Evangeliary

EVANGELIARY. - By E. (from evangeliarum [= ius], evangeliare or also evangelistarium) is meant the liturgical book that contains the passages of the Gospel to be read during the year at solemn Mass.

The term E. is neither the earliest nor the only one. More often one finds capitulare evangeliorum (8th century), corresponding to the capitulare lectionum for the epistles. The Middle Ages gave free rein to many other names: breviarium (= ius) lectionum evangelii, tituli, quotationes, tabula, registrum, volumen, liber, libellus, ordo, opusculum, pronuntiatio, intitulaciones, terminationes, inventarium evangeliorum. It was also called comes, but with the difference that capitulare indicated only the list of the pericopes, at most with the incipit and the explicit, whereas the comes reported the entire pericope.

I. HISTORY

The history of the E. follows quite closely, often merging with, that of the epistolary. The first sketch of the E. is found, as for the epistles, in the indication of the respective passages to be read on given days, an indication placed in the margin of the sacred text. These were, at first, sporadic cases, because originally, and in certain Churches down to the 4th century (Africa) and the 5th (Ravenna), the normal system of reading Holy Scripture was the lectio continua, that is, a book was read from beginning to end, a little at a time, for the time established by the one presiding over the assembly, who then commented on the passage read with a sermon.

But from the earliest times, on the solemnities that commemorated the great mysteries of the Redemption, Easter and Pentecost, then, in the 4th century, Christmas and Epiphany, and also in certain periods of the year, such as Lent and Advent, the lectio continua was interrupted to give place to the corresponding Gospel narrative. Thus there gradually took shape the series of pericopes for the principal feasts of the year.

From the sermones of St. Augustine, S. Beissel was able to reconstruct the lectionary arrangement at least for the paschal period in use in the African Church (cf. Entstehung der Perikopen des Römischen Messbuches, Freiburg im Br. 1907, p. 44); to Beissel's series there should now be added the sermones post naurinus reperit published by Morin in the Miscellanea agostiniana (Rome 1930).

In the 7th century, the era to which the oldest manuscripts that have come down to us belong, the system of reading is found much changed. In place of the lectio continua one sees the list of pericopes (called capitulo from the 5th century onward) fixed once and for all. There are no certain elements for establishing how the passage from one arrangement to the other came about, and we must therefore content ourselves with conjecturing.

Already at the beginning of the 3rd century the tendency manifests itself to fix the constitutive elements of worship. This tendency becomes more pronounced in the following centuries. Thus it came about that the reading of Holy Scripture too moved toward a determined arrangement. To this must be added the disappearance of the catechumens (5th century), for whom principally the lectio continua constituted the first Christian instruction imparted through the liturgical celebration. It is certain, in any case, that a fixed lectionary organization was in force in 400 in Africa (St. Augustine, Sermo 86, Tract. da quarta feria post Pascha, in Miscell. agost., I, Rome 1930, p. 324; Sermo 315, 1: PL 38-39, 1426; Tract. VI in Ioann., cap. 18: ibid., 35, 1433) and in 450 in Gaul (Sidonius Apollinaris, Epist. IV, 11, 6: ibid. 58, 516; Gennadius, De script. eccles., 79: ibid. 1103 ff.).

And since the liturgical development of the various Churches of the West follows a parallel track, it is likely that Rome too before the 7th century, perhaps indeed already from the 5th century, had its own arrangement of scriptural readings. The reading was entrusted to clerics, who fixed day by day the text to be read, noting its reference in special lists (capitulum, whence the term capitulare given to the lists and then to the volume of pericopes) at the beginning of the sacred Codex, or transcribing the pericope into a separate volume.

This conjecture of Klauser is based on the fact that the oldest Roman collections of Gospel pericopes that have come down to us are in the form of lists or of true and proper lectionaries: but also because there is not, in the entire series of extant manuscripts, a third form of scriptural collection.

The golden period of the Capitularia Evangeliorum was the 9th century, in which no fewer than 140 codices are counted. In the 10th century the number declines greatly. In the 13th century the Capitulare is definitively declining.

And one understands why. Already in the Missal of Montecassino, written perhaps in Rome, around 700, the pericopes appear for the first time in a final form: the lessons are inserted in the Missal together with the other parts of the Mass. This form will develop in the following centuries, until it becomes the rule, with the plenary Missals of the 13th century.

With the bull of Pius V of 1570 the plenary Missal acquired the right of citizenship in the universal Church, and the arrangement of the Gospel pericopes too remains forever fixed, such as the centuries had formed and handed it down.

