Part Three · Sources and Rationale of the Offices

Chapter V

THE CALENDAR AND
LECTIONARIES

§ 1

The Christian Year

The Christian Year is a most valuable possession of a teaching Church. The recurrent pattern of seasons and festivals rehearses and dramatizes the doctrines of the faith. The definite plan for the reading of Holy Scripture in the accompanying lectionaries furnishes a broad and balanced foundation for the word of exhortation, above individual predilections.

The Church Calendar is composed of the interlacing of two systems of commemorations: the one fixed to the dates of the Roman solar year; the other movable according to the weeks and months of the Hebrew lunar cycle.

§ 2

The Movable Feasts

The root-stock of the Hebrew religion seems to have been a worship of a moon-god.1 The Sabbaths consequently denoted the quarters of the moon: at first roughly determined by observation, but soon conventionalized to every seventh day. At the time of our Lord, the second and fifth days (Monday and Thursday) were kept as fasts;2 the seventh as a day of rest and worship. The annual feasts were the Passover, the night of the full moon nearest the spring equinox: agriculturally, distinguished by the sacrifice of unleavened bread (the first-fruits of barley) and a spring lamb, and historically identified with the deliverance out of Egypt; Pentecost, marking the end of wheat harvest; and Tabernacles, at the final ingathering of wine and olives in September.

From the beginning the Apostles observed the first day of the week3 as the distinctive bond of their fellowship, in addition to their accustomed devotions in the Synagogue; but as the inevitable schism became complete, the Sabbath was dropped, while the Sunday remained, in conscious opposition to the Sabbath.4 The weekly worship of Christians was readily acceptable to Gentile converts, because of the prevalence throughout the Empire of the astrological or planetary week (itself of Syrian origin) with the days dedicated to the influence of sun, moon, and five planets, whose names still survive in all modern European tongues. As early as the Didaché the midweek days of fasting and special devotion were transferred to Wednesday and Friday—again in deliberate competition with the Jews.5

We hear of Easter as early as the year 115 (Xystus I); and Irenæus († 202)6 and all the first of the Church Fathers bear witness to the annual observance of the Passion, Resurrection, and Pentecost, as already of immemorial antiquity in their day: there seems little doubt that they had been celebrated from the beginning. The disputes as to the date of Easter were eventually settled by the adoption of the Alexandrian computations, which reckoned it as the Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox. These ecclesiastical rules may show a maximum variation of three days after the astronomical full moon, but correct themselves in their cycles, and display an approximate accuracy through the centuries.7

The season of Lent8 leading up to Easter developed gradually. The first notices in Irenæus,9 Tertullian,10 and Hippolytus11 speak of a commemoration of the Passion on Good Friday and Easter Even, in a fast which might occupy some forty hours. During the third century this fast was extended to the whole of Holy Week in many places.12

The Council of Nicæa (Canon 5) is the first witness for a Lenten period of forty days. This in the beginning was not a fast, but primarily a season of special devotion before Easter, particularly associated with the intensive preparation for the Easter Baptisms.13 But the scriptural analogy of the forty-day fasts of Moses, Elijah, and of Christ in the wilderness, brought in the idea of a fast throughout the period. This, however, did not become universal until late in the fifth century.

The reckoning of the Forty Days, and their relation to the original Fast of the Passion, were sources of much diversity. In general the East counted Lent as exclusive of Holy Week, and began it on the Monday before the first Sunday in Lent; the West, as exclusive only of Good Friday and Easter Even, and extending from I Lent to Maundy Thursday. But when Lent had everywhere come to be regarded as a fasting season, the demarcation between Lent and the Passion Fast disappeared. Then, as Sundays were not fasted in the West, and in the East Saturdays also (save Easter Even) were exempted, the whole period before Easter comprised only 36 actual fasting-days in both regions.

Accordingly, various expedients were attempted to fill up the supposed measure of due devotion. Ætheria toward the end of the fourth century found a Lent of eight weeks at Jerusalem.14 The Council of Orléans in 541 discountenanced the custom of some to prolong the “Quadragesima” to a “quinquagesima” or “sexagesima.”15 It is only a conjecture that there was ever a nine-weeks' Lent, extending back to Septuagesima.16 Nevertheless, when about the end of the sixth century both Rome and Constantinople added the present three pre-Lenten Sundays as a sort of “penumbra of Lent,” it was by way of reconciling divergencies, and retaining a reminiscence of the former extreme extensions of the season, after the manner of the prehistoric beaches above the Great Salt Lake.

In Rome, the pre-Lenten Sundays acquired a particular color as war-time supplications, having seemingly been inserted shortly after the invasion of the Lombards in 568.17 Rome also made up a precise term of forty fasting-days, by adding the four days beginning with Ash Wednesday, probably toward the end of the reign of Gregory the Great († 604).18

The “Easter Holidays” are as old as the Apostolic Constitutions, which decreed a rest for slaves through the Octave.19 This book also mentions a week of rejoicing after Pentecost.20 But for both these festal seasons a liturgical commemoration is not provided beyond the middle of the week in our earliest sources.

