444 Notes from Armenia.
to the individual worshippers. After the service it dawned upon me that we had been sanctifying the first-fruits, so I asked the priest w'hether it were unlawful to eat the grapes before St. Thomas' day. At first he evaded my question, but afterwards allowed that such was the case, but that since the advent of Protestantism the prohibition had become inoperative and the sanctification a matter of ridicule.
In order to satisfy myself with regard to this festival, I inquired of the Jacobite priests at Ourfa concerning the time when it was lawful to eat the new grapes. They replied at once that it was lawful on St. Thomas' day, and that on that day twelve new grapes were offered on the altar. The day of the consecration of the grapes, viz. St Thomas' day, was in their Church always the third day of Tammuz. I may mention that the church of Adiaman, of which I have spoken above, must have replaced a pagan sanctuary, for a pagan altar had recently been exhumed from the body of the church, and was now standing near the church door. Unfortunately there was no inscription to suggest the deity that had been replaced. It will be remembered that w-e have reported above that at Egin the first ripe grapes are sanctified on the Assumption of the Virgin. I suppose the ritual of this service has been published somewhere, though I do not know w^here, at this moment, to put my hand upon it.
The value of the observations made above lies in the suggestion that we have an actual feast of first-fruits, with its appropriate sacramental partaking of the fruits by the worshippers, incorporated with the service for St. Thomas' day in the Syrian Church, for we may use the language of Golden Bough, ii., 335, and say, "The solemn preparation for eating the new fruits, taken together with the danger supposed to be incurred by persons who partake of them without observing the prescribed ritual, suffices to prove that the new fruits are regarded as instinct with a divine