II. TYPES

The Capitulare Evangeliorum were dealt with first by Cardinal Tommasi and more recently, with strict scientific method, by Frere and Klauser, who independently arrived at the same conclusions, apart from some divergence of detail. Klauser, who extended the investigation to more than 1300 manuscripts, classifies the capitularies under four types:

Type II. It represents the pure Roman use around 645 and has its best representative in the Würzburg codex (University Library, cod. mp. th. f. 62; ed. G. Morin, Liturgie et hostilques de Rome au milieu du VIIe siècle d'après les listes d'évangiles de Würzburg, in Rev. bénéd., 28 [1911], pp. 286-330; see also by the same author: Les notes liturgiques de l'Evangélaire de Burchard, ibid., 10 [1893], pp. 113-26), also called the E. of Burchard, because it seems to have belonged to St. Burchard, an English monk, later bishop of Würzburg from 741 to 753.

Type A. - It still gives the pure Roman use, but at a later period, ca. 740, and is represented by the codex aureus (now in the Municipal Library of Trier, cod. XXII), written around 800 (ed. K. Menzel, Die Trierer Ad-Haubschrift, Leipzig 1880, pp. 15-27).

To this type also belongs the capitulare found in the E. of St. Cuthbert (British Museum, Cotton Nero D. IV), transcribed at Lindisfarne from an E. used in the church of Naples and brought to England after the middle of the 7th century (edited by G. Morin, La liturgie de Naples au temps de sa Grégoire, in Rev. bénéd., 8 [1891], pp. 481-93, 529-37, in Anecdota Maredolana, I, Maredolana 1893, pp. 426-35).

Type E. - It still represents the pure Roman use of 755. Principal manuscript cod. lat. 1588 manu. acq. of the National Library of Paris, written ca. 800.

Type A. - It represents the Franco-Roman use after 750. Principal representative cod. lat. Vat. 8523, written between the 9th and 10th century.

III. IN LITURGY

The Church has always professed great veneration and respect for the E. Art has rendered this sentiment by representing it on a throne. Thus in the mosaics of Ravenna, Rome and Aquileia. In the Fourth Council of Constantinople (869), celebrated in the basilica of St. Sophia, the E. stood on a throne together with the relic of the Holy Cross. The Middle Ages knew another use, which goes back to the 5th century: that of keeping the book of the Gospels on the altar: the word of God near the Eucharist. On the Gospel, even today, from the time of Justinian, oaths are sworn.

In the pontifical liturgy of the Middle Ages the E. was brought to the altar with great pomp, in procession before the Mass, by an acolyte, accompanied by a subdeacon. Arriving in the presbytery, all the clergy rose to their feet as a sign of homage. Then the subdeacon received the E. from the acolyte to place it on the altar, where it remained until the singing of the Gospel. The consecrated table, which in ancient times tolerated no other object besides the oblate, received the E. This ceremony has remained, in part. The E. is now carried in the pontifical entrance procession to the altar, in front of the celebrant, but, as soon as he has kissed it after the Confession, it is placed back on the credence. Other signs of veneration are the incensation and the lighted candles that accompany its reading.

All ceremonies already largely set down in the Ordo Romanus I of the 8th century (cf. M. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romanes du haut moyen-âge, II: Les textes, Louvain 1948, pp. 87-88) and in part completed and developed in the following centuries. They are the living expression of the Church's faith in the word of God.

1935; it is the most complete work on the subject (two further volumes will follow, one for the evidence relating to the dating of the individual types, the other for the classification of the remaining capitularies). On pp. xxiii-xxv it supplements the bibliography up to 1934 (cf. also Ephém. lit., 30 [1936], pp. 81-83).

Annibale Bugnini

IV. DECORATION

To the various gradations of Eastern art of the 6th century belongs a conspicuous group of Evangeliaries, such as the purple codex of the cathedral of Rossano, the Syriac codex known as that of Rabbula (a monk of Zagba in Mesopotamia) dated to the year 586, now in the Laurentian Library of Florence; the codex of Sinope, today in the National Library of Paris; linked to them, though later (10th century), is the Evangeliary of Etschmiadzin (Armenia), enclosed in an earlier ivory diptych.

The Evangeliary preserved at Cambridge in the Library of Corpus Christi College (cod. 286) perhaps belongs to the group of those sent to England to Augustine of Canterbury by Pope Gregory I (500-604) and seems to have been executed in Rome or in southern Italy, because the miniatures that adorn it reflect the pictorial forms proper to central Italy between the 6th and 7th centuries.

