MĒGHILLÔTH, HĀMĒŠ (“five scrolls”). - A designation that arose about the time of St. Jerome, derived from synagogue liturgy, to indicate the “five books” of the Old Testament, each of which is read in its entirety on the individual great Jewish feasts: the Canticle, on the eighth day of Passover; Ruth at Pentecost; Lamentations, on the 9th of ’ābh, for the destruction of Jerusalem by Nabuchodonosor (cf. Zach. 7, 3) and then by Titus; Ecclesiastes at the Feast of Tabernacles; Esther at that of Pūrīm (14th of ’adhār). The grouping is proper to the Hebrew Bible, among the Kāthābhīm, and dates from the end of the 4th century; it is absent from the Septuagint and the Vulgate.
The order varies in the manuscripts. The one now in use follows the chronological sequence of the five feasts to which the H. M. refer; it is given by the first three editions of the complete Bible (Socino 1488; Naples 1491-93; Brescia 1494), which, however, place the H. M. immediately after the Pentateuch.