the History, Art & Customs of Venice by Alexander Robertson, 1907.
"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb."
— Rev. vii. 9, 10.
"Followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises”—Heb. vi. 12.
The Festival of All Saints, which falls to be observed to-day, November 1st, is one of the oldest, not only in the calendar of the Christian Church, but in the written or unwritten calendar of any people. This is accounted for by the fact that the thoughts that underlie it, the feelings that prompt it, such as remembrance of the dead, commemoration of the dead, reverence for the dead, worship of the dead, fellowship with the dead, and even fear of the dead, are amongst the first forms in which the instinct of religion manifests itself. The mystery of death, the desire to establish a friendly fellowship with the spirits of the departed, are felt even by the lowest savages, and often prompts them to make the grave an altar of propitiation.
In the Christian Church this festival, as the name implies, is designed to commemorate all departed saints. And by saints we mean all who possessed a share of Christ's saintliness, all who here below led consecrated lives. The term includes not only those who were conspicuous for their holiness, but all in whom the life of Christ was made manifest, whether in high station, and in the use made of many talents, and of vast means; or in humble station, and in the use made of few talents, amid poverty and suffering.
In observing it we come not only to the glorious company of the apostles, to the goodly fellowship of the prophets, and to the noble army of martyrs, but to “the heavenly Jerusalem... to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven... and to the spirits of just men made perfect," in order that we, recalling the lineaments of Christ's likeness which they exhibited in their characters and lives here below, may be enabled the better to grow up unto that divine likeness.
We possess evidence of the antiquity of this festival of All Saints in the works of St. Chrysostom and St. Gregory, both of whom, writing in the fourth century, make mention of it. Its formal recognition in the Latin Church is supposed to date from the year 610, when the Pantheon at Rome, dedicated originally, as the name indicates, to " All the gods," was dedicated by Pope Boniface IV. to ''All the saints."
Until the year 834, the date of its observance seems to have been sometimes May 1st and sometimes November 1st, but since that year it has only been observed on the latter date. The festival was formally introduced into England in 870, and the Church retained it in the calendar at the Reformation, as was done by most of the Reformed Churches. Its old name was All Hallows, and the day was called Hallowmas. In Scotland it is still known by that name, although there the festival has nothing to do with the Church, but is a convivial remembrance of the old Celtic festival of Belein, the god of fire.
The Festival of All Saints, though it conducts us to the cemetery and the tomb, is not necessarily a gloomy festival. Previous to the coming of Christ it was so. The funerals of the Greeks and Romans were frequently conducted by night, and the mourners who accompanied them carried cypresses in token of sorrow and defeat, because they believed that when the grave closed over their dead, it ended all. Thus a Greek poet speaks of the withered flowers in his garden reviving with the breath of spring, whilst no requickening ever visited those who slept in death; and the Latin poet Catullus, whose home was at Verona, and at olive-clad Sirmione on the Lake of Garda, says, that when suns set, they rise again, but man, when his brief day is over, sinks into an eternal night. But at the coming of Christ all was changed. He brought "life and immortality to light through the gospel." And hence, amongst the early Christians, funerals were always conducted by day, and those who followed them carried palms and olive boughs in token of victory and joy. Not only so, but the very road along which the procession moved, as well as the grave itself, was strewn with flowers, whilst the processionists chanted psalms and hymns of triumph. These customs have come down in part to the present day, and were observed almost unimpaired in the time of Washington Irving, as is shown by the following lines from his pen:—
"White his shroud as the mountain snow,
Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which be-wept to the grave did go
With true love showers.
Thus, and thus, and thus we compass round,
The harmless and unhaunted ground,
And as we sing thy dirge, we will the daffodil,
And other flowers, lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone."
In the early centuries, too, the cross never bore the figure of a dead Christ. There were no "crucifixes." There were crosses, but they were the symbols of victory. The early Fathers said: "Christ reigned from the tree." They realised, what we need ever to realise, that death is an act done by a living man.
In like manner all early Christian art is joyous. As the late Bishop Westcott has said: "Early Christian art is always joyous. In spite of appearances the Christian believed that the victory over sin and death was already won, and he gave expression to his conviction."