To the beginning of the 7th century also belongs the Evangeliary of Lindisfarne, today in the British Museum, which displays in the beautiful miniatures of the initials the refined sense of decoration then proper to the art that flourished in the British Isles.

In the golden age of the Evangeliaries, that is, under Charlemagne, special schools were formed, attached to the scriptoria of the monasteries, which, working with love, intelligence and art, produced true masterpieces. The monastery of St. Martin of Tours, directed by the famous Alcuin, the schools of St. Gall, Mera, Reims, Orléans, the abbey of Corbie, Luxeuil, etc., left wonderful works. Among the most famous calligraphers of that time are deservedly remembered Alcuin, author of the Evangeliary donated by Charlemagne to the abbey of the Most Holy Savior of Aniane (Montpellier), Godescalc who wrote the Evangeliary today in the Louvre Museum, Peter to whom is owed the Evangeliary of Charlemagne today in the "Schatzkammer" of Vienna; noteworthy still are the miniatures of the Ada codex, in the Municipal Library of Trier, and of the Evangeliary of Echternach of the 2nd century preserved at Gotha.

In the 9th-10th century the first pages of the Evangeliaries are tinted with purple. In gold are found the frames of the pages, the initials, large and small, then the titles and the rubrics (Evangeliary of Charles of Rohan-Soubise, now in the National Library of Paris), finally all the rest is written in gold or silver (Evangeliary of St. Martin des Champs, now in the Library of the Arsenal). This golden magnificence reaches its greatest splendor in the Carolingian period, then declines.

To the beginnings of the 12th century belongs, and has miniatures that recall the manner proper to Cassinese painting in the initials, and to the Roman painting of that age in the figures, the Evangeliary coming from Farfa and now in the Vallicelliana Library of Rome (cod. E. 16). The figures of the Evangeliary perhaps coming from the Roman Convent of St. Cecilia, today in the Laurentian Library of Florence (PL 17-27), show an analogous taste, while the Evangeliary coming from the Convent of the Holy Apostles, also of Rome and now in the Vatican Library (cod. Vat. lat. 5974) has a straightforwardly Byzantine character because it was executed in the 12th century by the miniaturists of the Greek abbey of Grottaferrata.

Also characteristic are the forms proper to the miniatures of the Evangeliary donated by Countess Matilda to the abbey of Polirone ca. 1/a. 1109. The codex is today in the Morgan Library in New York and reflects the manners proper to painting in northern Italy at the beginnings of the 12th century.

Reflections, instead, of Ottonian art are in a codex of the cathedral of Vercelli and more vivid still in another that is in the treasury of the cathedral of Padua, executed in the year 1170 by an Isidore doctor bonus.

The Evangeliary of the end of the 12th century known as that of Countess Matilda, which is in the abbey of Nonantola, has some miniatures that imitate Germanic models while others have a freer and more sprightly manner in harmony with contemporary Italian paintings.

Evangeliaries become more frequent in the succeeding times, likewise reflecting in their decorations - like the other sacred texts - the manners proper to the art of the regions in which they were executed.

To embellish and animate the Evangeliaries, drawings and paintings were used. The initials had the preference of the calligraphers, who either used symbols (hieratic phase) or reproduced nature (naturalist phase); then the tendency developed toward the representation of buildings, scenes, fictitious or even real personages, such as the donors, the great men of the time or the calligrapher himself. It is to the liturgical books that we owe the preservation of a great number of historical portraits which without them would never have come down to us (e.g., Charles the Bald on the Evangeliary of St. Emmeran of Regensburg, Henry III and the Empress Agnes, Conrad the Salic and Gisela on that of the Escorial, Countess Matilda on her Evangeliary in the Vatican Library (cc.). The magnificence appears also in the binding of the manuscripts. Already St. Ambrose recalls "arca Testamenti undique auro tecta idea: doctrina Christi" (Epist., IV, 4: PL 16, 890). In the cathedral of Milan are preserved two ivory tablets of the 5th century, which covered an Evangeliary. Enclosed in gold leaf is the case of the Evangeliary of Monza (6th century), donated by Queen Theodelinda to the church of St. John. Ivory and gold were much used for the Evangeliaries. One may cite for the 9th century the ivory that adorns a part of the Evangeliary of Lorach in the Vatican Library; for the 10th century the ivories of the Evangeliary of Echternach; for the 11th the celebrated binding of the Evangeliary of Besançon. The ivory was fixed with plates of gold and silver, but later entire bindings were made with these precious metals, such as the Gothic Evangeliary of Ulfilas (Codex argenteus) and the bindings decorated with enamels and reliefs of the regions of the Meuse and the Rhine. - See av. LVII.