EPISTLE. - It is that passage from the Letters of the Apostles or from some other book of Sacred Scripture that the priest reads at Mass before the Gospel. The Church inherited the use of readings in liturgical assemblies from the Synagogue; however, whereas in the latter the Prophets and the Law were read, in the Church the Letters of the Apostles, the Gospels, the letters of bishops and the Acts of the martyrs were added.
Of the many readings in use in the early Church, only a few examples remain today, since ordinarily there are only two in the present Mass: the Epistle and the Gospel. Thus, for example, the 12 prophecies of Holy Saturday and the 6 of the vigil of Pentecost are a remnant of the readings that were done in the ancient night vigil, from which Matins and the Mass of the catechumens later came. The 5 readings of the Saturday of the Ember Days are the result of the fusion of the vigil with the Mass of the catechumens, while on the Wednesday of the Ember Days there is only one reading before that of the Epistle. In ancient times all these readings were done by the lector from the ambos that rose at the entrance of the presbytery, and they were often declaimed with certain melodic cadences of which we still have some rare remnant today. When the celebration of Mass began to be daily and the need was felt to abbreviate the pontifical rite, brief selected passages from the Letters of the Apostles or from other books of Sacred Scripture that had some connection with the feast and with the mystery being celebrated were gradually introduced.
To demonstrate further the intimate connection between the sacrificial liturgy and the laudatory one, the Epistle came to be an intercalation in the Hours of the Office; so that sometimes it is not only part of the text read in the first nocturn, but according to an ancient rule existing in Rome before St. Benedict, the Epistle is partly repeated in the chapters of the canonical Hours and in the lectio brevis of Prime. In general, Sacred Scripture in the Epistle is cited integrally and without variations. Sometimes, however, some verses are omitted and a Fratres is added at the beginning and In Christo Jesu Domino nostro at the end (Fourth Sunday after Pentecost); qui est benedictus in saecula saeculorum. Amen (Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost). To the Prophecies, moreover, is sometimes added: Haec dicit Dominus omnipotens. Some reading suited to the situation in the text can be found for a better adaptation to the mystery celebrated, as on Passion Saturday (Jer. 17, 8).
Bibliography7 works
Filippo Oppenheim