DOMINIC
109
DOMINICAL
Church. Towards the end of 1221 Saint Dominic re-
turned to Rome for the sLxth and last time. Here he
received many new and valuable concessions for the
order. In January, February, and March of 1221
three consecutive Bulls were issued commending the
order to all the prelates of the Church. The thirtieth
of May, 1221, found him again at Bologna presiding
over the second general chapter of the order. .\t the
close of the chapter he set out for Venice to visit Car-
dinal Ugolino, to whom he was especially indebted for
many substantial acts of kindness. He had scarcely
returned to Bologna when a fatal illness attacked him.
He died after three weeks of sickness, the many trials
of which he bore with heroic patience. In a Bull
dated at Spoleto, 13 July, 1234, Gregory IX made his
cult obligatory throughout the Church.
The life of St. Dominic was one of tireless effort in the service of God. While he journeyed from place to place he prayed and preached almost uninterruptedly. His penances were of such a nature as to cause the brethren, who accidentally tli.'icovered them, to fear the effect upon his life. While his charity was bound- less he never permitted it to interfere with the stem sense of duty that guided every action of his life. If he abominated heresy and laboured untiringly for its extirpation it was because he loved truth and loved the souls of those among whom he laboured. He never failed to distinguish between sin and the sinner. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if this athlete of Christ, who had contiuered himself before attempt- ing the refonnation of others, was more than once chosen to show forth the power of God. The failure of the fire at Fanjeaux to consume the dissertation he had employed against the heretics, and which was thrice thrown into the flames; the raising to life of Napoleone Orsini; the appearance of the angels in the refectory of Saint Sixtus in response to his prayers, are but a few of the supernatural happenings by which God was pleased to attest the eminent holiness of His servant. We are not surprised, therefore, that, after signing the Bull of canonization on 13 July, 1234, Gregory IX declared that he no more doubted the saintliness of Saint Dominic than he did that of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
Castiglio, Histoid Genrrale di San Domenico e del Ordine suo (Venice. 1529); De la Roche, Vie de Saint Dominique (Fribourg. 1619); Malvenda, Annales Ordinis Prcedicatorum (Naples. 1627); De Rechac, Vie de Saint Dominique (Paris, 1647); Nanni, Vita del glorioso Patriarcha S. Domenico (Ur- bino, 1650); Benoist, SinYe de rHi.itoire des Albigeois (Toulouse, 1693); TouRON, La Vie de Saint Dominique (Paris, 1739); BoLLANDlaxs, Acta S. Dominici Confcssoris (VtMiice, 1750), I, 358-658; Mamachi, Antiales Ordinis Priedicalorum (Rome. 1756); L.ACORDAiRE, Vie de Saint Dominique (Paris, 1840); tr. Hazeland (London, 1883); Danzas, Etudes sur les temps primitifs de I'Ordre des Frires PrScheurs (Poitiers, 1877); Ber- nard, Les Dominicains dans I'Universite de Paris (Paris, 1883); Drane, The History of Saint Dominic (London. 1891); JoR- DANOS DE Saxonia, Opera Ad Res Ordinis Prtrdicatorum Spec- tantia (Friboure. 1891); De Fkacheto, Vitce Fratrum Ordinis Prmdicatorum (Louvain, 1896); Balme and Lelaidier. Car- lulaire ou Histoire diplomatique de Saint Dominique (Paris, 1898); Reichert, Litlerre Encyclicie Magistrorum Generalium Ordinis Prmdicatorum (Rome, 1900), 1-9; Guiradd, SairU Dominique (Paris, 1901); tr. De Mattos (London, 1901); MoRTlER, Histoire des Mattres Gi-ncraux des Frires Precheurs (Paris, 1903), I, 1-135.
John B. O'Connor.
Dominic, Rule of S-unt. See Preachers, Order
OF.