The time between Easter and Pentecost was kept from the first as a festal season; but the explicit commemoration of the Forty Days of the Risen Life was not in evidence before the fourth century; and in the West the Sundays after the Easter Octave were not provided with proper services before the seventh century at the earliest.

Some of the observances connected with Easter were added at Jerusalem in the fourth century, in the form of local pilgrimages to the Holy Places on the anniversaries of the events; namely the procession with palms on the Sunday opening Holy Week, the Institution of the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday, the veneration of the Cross and Three Hours' devotions on Good Friday, and the festival of the Ascension on the fortieth day after Easter.21 These spread promptly to the rest of the Church; except the Palm Sunday ceremonies, which were welcomed in Gaul in the eighth century, and incorporated in the Roman rite in the ninth; and of course the Three Hours, which were reinvented in the seventeenth century, and are still a popular, not a liturgical, devotion.

The Rogation Days, which supply a sort of three-day Lent before Ascension Day, were introduced in Gaul about the year 468 by Mamertus of Vienne as times of solemn litany-supplications against calamity. They were first recognized by the Council of Orléans in 511, and adopted at Rome under Leo III (795–816)22 in a form modeled on the petitionary procession of the already existing Roman day of the “Greater Litanies” on April 2523—i.e., as a vernal supplication for the harvests of the ensuing year.

The Ember Days24 of the four seasons are now the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after I Lent, Whitsunday, September 13, and III Advent. Of these, the December, Whitsuntide, and September days are ancient,25 assimilating former pagan agricultural festivals in Italy, marking respectively the time of winter sowing, summer reaping, and autumn vintage. Influenced by the precedent of the fourfold system of Jewish fasts, as recorded in Zech. 8:19, Leo the Great (440–61) added the Lenten days.26 Since the time of Gelasius († 496) the Ember Days have been appropriated to be the stated times of ordination. There was considerable variation as to the precise time for observing these seasons, especially the Whitsuntide set; the present dates being finally settled by Gregory VII in the year 1078.27 The three days in each season are a special development of the liturgical days once kept every week: the Friday fast being prolonged over the following day, and the Saturday service being a solemn Vigil leading to the Eucharist on the early hours of the Sunday—leaving the Sunday without other liturgical observance until the eighth century.

The Octave of Pentecost has been celebrated by the Eastern Church from early days as the commemoration of All Saints. Our present Epistle for Trinity Sunday has in fact survived from a temporary adoption of this Eastern custom in the West.28 The Gospel however is that chosen for the Octave of Pentecost; the earlier Epistle being retained as sufficiently in harmony with it. Beginning at Liège in the tenth century, this service was celebrated as the festival of the Holy Trinity. England and northern Europe numbered the following Sundays until Advent after Trinity, not Pentecost—as do the Dominicans and Carmelites, and the Lutherans, to this day. Trinity Sunday was adopted at Rome in 1334, in such a way as to extinguish the first Sunday after Pentecost, and to dislocate the entire sequence.29

§ 3

The Immovable Feasts

The days assigned to fixed dates of the civil year have various origins. The earliest of them to appear were the anniversaries of the death of the martyrs.30 After the Peace of the Church, we have the days of the dedication of churches and of the translation of relics. Some festivals, for which there was obvious need and popular demand, were filled in by precarious speculation and far-sought inference; others, in which the people have never displayed the faintest interest, like the lesser Apostles, were supplied in the course of time for the sake of logical completeness. Lastly, the chronologists and calendar-makers, who were disposed to regard a blank space in their lists as a professional affront, succeeded in finding some authority somewhere for the missing dates: and some of these were eventually adopted into liturgical use.

(a) Christmas and Related Feasts

The outstanding example of the inferential method is in the assignment of the Nativity of our Lord. Of the actual date not a particle of evidence has survived. But in the first half of the fourth century we find the West celebrating December 25, and the East January 6.31 Whence were they derived?

It is true that the Romans kept December 25 as the midwinter solstice under the name of “The Birthday of the Unconquered Sun”; and also that January 6 was celebrated at Alexandria as the birthday of Osiris. It is scarcely conceivable that these pagan festivals could have been the prime origin of these dates for celebrating Christ's Nativity—though once the Christian dates had been suggested independently, a desire to supplant the heathen observances might have been a potent influence for their adoption.

A brilliant speculation of Duchesne's offers a possible explanation of the source of the divergent dates on an identical basis. It appears that at the beginning of the third century March 25, which was the official (though no longer the exact) date of the Vernal Equinox according to the ancient Roman reckonings, and which was commonly reputed to mark the date of the creation of the world, was conceived to have been the date of the Crucifixion. This is attested by Tertullian32 and Hippolytus,33 and eventually spread throughout the world.34 It seems also that the Montanists,35 starting likewise from a supposed creation on the Equinox, which they accounted to be March 24, figured that the first paschal full moon after the creation fell on April 6; and (assuming a mystic cycle which had brought all things back to a new beginning) adopted that date for their commemoration of the Crucifixion.

