MEGHILLOTH, HAMESH ("five scrolls"). - A designation that arose around the time of St. Jerome, derived from the synagogue liturgy, to indicate the "five volumes" of the Old Testament that are read in their entirety, each on the individual great Jewish feasts: the Song of Songs, on the eighth day of Passover; Ruth, at Pentecost; Lamentations, on the 9th of 'ābh, for the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Zach. 7:3) and later by Titus; Ecclesiastes, on the feast of Tabernacles; Esther, on that of Pūrīm (14th of 'adhār). The grouping is proper to the Hebrew Bible, among the Kāthābhīm, and dates back to the end of the 4th century; it is absent from the Septuagint and the Vulgate.

The order varies in the manuscripts. The one in use today follows the chronological sequence of the 5 feasts to which the H. M. refer; it is given by the first three editions of the entire Bible (Soncino 1488; Naples 1491-93; Brescia 1494), which, however, place the H. M. immediately after the Pentateuch.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: Chr. D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the massoretic-critical edition of the hebrew Bible, London 1897, pp. 4, 7; Institutiones Biblicae, I, 5th ed., Rome 1937, p. 10 ff.; D. Buzy, L'Ecclésiaste (La Ste Bible, ed. L. Pirot, 6), Paris 1946, p. 191.

Francesco Spadafora

@incollection{ec8_meghilloth_hames_cinque_rotoli, author = {Spadafora, Francesco}, title = {MĒGhillôth, hāmēš (« cinque rotoli »)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {624}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/meghilloth-hames-cinque-rotoli} }

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Mēghillôth, Hāmēš (« Five Scrolls »)

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