THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
in the epistles and other New-Testament matter. A remainder of this infelicitous arrangement has in some places continued till the present in the usage of reading weekly a chapter of some Biblical book in series. Unfortunately, the projected lectionary was not provided by Luther or by any other, but through the church orders the traditional Sunday and festival readings were placed in authority, though sometimes with improvements. This was the case with the Brunswick church order of 1528 and the agenda of Pomerania of 1568. There were demands for more of Scripture in the Sunday service than the old lections afforded, and this was provided for in the Brandenburg-Nuremberg church order of 1533 and that of Wurttemberg of 1536. Provision was made for sermons on whole books alongside those from the Sunday Gospel, and the Pomeranian agenda provided for sermons on the most useful books of the Bible. In general, however, in the chief service the old pericopes remained the principal basis. To this end not merely need and pedagogical considerations led, confessional reasons had their influence. Carlstadt in 1522 retained the mass as a concession to the weak in faith, and so introit, epistle, and Gospel were still used. Thomas Miinzer declared in 1523 in favor of entire chapters in place of the epistle and Gospel. In Switzerland abolition of the pericopes had been begun; in Zurich Zwingli preached upon whole books — Matthew, Acts, I and II Timothy, Galatians, Peter, Hebrews, and in 1525 he began Genesis; Bullinger, in the course of his first twelve years, preached on nearly all the books of the Bible. Official abrogation of the pericopes may not be cited, but practically they had fallen out of use; this was the case with Calvin. In the Anglican Church the lection and pericope system had a singular development. A sort of forerunner was the Reformatio ecclesiarum Hassice (1526), which directs reading through the Old Testament at morning service and through 12. Anglican the New at evening service. But this System, work was never introduced and may have been unknown to the compilers of the Anglican liturgy. Another pattern was the lection system in the reconstruction of Franciscus Quignonius (1536), which sets out to read through Scripture in the year and the Psalms once a month. The first edition of the Book of Common Prayer (Introduction, " Concerning the Service of the Church," with notes reproduced in J. H. Blunt, Annotated Book of Common Prayer, pp. 100-101, New York, 1908) remarks upon the decay of the early system of reading Scripture and the use of the Latin. Its new system follows mainly the Latin translation of 1549; each day has morning and evening service, at each of which a selection from each Testament is read, the Biblical books being read in course (e.g., on Jan. 2, morning, Gen. i. is read, evening, Gen. ii.; the New Testament is so divided that at morning service Gospels and Acts are read, at evening the epistles), except Chronicles, Canticles, and part of Leviticus; during Oct. 5-Nov. 27 readings are from the Apocrypha. The New Testament, except Revelation, is read through three times a year, and Psalms once a month, so that a complete break is here made with the strict
pericope system. In the calendar nearly all the saints' days disappear, though the old Sunday terminology is retained with the related pericopes. The later editions have besides for Sundays and festivals special lections, mostly from the Old Testament; the alterations in these later issues follow the same principle — to read much of Scripture and to retain at least as readings the old pericopes. See further, § 18 below.
• On the continent the question of retention or abolition of the traditional pericopes developed into a confessional controversy. Westphal proposed to Calvin in the sacramental 13. Defense controversy that the pericopes be and Attack sanctioned as sermonic basis, and Calon the vin replied with an attack upon them Continent. (Defensio II contra Westyhalum), the one ground for their retention being their convenience for the preacher. The Lutherans entered the battle as defenders, though they were not blind to the defects of the pericopes; they could not dispense with the system while looking to the interests of the congregation, which to a great extent the pericopes served. The preachers needed helps, and collections of sermons on the pericopes existed; the postillffi (see Postil) were in great use by preachers. The Lutherans were demanding that preaching should deal with the necessary truths of salvation, a result, they thought, better obtained by dealing with selections than with whole books; so the Lutheran sermon brought about affection for the old pericope (cf. Simon Saccus, Erkldrung iiber die Sonntagsevangelien, 1599). The very repetition, it was urged, brought about the better instruction of the hearer. Calvin's attack upon the pericope system and Saccus' defense of the same contain practically all that can be said against and for it. Among Lutherans, Luther's free position regarding it was forgotten. Habermann began his sermon on the pericope for the fourth Sunday in Advent with the remark that the teachers of the early Church were led, not aimlessly or thoughtlessly, but for weighty causes, to read that text on that day. Yet Spener regretted the restriction of the preacher which the use of the pericopes had brought about, such that often essentials had to be dragged in as if by the hair. A growing opposition developed among Lutherans. Mosheim (Anweisung erbaulich zu predigen, Erlangen, 1771) noted that the pericopes furnished only a partial basis, and that often not the most seemly. Indeed, many prominent teachers wished that the established custom with respect to these might be abolished. Mosheim pointed, in addition, to the danger to the form of the sermon inherent in the system — the preacher is likely, when bound to certain texts, to mold his discourses in a certain manner; the text is often repeated, yet the sermon must be changed. Reinhard notes that the consequence is to awaken and sharpen inventiveness. Herder opposed the system, though with no new arguments (Revision der Liturgie, 1787); yet he thought the reading of the Gospel necessary on account of the peasantry, for whom it provided a means of instruction while it also served as a sort of calendar; the enlarging of the lections, he argued, opened up a wider field for a richer teaching