Duchesne then offers the pure assumption, to which indeed no ancient author bears witness, but which is in accord with the “symbolical” considerations underlying all these computations, that the men of that time may have further identified the commencement of the Incarnation with the day of the Lord's death. Certainly nine months from these known observances of March 25 and April 6 would furnish precisely the dual celebrations of the Nativity on December 25 and January 6 which are in question.

By a characteristic compromise, East and West eventually accepted each other's festivals, both agreeing to keep the Nativity on December 25, and with January 6 devoted to the visit of the Magi in the West, and to our Lord's Baptism in the East. The Epiphany is attested in the year 361 in Gaul,36 and by the end of the century was observed throughout the West. Christmas was advocated in the Apostolic Constitutions about the middle of the fourth century,37 and adopted at Antioch before 380,38 though not received at Jerusalem until about 430.39 The Armenians, whose schism occurred ca. 365, keep January 6 as their commemoration of the Nativity to this day.

The feasts of St. Stephen and St. John the Evangelist may have been fixed before Christmas was, since they are kept by the Armenian Church, which rejects Christmas. It does not appear that they have anything to do with the celebration of the Nativity; though medieval authors sought ingenious justifications for these commemorations of what they called these “Companions of Christ.” The Innocents' Day, on the other hand, was certainly suggested by the Nativity; being first attested in the Carthaginian Calendar in the fifth century.

The Nativity of St. John Baptist, fixed six months before Christmas by inference from Luke 1:36, was known to St. Augustine in North Africa at the end of the fourth century.

January 1 was originally observed at Rome as the Octave of Christmas, with a special commemoration of the Blessed Virgin. Through the eighth century it was still known only as the “Octave of the Lord.” As late as the seventh it was kept as a fast, in protest against the license—which indeed still exists—of the pagan celebration of the New Year. Its Gospel was originally Luke 2:21–32; emphasis upon the Circumcision first appearing in Spain in the sixth century, through the detaching of Luke 2:23–32 for use with the new festival of the Purification.

The Purification on the fortieth day after the Nativity40 was celebrated at Jerusalem toward the end of the fourth century,41 established by Justinian for the Eastern Church in 542, became current in Gaul, and made its way to Rome through the “Gelasian” tradition of central and southern Italy42 at the end of the seventh century.

Although the Annunciation appears as a potential date early in the third century, and though, as we have seen, it may have been the parent of Christmas itself, yet it was the latest of four liturgical festivals of the Virgin to come from East to West. It likewise entered by the “Gelasian” door; the “Gregorian” books did not give proper scriptures for it until the time of Alcuin's revision at the end of the eighth century.43

The Lenten precedent of a season of preparation for a great festival was applied to Christmas in the sixth century in Gaul, eventually taking the form of the so-called “St. Martin's Lent,” comprising six Sundays44 following his feast on November 11. In the seventh century the observance of Advent is traceable in some of the Roman lectionaries in the form of five Sundays, counted backward from the Nativity.45

(b) Saints' Days

In commemorating individual Saints, the Early Church by no means began with those mentioned in Scripture, but with the anniversaries of local Martyrs, kept at the shrines of their tombs. Thus it has been truly said that the early Roman Calendar was “the sanctorale of the cemeteries.”46 Its original purpose was to indicate the place where an official service was to be held on a given day. Subsequently, as Dr. Frere points out, the services at the cemeteries were gradually abandoned, and the Calendar became a guide to what service to say in a parish church, and thus “the Curia's directory became the parish priest's Calendar.”47

In the early Roman martyrologies and sacramentaries alike these commemorations were few, usually those of outstanding and city-wide significance. But as time went on, the extensive blank spaces of the liturgical Calendars were filled up with great numbers of early martyrs from the current books of acts of the Saints; and the extension of the Roman rite carried these commemorations of obscure Roman martyrs throughout the world. The English books had over a hundred such, many of whom the modern Roman use has displaced by later worthies and expunged without a trace.

After the days of the Persecutions, other heroes of the faith were remembered. And a few Saints of world-wide celebrity were adopted in the various regional Calendars; though it is only in modern times that the great communions have made any real point of giving a comprehensive view of the length and breadth of the Universal Church, and seeing that all nations were represented by their outstanding saints.

