Lectionary

LECTIONARY. - (Lectionarium, or -ius: from lectio, reading). This was the name given to the book that contained passages of Sacred Scripture for liturgical use. It is a generic term susceptible of a more or less broad meaning according to the destination of the collection and the different epochs of its history. In any case, the fixing of the term to indicate the readings drawn from the Bible to be done at Mass is ancient. From the primitive form of a simple list of scriptural references (called capita - whence capitulare - or also indiculi) one gradually arrived at a complete collection of the readings (lessons, epistles, gospels) transcribed in full according to the order of the feasts (11th-12th centuries).

Originally the lectio divina in the liturgical synaxes was done directly on the sacred text, uninterruptedly (lectio continua), following the order of the canonical books (cf. A. M. Olivar, Codices per ordinem ex integro legant. Regula monasteriorum, c. 48, in Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos, Madrid, 55 [1949], pp. 513-22), according to the availability of time ("prout tempus fert," says St. Justin, Apol., I, ch. 67) or until the one presiding gave a sign to stop. At a later stage, through an obvious and natural evolution, one began to assign books or special portions of them to particular periods or feasts of the ecclesiastical year, such as Lent, Passiontide, Easter, Pentecost, Advent, Christmas, etc. The choice was motivated by the appropriateness of having more fitting texts read for the occasion. This system is already found, both in the East and in the West, in the sermons of the Fathers of the 4th-5th centuries: St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Leo the Great, St. Peter Chrysologus, St. Maximus of Turin, St. John Chrysostom. The constant recurrence of the homiliae on the same scriptural passages presupposes that each time, when the same feast came round again, they had been read at Mass.

The citations also underwent an evolution. At first they limited themselves to referring vaguely to the book and the chapter; thus in the most ancient one, that of Capua (6th century), In Natale Domini, ad hebraeos principium epistolae, that is Multifarium... (Hebr. 1:1); In Sexagesima, ad Timotheum I sub titulo

VIII, that is Lectio in Sexagesima: Et manifeste magnum est pietatis sacramentum... quae nunc est et futura (I Tim. 3:16-48). At other times the reference was more complete with the indication of the chapter, verses and incipit. Thus in the Epistolary of Schlettstadt (ca. 8th century): In Pascha, Act. 3:29-41: Viri fratres, liceat audenter dicere. This is the most frequent method. But one finds lectionaries that give even greater precision, that is the indication of the book, incipit and explicit, such as the Lectionary of Würzburg (8th century): In Theophania, Lectio epistolae benti Pauli Apostoli ad Titum. Carissimi: apparuit, uq. spem vitae aeternae in Christo Jesu Domino nostro.

At a third stage the chosen passages were even copied out in full (as in the Lectionaries of Toledo and of Luxeuil of the 7th century), or epistles and lessons from the Old Testament (epistolaria), and gospels (evangelaria) separately, or both together in the same codex (lectionaria properly so called). It is in this "plenary" sense (the designation is Tomasi's, with evident reference to plenary missals) that Agobard (d. 840), it seems, defines the lectionary as "liber lectionum ex divina libris congrua ratione collectus" (De correct., Antiph., ch. 19: PL 104, 338). At this point the evolution of the lectionary is complete. The apex of its formation coincides with its decline. The multiplicity of books created gradually to carry out the actio sacra (at least three, if not four, for the Mass alone: antiphanarium, lectionarium [evangeliarum] and sacramentarium or liber sacramentorum), weighing down the structure of the liturgical institution, made the need for a simplification felt more strongly. Thus were born the Missalia plenaria (11th century), which marked the disappearance of all their components, among them the lectionaries.

According to the nature of the lessons it contained, the lectionary had different names: capitulare (or -ium), lectionarium (or -ius), comes or liber comicus, comitis (as much as to say a priestly vade mecum, because at first it was not properly a liturgical book, but also served as private spiritual reading) are terms used indiscriminately for collections of a mixed kind (prophetic lessons, epistles and gospels); epistolarium (or -ius) or epistolium, apostolus and apostolicus (a clear allusion to the predominance of the Pauline letters) indicate more exactly the collection of the prophetic lessons of the Old Testament and of the epistles, made by the lectores and then by the subdeacons; evangelarium (or -ius), breviarium (or -ius) evangeliorum, etc. were the collections of the gospel pericopes.