I have no means of knowing exactly how funerals were conducted in Venice in the early centuries of its history, but the many tombs that still exist, which date from that period, all bear witness to the same spirit of Christian joy and triumph. These tombs are to be seen in St. Mark's Church, and in the Frari, called the Pantheon of Venice, and in SS. Giovanni and Paolo, called its Westminster Abbey. They are all sarcophagi, and are set unob- trusively away against the walls, sometimes not inside the church at all, but in its atrium, as in St. Mark's, or in niches in the wall outside, as at SS. Giovanni and Paolo. They are of plain construction, with but little decoration, free, on the one hand, from anything suggesting "pride of life," and on the other from anything suggesting "fear of death." "Rock tombs," Mr. Ruskin calls them. And what carving there is, consisting generally of an Annunciation and a cross, and not unfrequently of a figure of Christ before which he whose tomb it is kneels, was chosen with a definite purpose, namely, to show that the hope of the deceased was in the birth and death of Christ, through whom he had "fought a good fight" and had finished his course, and had left the field, not a captive in the grasp of death, but a conqueror over it, able to join with St. Paul in his paean of victory, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Venice has but one cemetery, one burying-ground, one Campo Santo as it is called, and it is outside the city altogether, in San Michele, an island in the northern lagoon that looks towards the Dolomite Mountains. No burying takes place within the city. Like the widow of Nain's son, like Lazarus, like our Lord Himself, its dead are all carried outside the city gates. But this dates only from recent times. From its foundation down to the fall of the Republic, the dead were buried in the campos or little fields in front of the churches. These are now simply paved squares, they were originally the parish churchyards. Indeed the campo of the Church of San Simeone Piccolo is still called Campo Santo, and, but a few months ago, when the pavement of the Campo San Moise, near St. Mark's Square, was taken up, and the ground disturbed for the purpose of rectifying the drainage, I myself saw abundant proof that it had been a churchyard. Burials also took place in the narrow borders of ground that generally encircle churches. These are now paved lanes, but the word sacrum inscribed on them shows that they were once consecrated ground, and indeed one strip of land attached to the Church of San Salvatore, at the head of the Merceria, near the Rialto, still lies in its original condition.
It is curious to think what Venice must have been when everywhere such open burying-places obtruded themselves in the sight of its busy, bustling merchants and traders, and of its idly-busy pleasure-seekers. Perhaps the effect was salutary as a memento mori, and also as a silent, persuasive, and abiding incentive to work. But for obvious reasons such burying-grounds were most objectionable, and so Napoleon the Great, to whom Venice is indebted for many reforms, caused them all to be closed, and ordered the Venetians to make the island of San Cristoforo, which lay next that of San Michele, the necropolis of the city. Strangely enough, this island had been used by the Protestants of Venice as their cemetery for a hundred years before Napoleon's day, for they received it for this purpose from the Republic of Venice in 1718. In 1813 Napoleon's orders were carried out, and for the next thirteen years Protestants and Roman Catholics alike found on San Cristoforo their last resting-place. In 1826, however, the island became inadequate for the city's needs, so the adjacent island of San Michele was joined to it by the filling up of the narrow canal that separated them. As this latter was the bigger island, the name of the lesser, San Cristoforo, was gradually dropped, and the whole united island became known as San Michele, which, as I have said, is now the sole Campo Santo of Venice. Another enlargement of it will soon have to be made, as its sleeping inhabitants now outnumber by six to one the living ones of the city.
For the Venetians, one part of the observance of All Saints' Day, and an essential part of it, is to go on pilgrimage to the Campo Santo. To relieve gondola and steamboat congestion, and to enable the poorer people to go in great numbers and without expense, the Venetian Municipality construct a bridge of boats from the nearest part of the city—the Fondamenta Nuova—to the island, a distance of about half a mile. On this day, then, the silent island of the dead is all astir with the presence of the city's thousands. The spectacle of men and women, aged and young, rich and poor, moving amongst the graves and tombs, walking over the dust of their friends, and kneeling upon the ashes of their relatives in a fellowship of suffering and of hope, is strange and touching, and deeply suggestive.
If All Saints' Day has any lessons to teach us, it is here we can best learn them.
(1) I referred at the beginning of my dis- course to the happy view the Christians in the early centuries took of their dead, regarding them as conquerors, and strewing their path to the grave with flowers. The appearance of the island of San Michele on All Saints' Day recalls the spirit and customs of that time. In England burying-places are always more or less like flower-gardens, the grounds being beautifully laid out, and the graves all tenderly cared for. But in Italy it is not so. Italian burial-grounds are generally neglected spots, where the vegetation grows rank and repulsive. San Michele forms no exception to this statement. During the greater part of the year it is unvisited and untended. But on All Saints' Day its appearance is changed. The multitudes that throng it break themselves up into groups; each group seeks out the graves of its own relatives, which they begin at once to put in order by cutting down and rooting up all rank grasses and weeds. They then dress and decorate them with plants, wreaths, and gar- lands, and light them up with lamps and candles. The whole place becomes transformed. It puts on "beauty for ashes, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." It adds emphasis to the apostle's exhortation that we should not sorrow for our dead " as others which have no hope." Our dead live. Death is for them the very condition of an amplified and a glorified life. They that have died have entered into life.
It is to be regretted that San Michele does not wear its bright All Saints' Day aspect throughout the year, and that the beauty of other Italian cemeteries is also spasmodic and ephemeral. Though few people now, like Joseph, give commandment concerning their bones, still every tomb ought to be cared for.