It is interesting to note how slowly the list of those “scriptural” commemorations was filled up, which the Anglican Church has retained, under the apparent impression that they were primary and primordial. SS. Peter and Paul were attested by the Philocalian Calendar of 336 as having had their relics translated in the year 258. We have seen that the feasts of the two Saints John and of the Holy Innocents appeared in the fourth and early fifth centuries. The cult of St. Andrew dates from the dedication of his church under Simplicius (468–83);48 that of SS. Philip and James from a rededication about 561; Michaelmas also from a dedication of the sixth century, attested in the “Leonine” Sacramentary. St. Thomas first appears in the “Gelasian” Sacramentary at the end of the seventh century. All Saints supplanted the festival of the obscure St. Cæsarius,49 which had hitherto occupied November 1, through the dedication of the oratory chapel of All Saints in St. Peter's Basilica by Gregory III (731–41).50 The Mixed Sacramentaries of the ninth century contributed SS. Mark, James, Bartholomew,51 Matthew, Luke, and Simon and Jude, as well as the Conversion of St. Paul, which had been kept in Gaul from the fifth century. St. Matthias appears in the lectionaries of the eleventh century. St. Barnabas, whose “Invention” at Cyprus had been observed in the East since 478, was not commemorated at Rome before the twelfth century.52 The Transfiguration of our Lord was an Eastern festival in the time of St. John Damascene in the eighth century; but it was not officially adopted at Rome until the year 1457.

§ 4

The Sunday Cycle

The old Roman services began as essentially a festal cycle, in which Sundays as such were not considered or supplied with proper services, but were left to an ad libitum use of prayers and lections.

The cardinal festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday first acquired Octaves, and afterward by successive stages certain associated seasons. The “Leonine” collection in the early seventh century (mutilated for the early months, including Easter) gives no Sundays but Whitsunday and its Octave. As late as the end of the eighth century, when Hadrian sent his official service-book to Charlemagne as a model for the churches of France, this usage of the papal court provided only for the Sundays on the Octaves of Easter and Whitsunday, and in the seasons of Advent, Pre-Lent, Lent, and the Ember-tides (our present Trinity IV and XVIII); none were prescribed for the seasons following Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Whitsunday.

The development of the Sunday cycle is to be traced in the Epistle- and Gospel-books from the seventh to the eleventh centuries, in the “Gelasian” manuscripts from the end of the seventh century, and in the varying combinations of the latter with the “Gregorian” tradition in the “Mixed” Sacramentaries after the eighth century.

This evolution began by providing undesignated masses and lections in blocks, for use at need and discretion. Thus the “Gelasian” Sacramentary, with no proper masses for any Sundays after Epiphany or Whitsunday, supplied eight after Easter, and sixteen for unspecified Sundays. In the earliest known lectionaries of the seventh century, the Gospel list53 gives ten Sundays following Epiphany—too many to be a survival from the sixth century, before Pre-Lent was instituted—obviously with the intent that the overplus should be employed where required; while the Epistle list,54 with four lections in sequence from Rom. 12–13 after Epiphany,55 similarly furnishes ten Sundays after Easter, with lections chosen from the Catholic Epistles, and has no Sundays at all after Whitsunday, but instead offers no less than forty-two selections of “unappropriated” Epistles arranged in regular scriptural order.56

When in the ninth century this ad libitum material began to be assigned to the Sundays of the year, the “Gregorian” tradition in both sacramentaries and lectionaries followed the old Roman use as found in the “Leonine,” and did not treat the Sundays in a separate section of movable feasts, but, true to its fundamental and original character as a festal cycle, interwove them as best it could with the Calendar of immovable commemorations—precisely as we still do with the feasts and Sundays from Christmas to Epiphany. The whole latter portion of the season after Whitsunday was tied to outstanding festivals, with one Sunday before and six after “The Apostles” (SS. Peter and Paul, on June 29), five after St. Lawrence (August 10), and six after St. Cyprian (September 14). Thus the variation of Sundays added because of an early Easter did not come at the end of the series, as at present, but at the beginning, between the Octave of Whitsunday and June 29, and avoided displacing the services of half the year with the same wide swings as Easter.

The archetype of the “Gelasian” books,57 on the other hand, on reaching France toward the end of the seventh century, had there undergone a rearrangement which segregated its components roughly into three sections of the Temporale or movable feasts, the Sanctorale or fixed days, and the masses for special occasions. When the Sundays after Whitsunday were added to these books, they were divorced from the Saints' Days which had dated them, and naturally were numbered in an unbroken sequence. This “Gelasian” numbering eventually prevailed over the “Gregorian” arrangement in the “Mixed” Sacramentaries; and the whole “Gelasian” classification, adopted in the Franciscan Missal, was accepted at Rome early in the fourteenth century, and so became standard in the Missal of Pius V in 1570.

The older material was utilized for this new sequence by adding Trinity I–III before the “Ember” Sunday, Trinity IV,58 intercalating the autumnal “Ember” Sunday at Trinity XVIII, and interposing Trinity XX and XXI. In the Gospel list, the old Epiphany IX was used for Trinity XX; Trinity II was new; the others were appropriated from former ferial use. In the Epistles, Easter VII–IX were used for Trinity I–III, and Easter X for Trinity V; and Trinity VI–XVII and XIX–XXIV were taken from the first part of the former “unappropriated” list of Epistles—giving something approaching a system of reading in course.