The practice of reading the Gospel directly from the text of Sacred Scripture (the bibliotheca of the Middle Ages), and not from a collection of selected passages, was more tenacious than for the other two kinds of readings, as the numerous surviving codices attest. Still the Ordo Romanus I of the end of the 7th century says (no. 28): "Lectio legenda est prout continetur in capitulari" (PL 78, 950-51), while the epistle must have been read from a lectionary designated by the same Ordo (no. 3: ibid., 938) with the traditional name of apostolus. The practice, moreover, must have varied according to the different churches, the possibilities of having suitable books, the availability, etc. Even today the better-provided and better-ordered churches at solemn Mass use for the chanting of the lessons the epistolary and the evangeliary, or a lectionary comprising both.

MAIN LECTIONARIES

1. For the Epistles

The first attempts at systematic scriptural collections for liturgical use appear in Gaul in the 5th century. In Rome, the first mention of a lectionary is found in the inventory of the church of Cornutum (a small parish in the territory of Tivoli) from 471. But it is doubtful whether this is a local lectionary or a derivative of the Roman Church. In any case, nothing remains but the notice. Everything else is pure conjecture. The most important document prior to the 7th century is the Lectionary of Capua, composed, it seems, by Victor, bishop of that city (d. 573), contained in the famous codex Fuldensis of the New Testament. The liturgical pericopes are marked in the text with a conventional sign; then the list is repeated in the margin for the individual epistles. As for Rome, particular value attaches to the notice provided by John the Deacon, who states that the lectionary itself was the basis of the reform of the Gelasian Sacramentary carried out by St. Gregory (Vita S. Gregorii, II, 17: PL 75, 94). Other important lectionaries are the Epistolary of Corbie (9th century) in the Library of Petersburg, dependent on the mixed Lectionary of Murbach (8th century), and the Epistolary of Schlettstadt (8th century), a typical representative of the Gallican rite, containing also the prophetic lessons.

2. For the Gospels

One of the oldest indices is that of the Evangeliary of St. Cuthbert, also called the Book of Lindisfarne, because it was transcribed in that city from an exemplar of the Church of Naples, brought to England after the middle of the 7th century (edited by G. Morin, in Anecdota Maredsolana, I, Maredsous 1893, pp. 426-35). The list of pericopes contains very few feasts of saints, a clear indication that the codex gives the arrangement prior to St. Gregory the Great. Perhaps it is a Gelasian list with later additions made at Naples. The same capitulary reappears in the Gospel of St. Burcardus (7th century), which presents additions that are certainly Roman. Another interesting index of pericopes is found in the Evangeliary of St. Genevieve of Paris, from the 9th century, now in the British Museum (Harley 2797).

3. For the Epistles and the Gospels

The Roman system of lectionary arrangement has three notable representatives: the comes of Würzburg, "the oldest lectionary of the Roman Church" (Morin), which reflects the state of the liturgy at Rome at the end of the 6th century; the comes Alcuini (7th-8th century); and the comes of the abbey of Murbach (8th century). For Spain the oldest document is the Liber comicus of Toledo (7th century). Gaul has two important lectionaries: the Lectionary of Luxeuil (6th-7th-8th centuries), recently edited by P. Salmon (Rome 1944), and the Missale Gothicum, contemporary with the former (phototypic edition with critical introduction by C. Mohlberg, Augsburg 1929). The arrangement of the readings in the ancient Ambrosian liturgy is given by the Sacramentarium Bergomense of the 10th-11th century (edited by Cagin, Solesmes 1900).

Lectionaries are of particular value in the history of the liturgy. First of all because through the system of readings they show the development and gradual evolution of the liturgical year; then because from the choice of lessons one can know exactly the primitive concept of a given feast or mystery, a concept sometimes altered or transformed in the course of the centuries. Finally, lectionaries are important for the history of the sacred books, because at times they are the principal or only source of a variant reading.

Annibale Bugnini