There need be nothing of idolatry in this, but only an expression of reverence for the body which God made, and which He in Christ has taken to Himself; and for the grave, which God Himself in some wonderful way formed for his servant Moses, and which Christ has for ever consecrated by His death and burial.
(2) Regarding our dead as conquerors, we are led to think of them as crowned. The Apostle Paul, referring to the struggle and fighting of the Christians here below, says that whilst others strive to obtain a corruptible crown, they do it to obtain an incorruptible. And speaking of his own life's struggle, he says: "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." And St. James says: "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." St. Peter also says: "And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." And our Lord Himself said, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." All Christians who die as conquerors, are thus crowned, whether it be after a long or after a brief campaign. We sometimes speak of an incomplete life, but no life, however short, is incomplete that has been lived in Christ. No, not even if, so far as appearances went, it were unsuccessful as well as brief. Otherwise the lives of many of God's children, such as those of Abel and Enoch, Elijah and Josiah, and of the youthful martyr Stephen, were incomplete; otherwise, even of the life of our Lord Himself, the same might be said. One may sow and another may reap, but all ultimately are crowned in Christ, so " that he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together." "As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike."
(3) In Venice the bulk of the people are too poor to own vaults or graves of their own, so that they are buried in common ground. A great part of the island thus consists of "the graves of the common people," and as these are turned over afresh every ten years, we see in this Campo Santo what we do not see in our own native land, large ossuaries or charnel-houses. In looking at these we naturally think of the question in Ezekiel’s vision, "Can these bones live?" and of how, when Ezekiel had prophesied, as an answer ''there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone... and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them... and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." We think of the resurrection, that the grave is not an eternal prison-house, that our bodies there "rest in hope," that a day is coming when" they that sleep in the dust shall wake," when "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies." We love to think that even now the waters of eternal life are rolling onward toward this and all "God's acres," in as full and free a volume as those of the Adriatic Sea that are being borne inward by the rushing spring-tide. We love to think of Christ's second coming, at whose girdle hang "the keys of hell and of death," who is in Himself to all His people "the Resurrection and the Life," when He "shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God," and when "the dead in Christ shall rise first," when this mortal shall put on immortality, when, as the seed gives us more than we sowed, gives us green leaf and coloured flower and sweet fruit, so this body, sown as the body of our humiliation, shall rise transformed into the body of our glory. Then body and spirit, the two essential parts of our manhood, separated for a time, shall once more be reunited, and we shall be "for ever with the Lord."
(4) Lastly, we are led to think of what is implied in that phrase, which was added to the Apostles' Creed in the eighth century, the "Communion of Saints." We are led to think of all saints "knit together in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body" of Jesus Christ, our Lord. To the eye of sense a gulf seems to separate the living from the dead, but to the eye of faith no such gulf exists. They who have died are united to each other, and also to us, for we form the one great family of the redeemed.
"O blest communion, fellowship Divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine."
It is an ennobling thought to belong to a great family, to a great society, to a great nation, let us then realise the nobility of our being "fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." The late Bishop Westcott seemed to believe in a ministration of angels through the phenomena of nature and the operations of natural law, and he quotes a distinguished physiologist as saying, “I can see nothing in all nature but the loving acts of spiritual beings." Whether we believe in the service of angels rendered after such a fashion or not, we yet do believe, with St. Paul, that they are '' all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation," and that their interest and sympathy with us in our trials and struggles here below cannot be greater than that of the redeemed who form the great encompassing cloud of witnesses, of which St. Paul also speaks, who testify to the power of faith to enable us to overcome the world, even as it enabled them to overcome it.
Let us thus enter into the "Communion of Saints"; and to give point and directness to our meditation that it may be the more profitable unto us, let us not be content to call up in memory the names of great spiritual heroes—patriarchs, judges, apostles, confessors, martyrs," all that chivalry of fire," but let each call up in his own mind the names and lives of saintly ones he has known in his own family and household, and within the circle of his friends, and seek to allow the influence of their characters to permeate his own. Thus may our commemoration of All Saints' Day stimulate us to increased zeal and energy in Christ's service, that we may be found "not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises," so that we too may become conquerors, and obtain a name and a place in the New Jerusalem above, where God sets "the solitary in families," and where "the inhabitant shall not say I am sick," where " there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed away."
"O God of Saints, to Thee we cry;
O Saviour, plead for us on high;
O Holy Ghost, our Guide and Friend,
Grant us Thy grace till life shall end, —
That with all Saints our rest may be
In that bright Paradise with Thee."
Robertson, Alexander. Venetian Discourses, Drawn from the History, Art & Customs of Venice, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1907.
About TOTA
TOTA.world provides cultural information and sharing across the world to help you explore your Family’s Cultural History and create deep connections with the lives and cultures of your ancestors.