Such was the evolution which produced our present order of liturgical worship through the Sundays of the year, and the assignment of those salient passages of Scripture read at the Eucharist which we now regard as basic to all other lectionaries. There is no plan of the whole; and the attribution of the liturgical lectionary to St. Jerome was a myth of the ninth century.59 The fact is that the Celebrant, the Epistoler, and the Gospeller were three different functionaries, using three separate books: and the Sacramentary, the Epistle-Lectionary, and the Gospel-Capitulary pursued three independent and not even simultaneous lines of development. Hence apart from the great days and seasons, there is no connection between the Epistle and the Gospel, save such as might exist between any two portions of Scripture; and none between either and the Collect of the day.60

In view of the almost haphazard manner in which the Sunday lectionary grew, it is surprisingly adequate. But it is not perfect. To this day our Gospel for the Sunday before Advent, St. John's “Feeding of the Five Thousand,” duplicates that of the fourth in Lent (though the modern Roman has removed this repetition), and is further paralleled in a “concord” of St. Mark's “Four Thousand” on Trinity VII. Another concord exists between St. Luke's “Great Supper” on Trinity II and its doublet of St. Matthew's “Marriage Feast” on Trinity XX; and yet another between St. Matthew's “Centurion's Servant” on Epiphany IV and St. John's version of the same incident, under the title of the “Nobleman's Son,” on Trinity XXI. Epiphany VI parallels Advent II.

Some selections both of Epistles and Gospels which seem less happy have been emended in various recent Prayer Book revisions, as we shall see. While such changes are sentimentally regrettable, as putting sister branches of the Anglican Church out of step with each other, and with the Western traditions of some eleven hundred years, on certain occasions, yet plainly there is nothing in the history of our liturgical lectionaries which entitles them to more respect than their intrinsic merits deserve; and it is quite within the competence of any National Church to make such further improvements as may be demanded in the lections for our cycle of Sundays.61

§ 5

Anglican Calendars

The Calendars of the regional English uses at the time of the Reformation were very full, embodying the old Roman list in a most ample form, together with their own commemorations of English saints, a considerable number of Gallican names, and a very fair representation of the outstanding figures of the Universal Church, ancient and medieval.62

The first Prayer Book reduced the number of fixed Holy Days provided with a proper liturgical observance to twenty-five, all scriptural—five festivals of the Incarnation,63 fourteen of Apostles and Evangelists, the Precursor John Baptist, the Protomartyr Stephen, the Holy Innocents, Mary Magdalen, All Angels, and All Saints. A number of the lections of these feasts, which had originally been drawn from the “common” of various classifications of saints, were reassigned for more specific appropriateness.

In the rest of the list, there was preserved a sort of outline of the riches of the Church's history, by retaining in black letters in the tables of the Calendar the names of a certain number of the pre-Reformation commemorations. This selection (which is far from satisfactory historically) seems to have been made roughly on the basis of picking out those days which had nine lessons at Matins in the Sarum Breviary.

The assignment of Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays and other variables in 1549 closely followed the Sarum order,64 with some lengthening or shortening of the selections. All services were made uniform with two lections, dropping the ancient third “prophetic” lesson which had survived on Ember Wednesdays, Good Friday, and two other Wednesdays in Lent; likewise the plural lessons of the Ember, Easter, and Whitsun Vigils. The three communions on Christmas were reduced to two; on the other hand Easter was provided with an extra celebration. Easter Even, following Gallican and Ambrosian precedent, was transformed from the Easter Vigil to a commemoration of our Lord's Burial. The proper services of Easter and Whitsun weeks were curtailed to the first two days. Rogation and Ember Days, and Vigils, were not mentioned at all.

The Prayer Book of 1552 eliminated St. Mary Magdalen, and the first communion on Christmas and the second on Easter. 1662 added a Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, with a service portraying the final and supreme Epiphany of the Second Coming, yet equally suitable to a Second Sunday before Advent—in which place indeed it is used with twelve of the possible dates of Easter, while it is needed at Epiphany VI with only four dates. This book also restored the Rogation and Ember Days, and the Vigils of sixteen festivals, to a kind of “black-letter” status, by enjoining their observance, but omitting to supply proper services for them.

The American books since 1785 have had a special service for Thanksgiving Day. Our revision of 1892 restored the extra celebrations on Christmas and Easter, and added the festival of the Transfiguration. 1928 provided for an Octave for the feasts of Epiphany and All Saints, a Second Sunday after Christmas, an added celebration on Whitsunday, the festival of the Dedication, and the observance of Independence Day; gave a single service each for use in the Rogation and Ember seasons, and a Common of Saints; and supplied a Eucharist at a Marriage or a Burial.

