Liturgical and Archeological Notes on the Feast of All Saints

The Feast of All Saints is, many not be aware, very closed tied up with the Pantheon in Rome (S. Maria ad Martyres), which church was the first place the feast in question was manifest with the former pagan temple being consecrated to St. Mary and all the martyrs by Pope Boniface IV in the seventh century, and again by Gregory IV in the ninth -- at which time this pope instituted the solemn commemoration of All Saints -- a feast considered so great that, until 1955, it had its own octave established by Pope Sixtus IV. 

A feast of "the Mother of Christ and all martyrs" was instituted by [Pope] Boniface IV, A.D. 610, who asked the Emperor Phocas to grant him the "temple of Cybele" for this purpose. The feast was a very great one and was kept on November 1 at the Pantheon. On it the people took "the body and blood of our Lord as on Christmas day" says a 12th century writer. Gregory IV (827) extended the festival to the universal Church. On this day, a holy day of obligation, and now in Rome one of the national holidays also, a commemoration is made not only of canonized and beatified saints, but of that "great multitude who no man could number" (Handbook to Christian and Ecclesiastical Rome: Liturgy in Rome, p. 242)

Blessed Ildefonso Schuster notes in The Sacramentary that the origins of the feast started in the Christian East, being at first focused on the martyrs specifically, but gradually expanded to include all of the saints. Turning back to the connection of this feast in the Roman church with the Pantheon, Schuster also notes that the Lesson taken for the Mass of this day is the same as that for the dedication of the church S. Maria ad Martyres (i.e. the Pantheon) taken from Revelation 8: 2-12.

Schuster also notes the beautiful epigraph written by the fourth century pope Damasus in memory of all the saints which is found in the catacombs of Callixtus:

Here are gathered, if you would know, a number of the just, for these venerable sepulchres hold the bodies of many saints. The kingdom of heaven possesses their sublime souls. Here are the companions of Sixtus bearing the trophies of their victory. Here are the Pontiffs who serve the altars of Christ. Here lies the priest whose life was spent in constant peace. Here are the holy confessors sent from Greece. Here are youths, children, old men, and their chaste descendants who chose to keep their virginal purity in tact. I, Damasus, too, desired to lay my bones here, but I feared to disturb the holy ashes of the saints.

Catacomb of S. Callixtus, Rome

The original Latin inscription reads as follows:

HIC • CONGESTA • IACET • QUAERIS • SI • TVRBA • PIORVM

CORPORA • SANCTORVM • RETINENT • VENERANDA • SEPVLCRA

SVBLIMES • ANIMAS • RAPVIT • SIBI • REGIA • CAELI

HIC • COMITES • XYSTI • PORTENT • QVI • EX • HOSTE • TROPHARA

HIC • NVMERVS • PROCERVM • SERVAT • QVI • ALTARIA • CHRISTI

HIC • CONFESSORES • SANCTI • QVOS • GRAECIA • MISIT

HIC • IVVENES • PVERIQVE • SENES • CASTIQVE • NEPOTES

QVIS • MAGE • VIRGINEVM • PLACVIT • RETINERE • PVDOREM

HIC • PATEOR • DAMASVS • VOLVI • MEA • CONDERE • MEMBRA

SED • CINERES • TIMVI • SANCTOS • VEXARE • PIORVM

I can think of no better way to conclude our considerations of the great festival than with the traditional litany to all of the saints.