Volume 1

A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood.

Date:: [between 1890 and 1899?]

Credit: A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

1029/1096 (page 1009)

$proper for the several Saints’-days or other fes- tivals. 4. The Horologion [I. 784] contains the daily offices for the hours of prayer. 5. The Greeks, like the Latins, have a book of the Gospels {evayyfKiov) ; of Epistles {anSarohos, or Trpa^air6(TTo\os'); and of Lessons from the Old Testament (^avayvaxTfMv jSi/SAos). Also 6. The Psalter {xl/aAriipiov), containing the Psalms, arranged for recitation, and several other offices or portions of offices. 7. The Triodion contains the Canons of odes to be used in Lent; and a similar book, the Pentecostarion, contains the proper odes, &c. for the period from Easter to the octave of Pentecost. 8. The Paracleticon, or Paracletice, con- tains the Troparia for the ferial offices. 9. The OcTOECilUS contains the ferial Stichera and Troparia from the vespers of the Saturday till the end of the liturgy on Sunday. lU. The jVIenologion is equivalent to the Mahtvrology of the Western Church. The AnthologioN [I. 91] and Synopsis ought, perhaps, scarcely to be reckoned among liturgical books, as they are mere com])ilations for the use of ordinary worshippers, fi'om the Paracletice, Menaea, and Horologion, of such portions as are most commonly in use. The Hirmologion is a collection of Hirmoi (I. 773). The Synaxaria are “ the abbreviated lections from the Menologion, extracted from the Menaea, and published, for convenience sake, by them- selves” (Neale’s Eastern Ch. Int. 890). The Panegyricon is a collection of sermons, by approved authors, for various festivals. III. Among liturgical books, the first place, both for its importance and the splendour with which it was written, illuminated, and decorated [see below], is to be given to the Evangeliary, or book of the Gospels. Evangelistaria, or books con- taining only those passages of the Gospels which were read in the altar-office, are rare within our period, while many ancient MSS. of the Gospels bear marginal words or marks which shew that they have been used for liturgical purposes [Lec- tionary]. The book of the Gospels was an object of veneration in many ways. When the church was able to celebrate its services and arrange its churches without fear of persecution, and the sacred books were no longer concealed from the prying eyes of informers; then it came to be usual to lay the book of the Gospels in some conspicuous place in the church, or even on the altar itself [Altar, I. 66], (Augustine, de Civ. Dei, X. 29 ; see the representations figured by Ciampini, Vef. Mon. tab. xxxvii.). Compare Entrance, Gospel. In councils it was not un- usual for the Codex of the Gospels to be enthroned with great solemnity at the beginning of the assembly as was done in the councils of Chalce- don, in the third and fourth of Constantinople, the second of Nicaea, and in the Roman synods of the years 642, 745, and 969. In the Chris- tianised Empire, Justinian ordered the book of the Gospels to be deposited in the courts of jus- tice (Binterim, iv. i. 225), From Chrysostom (/Tom. 72 [al. 73] in Matt., p. 669, Migne), and Jei’ome {Comm, on Matt, xxiii. 6, p. 186), we learn that in their time it was not unusual for Christians to have a copy of the Gospels hung from their necks, which was also a practice of pious ladies in the fifth century, according to the testimony of Isidore of Pelusium. The oath in the Gospels was from ancient times regarded as one of the most solemn adju- rations. [Oath.] On the use of the book of the Gospels in ordina- tion, see Bishop, I. 221, and Ordination. The Fathers of the Eighth General Council {Constantinople, A.D. 869, c. 7) approved the venei-ation paid to the book of the Gospels by the faithful. The Evangeliary, to protect it from injury, was commonly placed in a clasped or sealed CAPSA when not actually in u.se; an example may be seen in a mosaic of tne Liberian church in Rome, said to have been completed under Sixtus HI. (Ciampini, Vet. Mon. i. 16). [C.] IV. Liturgical Books in Art.—Dom Gue- ranger {Institt. Liturg. iii. 223 ft.) dwells on the devoted care with which the sacred books were transcribed, edited, and corrected, in early days. There was required of them, he says, accuracy and fidelity enough to set all men free from the least fear of alteration in the text; per- sonal morality, well suited to the sanctity of di- vine mysteries ; and a degree of dignity, if possible of splendour, in execution such as might impres.«t the eye and the mind with religious respect. The MSS., when completed in the scriptoria, were cor- rected under the care of bishops and abbats, who either entrusted that duty to confidential hands, or, in many cases, executed it themselves. The copyists would have thought it sacrilege to de- part in any degree from the words given them to reproduce. Gueranger (iii. 225) quotes the prologue found in Alcuin’s sacramentary, as a specimen of the spirit in which church-books were com- piled and copied. “ But since there are some other forms which the holy church necessarily makes ivse of, and which the said father saw had been set forth by othei’s, and so himself had passed them by, on this account we thought it worth the while to gather these up like blossoming flowers of the fleld, and collect them in one, and set them apart in the body of this MS. . . . and for the sake of this distinction we have set this prologue in the midst, so as to be the end of the first part of the book and the beginning of the second. . . . We pray you therefore, whoever shall have taken in hand this roll to read or transcribe it, that ye pour out your prayers to the Lord for me, for that we have been diligent to collect and correct these things for the profit of as many as may be. And we pray you to copy it again so diligently, as to its text, that it comfort the ears of the learned, and allow not any of the simpler sort to go astray. For it will be no avail, as saith blessed St. Jerome, to have made correction in a book, unless the corrected reading be preserved by the diligent care of the book- keepers.” Some of the personal prayers or benedictions of actual scribes are of great beauty, but few appear to have been preseiwed before the 11th century. One or two may be repeated here. Gueranger has extracted the first from a Greek evangeliary of that period. Theii mournful$