The recent English and Scottish books comprise all these American services except the added service for Whitsunday, and of course that of Independence Day, and carry these principles much further, providing, with almost the condensation of lectionary-tables, proper Scriptures, and in some cases Collects, for each of the Rogation Days, more of the Ember seasons, every day in Lent, the remainder of the Easter and Whitsun weeks, and several classes of the Common of Saints; as well as four minor festivals of the Virgin, St. Mary Magdalen, St. John at the Latin Gate, the Beheading of St. John Baptist, Holy Cross, All Souls, the Name of Jesus, an Octave of All Saints' dedicated to the Saints, Martyrs, Missionaries and Doctors of the Church of England, and the Vigil of Christmas; votive services for a Patronal, Missions, Synods, and the Institutions of Baptism and Holy Communion. For all these, the lections in general follow Sarum, but with considerable freedom.

All the latest revisions—though it is possible that their sponsors were still laboring under the delusion that they were tampering with the work of St. Jerome—have effected some necessary alterations in the traditional liturgical lectionary. All have offered substitutes or alternatives to the Epistle on the Circumcision; have displaced the Epistle of St. Jude, assigned in 1549, from SS. Simon and Jude, since few modern scholars believe its authorship is rightly attributed; and given the “Prodigal Son” in lieu of the “Unjust Servant” on Trinity IX. The English book offers an alternative to the Epistle for Trinity XIII. The American gives a new Gospel, St. Mark's account of the Baptism of Jesus, on Epiphany II, and transfers the Gospels for Epiphany II and III to Epiphany III and IV, so as eliminate the unedifying “Gadarene Miracle” on the last-named day; offers the old Sarum Gospel as an alternative on Maundy Thursday; and removes the “Tribes of Israel” from the Epistle on All Saints', continuing the lection to the end of the chapter.

§ 6

The Lectionaries of the Daily Offices

According to Cranmer's Preface to the Prayer Book of 1549, the systematic and comprehensive reading of the Holy Scriptures to the people was a prime objective—even the chief raison d'être—of the book. That this system has greatly fostered the assimilation of the intellectual and moral implications of the faith in the Anglican churches, is beyond question.

In the First Prayer Book, the Lectionary for the choir offices was essentially a system of reading in course, not by topic, following the secular Calendar throughout the year. Sundays, as such, had no Proper Lessons. Only five Holy Days had their full set of four Proper Lessons; Easter had three; twelve feasts had two, and four had one. All other days took the lessons appointed for their date, in a sequence wherein the Old Testament, including the Apocrypha, was read straight through at Mattins and Evensong in alternate chapters (with Isaiah however occurring out of course beginning November 28 to coincide with Advent), and with the New Testament read through thrice, the Gospels and Acts at Mattins, the Epistles at Evensong.

In 1559, proper First Lessons were added for all Sundays and Holy Days,65 and a few other propers were added. The assignment of this new Sunday course was by the traditions of the old Sarum use, where Isaiah was begun at Advent Sunday, Genesis at Septuagesima, the Kings after Trinity, Ezekiel after October 28. The 1559 Lectionary however did not stop the reading of Isaiah with the end of Advent, but continued it through the Epiphany season; Genesis was carried on with the rest of the Heptateuch in order to Trinity II; the four books of Kings from Trinity III to XIII were succeeded by a selection of Prophets, including Ezekiel begun on Trinity XVI; and from Trinity XXI the year was concluded with readings from Proverbs. The First Lessons for Saints' Days were selected chiefly from the Wisdom literature—Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and Job—assigned seriatim as the days occurred in the Calendar.

This schedule of 1559, unaltered in 1662, formed the basis of the Lectionary of the first American Prayer Book of 1789. This book for the first time filled in complete sets of four Proper Lessons for all Sundays and Holy Days. It followed its English forbear in the Advent-through-Epiphany reading of Isaiah, the conclusion of the Trinity season with Proverbs, and the Wisdom-literature lections for Saints' Days; but between Septuagesima and Ascension it substituted selections from the Prophets in a rough order, and began Genesis on Trinity Sunday.

The Second Lessons at Morning Prayer from Advent to Easter were chosen from the Gospels to bring out the teaching of the day. The method of reading in course was resumed with the book of Acts from Easter I to Trinity X, and salient chapters from the Four Gospels in order from Trinity XI. At Evening Prayer throughout the year, selected chapters from the Epistles were taken in strict sequence.

The ferial scheme of 1789 was virtually the same as 1559, except that the Gospels and Acts were read through only twice.

The revision of 1892 kept the plan of 1789, except that on the Sundays of Advent the first chapters of St. Luke were read at Morning Prayer, and selections from Revelation at Evensong; and the Saints' Day lessons were reassigned for appropriateness of subject, abandoning the course from the Wisdom literature, and eliminating all but three lessons from the Apocrypha. The ferial schedule of 1892 read the entire New Testament through both morning and evening, save that beginning December 14, Revelation was read at both services alternately. And there was an entirely new course of optional lessons on a new plan, assigned to the ecclesiastical rather than the civil year, for the Forty Days of Lent, and the Rogation and Ember seasons.