Dominical Letter, a device adopted from the Romans by the old chronologers to aid them in finding the day of the week corresponding to any given date, and indirectly to facilitate the adjustment of the "Proprium de Tempore" to the "Proprium Sanc- torum " when constructing the ecclesiastical calendar for any year. The Church, on account of her compli- cated system of movable and immovable feasts (see Calend.\r, CHRii3Ti,\N), has from an early period taken upon herself as a special charge to regulate the meas- urement of time. To secure uniformity in the observ- ance of feasts and fasts, she began, even in the patris-
tic age, to supply a computus, or system of reckoning,
by which the relation of the solar and lunar years
might be accommodated and the celebration of Easter
determined. Naturally she adopted the astronomical
methods then available, and these methods and the
terminology belonging to them, having become tradi-
tional, are perpetuated in a measure to this day, even
after the reform of the calendar, in the prolegomena to
the Breviary and Missal.
The Romans were accustomed to divide the year into nundi»{P, periods of eight days; and in their marble /asti, or calendars, of which numerous speci- mens remain, they used the fii'st eight letters of the alphabet to mark the days of which each period was composed. When the Oriental seven-day period, or week, was introduced, in the time of Augustus, the first seven letters of the alphabet were employed in the same way to indicate the days of this new division of time. In fact, fragmentary calendars on marble still survive in which both a cycle of eight letters — A to H — indicating tiundime, ami a cycle of seven letters — A to G — indicating weeks, are used side by side (see "Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum", 2nd ed., I, 220. — The same peculiarity occurs in the Philocalian Cal- endar of A.D. 356, ibid., p. 256). This device was imi- tated by the Christians, and in their calendars the days of the year from 1 January to 31 December were marked with a continuous recurring cycle of seven letters: A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A was always set against 1 January, B against 2 January, C against 3 January, and so on. Thus F fell to 6 January, G to 7 January, A again recurred on 8 January, and also, conse- quently, on 15 January, 22 January, and 29 January. Continuing in this way, 30 January was marked with a B, 31 January with a C, and 1 February with a D. Supposing this to be carried on through all the days of an ordinary year (i. e. not a leap year), it will be found that a D corresponds to 1 March, G to 1 .\pril, B to 1 May, E to 1 June, G to 1 July, C to 1 August, F to
1 Septemlier, X to 1 October, D to 1 November, and F to 1 December — a result which Durandus recalled by the following distich: —
Alta Domat Dominus, Gratis Beat Equa Gerentes Contemnit Fictos, Augebit Dona Fideli. Now, as a moment's reflection shows, if 1 January is a Sunday, all the days marked by A will also be Sun- days; if 1 January is a Saturday, Sunday will fall on
2 January, which is a B, and all the other days marked B will be Sundays; if 1 January is a Monday, then Sunday will not come until 7 January, a G, and all the days marked by a G will be Sundays. This being ex- plained, the Dominical Letter of anv year is defined to be that letter of the cycle. A, B, C,'D, E, F, G, which corresponds to the day upon which the first Sunday (and every subsequent Sunday) falls.
It is plain, however, that when leap year occurs, a complication is introduced. February has then twenty-nine days. According to the Anglican and civil calendars this extra day is added to the end of the month; according to the Catholic ecclesiastical calentlar 24 February is counted twice. But in either case 1 March is then one day later in the week than 1 February, or, in other words, for the rest of the year the Suntlays come a day earlier than they would in a common year. This is expressed by saying that a leap year has two Dominical Letters, the seconil being the letter which precedes that with which the year startetl. For example, 1 January, 1907, was a Tues- day; the first Sunday fell on 6 January, or an F. F was, therefore, the Dominical Letter for 1907. The first of January, 1908, was a Wednesday, the first Sun- day fell on 5 January, and E was the Dominical Let- ter, but as 190S was leap year, its Sundays after Feb- ruary came a day sooner than in the normal year and were D's. The year 1908, therefore, had a double Dominical Letter, E-D. In 1909, 1 January is a Fri- day and the Dominical Letter is C. In 1910 and 1911,
