§ 90. PFBLIC WOKSUIT OF THE LORd's DAY. 471
lu the Latin church this was done in the fifth century ; in the Grreek, in the eighth. The lessons were taken from the Gos pels and from the Epistles, or the Apostle (in part also from the Prophets), and were therefore called the Gospel and the Epistle for the particular Sunday or festival. Some churches, however, had three, or even four lessons, a Gospel, an Epistle, and a section from the Old Testament and from the Acts. Many manuscripts of the Kevv Testament contained only the pericopes or lessons for public worship,' and many of these again, only the Gospel pericopes." The Alexandrian deacon Euthalius, about 460, divided the Gospel and the Apostle, excepting the Revelation, into fifty -seven portions each, for the Sundays and feast days of the year ; but they were not generally received, and the Eastern church still adhered for a long time to the lectio continua. Among the Latin lectionaries still extant, the Lectionarium Gallicanum, dating from the sixth or seventh century, and edited by Mabillon, and the so-called Comes (i. e.. Clergyman's Companion) or Liber Comitis, were in especial repute. The latter is trMced by tradition to the learned Jerome, and forms the groundwork of the Koman leetionary and the entire Western system of peidcopes, which has passed irom the Latin church into the Anglican and the Lutheran, but has undergone many changes in tlie course of time." Tiiis selection of Scripture portions was in general better fitted to the church year, but had the disadvantage of withholding large parts of the holy Scriptures from the people.
The lessons were read from the ambo or reading desk by the lector, with suitable formulas of introduction ; usually the
' Hence called Lectionaria, sc. volumina, or Lectionarii, sc. libri ; also Evanffeliu cum Epistolis, Comes (manual of the clergy) ; in Greek, avayvwar iko., tvayye- \iiT T dpia, 4 K\oydS ta,
^ Hence Evangelistaria, or Evangelistarium^ in distinction from the Epistolai-ix, Epistolare, or Apostolus.
" The high antiquity of the Comes appears at any rate in its beginning with the Christmas Vigils instead of the Advent Sunday, and its lack of the festival of the Trinity and most of the saints' days. There are different recensions of it. the oldest edited by Pamelius, another by Baluze, a third (made by Alcuin at the command of Charlemagne) by Thomasi. E, Ranke, 1. c, has made it out probable that Jerome composed the Comes under commission from Pope Damasus, and is consequently thr origijial author of the Western pericope system.
472 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Epistle first, and then the Gospel ; closing with the doxologj* or the singing of a psalm. Sometimes the deacon read the Gospel from the altar, to give it special distinction as the "word of tlie Lord Himself.
Tlie chnrcli Withers earnestly enjoined, besides this, diligent private reading of the Scriptures; especially Chrysostora, who attributed all corruption in the church to the want of knowledge of the Scriptures. Yet he already found himself compelled to combat the assumption that the P.ible is a book only for clergy and monks, and not for the people ; an assumption which led in the middle age to the notorious papal prohibitions of the Scriptures in the popular tongues. Strictly speaking, the Bible has been made what it was originally intended to be, really a universal book of the people, only l)y the invention of the art of printing, by the spirit of the Keformation, and by the Bible Societies of modem times. For in the ancient church, and in the middle age, the manuscripts of the Bible were so rare and so dear, and the art of reading was so limited, that the great mass were almost entirely dependent on the fragmentary reading of the Scriptures in public worshi]). This fact must be well considered, to forestall too unfavorable a judgment of that early age.
The reading of the Sci-ipture was followed by the sermon, based either on the pericope just read, or on a whole book, in consecutive portions. We have from the greatest pulpit orators of antiquity, from Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine, connected homilies on Genesis, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles. But on high festivals a text was always selected euitable and usual for the occasion.' There was therefore in the ancient church no forced conformity to the ])ericoi)es; the advantages of a system of Scripture lessons and a consecutive exposition of entire books of Scripture were combined. Tlie reading of the pericopes belongs pro})erly to the altar-service,
* Comp. Augustine's Expos, in Job. in prrof. : " Meminit sanctitas vestra, evangeliiim Bccundum Joliannem ex ordine lectioiium nos solcrc tractare. Scd quia rune intcrposita est solcmnitas sanctorum dlcrum, quibus ccrtas ex cvangelio lectioncs oportot recitari, quae ita sunt annuae, ut alia) esse non possint, ordo ille qucm susc« peramus, ex necessitate paululum intermissus est, non omissus."