This book also incorporated two provisions adopted by General Convention in 1877, which allowed the minister to take either morning or evening lessons in a church which did not have both services; and also to substitute the lesson from the Gospels on the same day of the month for the invariable selections from the Epistles at Sunday Evening Prayer. In form, this last was an outright reversion to the standards of the Church of England, which had no Second Lessons for Sundays. The motive may have been that the closely reasoned passages of the Epistles make difficult reading, and still more difficult sermon-topics, for tired clergy on Sunday evenings; as well as that a peaceful evening congregation is hardly the most suitable audience for the more intellectual phases of the faith. In any event, “too many Epistles” has been a frequent complaint of the clergy against every Lectionary from that day to this.

All the recent revisions, American, Scottish, and English, have revised the Lectionary on a new basis, abandoning outright the structure of the secular year which had prevailed since 1549, and returning to the pre-Reformation practice of following the Church Year.

A chief object of this move was to prevent the regular weekday course of Bible-reading from being superseded on too many occasions. By the old method, the fixed Saints' Days were excluded from this ferial course, which flowed around them without omission; but the Scriptures assigned to the calendar days were subject to being set aside by the incidence of all Sundays and movable feriæ, which, in America, included the new Lenten sequence, and amounted to no less than 109 days of the year. By the new system, the daily course is fitted into the framework of these movables, and can conflict with less than twenty-five immovable feasts in any year.

In 1877 it was established that the Lectionary, though in fact an integral and indispensable part of the Prayer Book, is considered to exist, and legally may be modified, by the authority of a single General Convention. Accordingly, during the long process of the last American revision, many ambitious schemes of reading were tried out. For the round of Sundays, a plan published by Bishop Slattery in 1925 was in use from that year, and was adopted into the book of 1928.

This Sunday schedule entirely abandoned the former methods of reading in course, in favor of the “topical” principle, utilizing the office lessons to illuminate the liturgical Scriptures of the day with subtle side-lights and ingenious applications—all executed with such delicacy and finesse as to be rather beyond the comprehension of many of the clergy who used it. Its faults were duplications and omissions—too much secondary “history,” too many minor passages from the Gospels, many of them repeated over again in parallel form, the smallest representation from the Epistles of any modern lectionary66—in other words the lack of the very sort of comprehensive plan which is at the basis of the method of reading in course. It proved inadequate in scope; and as a result of persistent objections, in 1934 General Convention again threw the matter open to the use of trial lectionaries, beginning in 1936. Further analysis of details would therefore be futile; it must suffice to discuss a few principles.

All systems recently proposed and now under the test of use are alike in offering separate courses for Sundays and movable feasts, and for other days. This recognizes the underlying fact that few people can attend weekday services; few more perhaps read the Bible systematically for themselves; and not many habitually attend more than one service on Sundays. The lessons at Sunday Morning Prayer are probably heard by twice as many people, on the average, as even those at the Holy Communion; by at least four times as many as those at Evening Prayer; and the weekday course can supplement any deficiencies of the Sunday schedule in the case of perhaps one individual in a thousand.

Therefore it is desirable to choose the most valuable sets of lessons in all Scripture for the Sunday mornings, in a series balanced and complete in itself; with a similar course of second choices for Sunday evenings. The Sunday morning series should not duplicate any passages preëmpted by the Epistles or Gospels at the Communion Service which supersedes Morning Prayer at least once a month in the average parish, and whose lections are therefore brought into the same sequence. If it may seem superfluous to insist that both the scope and value of a given series are impaired by duplicating the same lesson at different dates—even in the form of a “concord” of parallel passages from different Gospels—it may be pointed out that this is a fault from which no lectionary since the seventh century has been entirely free.

One of the questions to be settled by experiment and experience is to what extent it is desirable that a Sunday lectionary be on a “topical” basis, and to what “in course.” The latter method has the merits of continuity of interest and cumulative effect. But these values are readily lost if the passages are not strictly consecutive—and within the compass of a Sunday series there must be much omission. Such schemes are very readily constructed; but all offered hitherto have been distinctly wooden, and have included much indifferent matter because their aim was historical sequence and completeness rather than edification.

In the liturgical lectionary, the Scriptures are chosen topically in the seasons from Advent to Epiphany, and Septuagesima to Trinity, which embody the great Christian commemorations of the events of our Lord's life; but the “green” Sundays after Epiphany and Trinity are still essentially what they were at their origin—common Sundays: they carry no distinctive note and proclaim no indispensable message; and they take their Epistles in course. The English lectionary of 1928 follows exactly this precedent for all the office lessons.67

The determination of an official Lectionary is an important task, which bespeaks the coöperation of the members of the Church. The reading of prescribed Scripture, reflecting the Church Year, is the groundwork of the Church's teaching. This feature of our services has added a lex legendi no less important than the lex orandi to the attaining of a just and full lex credendi. Upon those mathematical-looking tables depends quite as much of the intelligent well-being of the Church as upon the text of the Prayer Book itself. The assignment of the Lessons of Scripture “appointed to be read in Churches” is in fact a supreme function of the Teaching Office, whose importance cannot be overstated.

