Good history of lectionary in early church

  • Thread starter Thread starter prr
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
P

prr

Guest
I’m looking for a good resource for the history of the lectionary in the early church (say, up to Augustine if you’re looking for a date, but I’m not that picky). Any resource would do, but what I’m hoping to find is a source with a lot of patristic references, e.g., selections from John Chrysostom, where he mentions the time of year in connection to the lectures/homilies he was giving, which substantiate the use of the lectionary in the early church. Are there any good sources for material like this?
 
A couple of suggestions - these are the first volumes of series of books

The “Handbook for Liturgical Studies, Introduction to the Liturgy” by Anscar J Chupungco (book 1 of 5) might be a starting point ( amazon.com/Handbook-Liturgical-Studies-Introduction-Liturgy/dp/0814661610/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281219988&sr=8-14 )

Also “The Church at Prayer, Principles of the Liturgy” by Dalmais, Gy, Jounel and Martimort (Book 1 of 4) (amazon.com/Church-Prayer-Introduction-Liturgy-Principles/dp/0814613632/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281220075&sr=1-3 )
 
Thanks. Both of those look pretty good. Fortunately, amazon has its “look inside” feature for both of them.

One other way of looking at this question-- is there any information on the three-year cycle vs. the one-year cycle of Gospel readings in the lectionary? The Roman Catholic and Greek orthodox, at least in the present day, seem to differ in this regard (among others). Has anyone looked at this question in the early church fathers?
 
Long story short, there was no ancient lectionary. The most ancient practice you’ll find is lectio continua (we just keep reading through book X over the course of the Sundays) and/or celebrant’s discretion to tailor readings as the liturgical year began to develop. Augustine’s day is really when things *were beginning *to get organized into a more recognizably modern correlation of texts to Masses, but even knowing that, we don’t really have any extant full liturgical books prior to the 7th century, and our proto-lectionaries are even later than that.
 
Andreas_Hofer said:
Long story short, there was no ancient lectionary. The most ancient practice you’ll find is lectio continua (we just keep reading through book X over the course of the Sundays) and/or celebrant’s discretion to tailor readings as the liturgical year began to develop. Augustine’s day is really when things *were beginning *to get organized into a more recognizably modern correlation of texts to Masses, but even knowing that, we don’t really have any extant full liturgical books prior to the 7th century, and our proto-lectionaries are even later than that.
Click to expand...
What little I’ve read on this subject confirms this–re:* lectio continua*. I looked through the Didache and other documents that are from the first few centuries (that provide regulations for church services, if not actual liturgical prayers) but I could find no real direction on what readings could or would be read–but surely there was the expectation throughout, that selections from the Bible would in fact be read in the services.
 
prr said:
What little I’ve read on this subject confirms this–re:* lectio continua*. I looked through the Didache and other documents that are from the first few centuries (that provide regulations for church services, if not actual liturgical prayers) but I could find no real direction on what readings could or would be read–but surely there was the expectation throughout, that selections from the Bible would in fact be read in the services.
Click to expand...
Still, I think Fortescue says somewhere that Gregory I’s lectors were chanting the same pericopes used in the EF up to the present. That is in the 600’s AD which is still pretty ancient.
 
drforjc said:
Still, I think Fortescue says somewhere that Gregory I’s lectors were chanting the same pericopes used in the EF up to the present. That is in the 600’s AD which is still pretty ancient.
Click to expand...
Yes, by the time of Gregory there would have been at the very least either marginal notes (i.e. marks in Bibles saying where to start and, possibly, stop) or capitularies (books that would give the first line of the reading - no verse numbers yet to facilitate this). I didn’t go too much into those early “lectionaries,” though, because the OP was asking about things up to Augustine, which made answering much simpler.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top