Ash Wednesday,
originally called dies cinerum (day of ashes) is mentioned in
the earliest copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary, and probably
dates from at least the 8th Century. Though the exact origin of
the day is not clear, the custom of marking the head with ashes
on this Day is said to have originated during the papacy of
Gregory the Great (590-604). This ceremony is derived from the
custom of public penance in the early church. When the custom
was extended to the entire congregation is not known, although
it seems to have been in common use by the late 10th century.
One of the earliest descriptions of Ash Wednesday is found in
the writings of the Anglo-Saxon abbot Aelfric (955-1020).
Aelfric suggests, the pouring of ashes on one's body and
dressing in sackcloth, a very rough material, as an outer
manifestation of inner repentance or mourning is an ancient
practice. It is mentioned several times in the Old Testament.
The earliest occurrence is found at the very end of the book of
Job. Job, having been rebuked by God, confesses, "Therefore I
despise myself and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6). Other
examples are found in 2 Samuel 13:19, Esther 4:1,3, Isaiah 61:3,
Jeremiah 6:26, Ezekiel 27:30, and Daniel 9:3. In the New
Testament, Jesus alludes to the practice in Matthew 11:21: "Woe
to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that
were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they
would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes."
There can be no doubt that the custom of distributing the ashes to all
the faithful arose from a devotional imitation of the practice observed
in the case of public penitents. Putting a 'cross' mark on the forehead
was in imitation of the spiritual mark or seal that is put on a
Christian in baptism. This is when the newly born Christian is delivered
from slavery to sin and the devil, and made a slave of righteousness and
Christ (Rom. 6:3-18). This can also be held as an adoption of the way
'righteousness' are described in the book of Revelation, where we come
to know about the servants of God. The reference to the sealing of the
servants of God for their protection in Revelation is an allusion to a
parallel passage in Ezekiel, where Ezekiel also sees a sealing of the
servants of God for their protection: "And the LORD said to him [one of
the four cherubim], 'Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a
mark [literally, "a tav"] upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and
groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.' And to the
others he said in my hearing, 'Pass through the city after him, and
smite; your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity; slay old
men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but
touch no one upon whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.' So they
began with the elders who were before the house." (Ezekiel 9:4-6)
Unfortunately, like most modern translations, the one quoted above (the
Revised Standard Version, which we have been quoting thus far), is not
sufficiently literal. What it actually says is to place a tav on the
foreheads of the righteous inhabitants of Jerusalem. Tav is one of the
letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and in ancient script it looked like the
Greek letter chi, which happens to be two crossed lines (like an "x")
and which happens to be the first letter in the word "Christ" in Greek
Christos). The Jewish rabbis commented on the connection between tav and
chi and this is undoubtedly the mark Revelation has in mind when the
servants of God are sealed in it.
The early Church Fathers seized on this tav-chi-cross-christos
connection and expounded it in their homilies, seeing in Ezekiel a
prophetic foreshadowing of the sealing of Christians as servants of
Christ. It is also part of the background to the Catholic practice of
making the sign of the cross, which in the early centuries (as can be
documented from the second century on) was practiced by using one's
thumb to furrow one's brow with a small sign of the cross, like
Catholics do today at the reading of the Gospel during Mass.