§ 7

The Psalter

Just as English hymns did not exist before the Reformation, so the forms of Greek poetry had never been introduced into the services of even the Hellenistic synagogues. But the Church found the Jewish Hymnal of the Psalter ready to its hand at the beginning, and has used it throughout Christian history. Later, the Church developed its own hymns, which acquired fixed positions in the Offices, and even at times invaded the text of the Eucharist; they supplemented but never supplanted the use of the Psalter.

It is remarkable that these songs of from two to three thousand years ago are still so adequate to Christian worship. The Hebrew religion, however truly the “Mother Church” of the Christian confession, was both theologically and ethically undeveloped. The Psalter does not contain full expression of some Christian ideas, and it does contain passages incompatible with Christian ideals. The Imprecatory Psalms voice a justifiable moral indignation in such terms of a primitive hatred and vengeance as we hesitate to use. The Psalms entirely lack an adequate expression of the faith in immortality; there is no sufficient psalm for the burial of those departed in the faith of Christ, nor for the feast of Easter. Yet the appropriateness of those assigned to Christmas, Epiphany, Good Friday, and Ascension Day is almost startling. They contain a genuine prophetic element, in that the Jews' anticipations of the figure of the Suffering Servant, and of the Anointed King, were wonderfully fulfilled in Christ; so that to a Christian some psalms mean not less, but far more, than they could to any Jew. Whatever their shortcomings, they can never be displaced, because they are great religious literature, and they have said some things once for all.

In the Sarum Breviary, the entire Psalter was, in theory, recited every week. Fixed psalms were assigned to all the Hours but two; those undesignated were said in course, Psalms 1–110 at Matins, and 111–150 at Vespers. Practically, however, Saints' Days, with their Proper Psalms, interfered so often that the weekly recitation was seldom accomplished.

Cranmer desired to restore the complete and systematic recitation. Accordingly, the First Prayer Book appointed the Psalms in order in alternate selections to Mattins and Evensong during the thirty days of the month. This ignored appropriateness: it apportioned every one of the old Compline Psalms to Mattins, imported some incongruous notes into such fixed festivals as Epiphany, Purification, and All Saints', and made it equally probable that a given group of psalms might be read on Good Friday or on Trinity Sunday. There were Proper Psalms for Christmas, Easter, Ascension, and Whitsunday; but all other days whatever took those assigned to the day of the month.

The revision of 1662 added Proper Psalms for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. These six occasions were carried into the first American book of 1789. 1892 added ten festivals, and 1928 six more days and seasons, as well as ten lists for Special Occasions, and extended the use of Propers to eves and octaves, and in some cases apparently to seasons.

All the American books also have striven for a more flexible and appropriate use of the Psalter on other occasions. There were ten “Selections” for optional use at any time in 1789, and twenty in 1892; and 1928 further provided that the minister might choose “one or more” of the psalms appointed for a feast, or of the day, or from the Selections, and might moreover use a section or sections of any psalm now so divided. This now arms the officiant with large discretion to fit the Psalter into the rest of the service. Psalms, or parts of psalms, considered to be undesirable, may be entirely eliminated from use. A single short psalm or division of a long one will suffice; reducing the portion from the Psalter, if desired, to the dimension of the other Canticles.

The latest revision also offered a new optional Table of Psalms for the Sundays of the Church Year. This was adopted, virtually without examination, from the original proposal of the Convocation of Canterbury.68 Considerably modified versions of the same scheme are in the latest English and Scottish books.

All forms of this Table divide the year into two portions, taking the Psalms by topic to fit the teaching of the day from Advent to Trinity, and reading them in course in an only slightly modified numerical order on the Sundays after Trinity. There are many duplications, the American Table using thirty-eight psalms twice, fifteen thrice, two four times, and one five times. Fifteen are omitted altogether. Nine of the eighteen psalms which the Roman Breviary of 1913 assigns to Compline with some appositeness, are allotted to Morning Prayer. The 119th Psalm at Evensong on five Sundays of Lent is nothing less than a blight on evening congregations which are perhaps larger than at any other time of the year. The portions average twenty-four verses for Morning and thirty-four for Evening Prayer, as against forty-two in the course for the days of the month. These might with advantage be still further shortened by a general reassignment which would eliminate duplications. The problem of the very long psalms, of which eight exceed forty verses, might be met by using them in sections, as our general rubric provides in principle, and as they are employed in the new Roman Breviary.

A system of Proper Psalms for Sundays, closely coördinated with the corresponding course of lessons, is certainly desirable. And when the Church shall have been enabled to settle upon a Lectionary which meets with enough general satisfaction to be made permanent, then this Sunday Table should be revised to correspond.