Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/227

 LESSONS

194

LBSSOMS

Litui^gy, which has three lessons iu the Mass. The Ambrosian Rite has a prophetic lesson on certain days only.

The Roman Rite also certainly once had these three lessons at every Mass. Besides the now exceptional cases in which there are two or more lessons before the Gospel, we have a trace of them in the arrangement of the Gradual which still shows the place where the other lesson has dropped out (see Gradual). The church of St. Clement at Rome (restored in the ninth centunr but still keeping the disposition of a much older basilica) has a third ambo for the prophetic lesson. A further modification reduced the lessons to two, one from any book of the Bible other than the Gospel, the second from the Gospel. In the Byzan- tine Rite this change took place between the time of St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) and the final develop- ment of the liturgy. The Barberini manuscript (ninth century, reproduced in Brightman, op. cit., 309-344) still supposes more than one lesson before the Gospel (ibid., 314). The Greek Liturgies of St. James and St. Mark also have only one lesson before the Gospel (ibid., 36, 118). This is one of the many ex- amples of the influence of Constantinople, which from the seventh century gradually byzantinized the older Rites of Antioch and Alexandria, till it replaced them in about the thirteenth century. In St. Augustine's sermons we see that he refers sometimes to two les- sons before the Gospel (e. g., Sermo xl), sometimes to only one (Sermo clxxvi, clxxx). At Rome, too, the lessons were reduced to two since the sixth centuiy ("Liber Pontificalis", ed. Duchesne, Paris, 1884, I, 230), except on certain rare occasions. These two lessons, then, are our Epistle and Gospel.

II. The Epistle. — In no rite is the first of these two lessons invariably taken from an Epistle. Never- theless the preponderance of pericopes from one of the Epistles m the New Testament is so great that the first lesson, whatever it may be, is commonly called the "Epistle'' (Epistola), An older name meaning the same thing is ' Apostle " (Apostolus). The Gregorian Sacramentarv calls this lesson Apostolus; e. g., P. L., LXXVlII, 25;"deindesequitur Apostolus"; it was also often called simply Lectio (so the Saint- Amand Ordo, Duchesne, "Origines du Culte", 442). The Eastern rites (Antioch, Alexandria, Constanti- nople) in Greek still call the first lesson 6* Ar6<rTo\oi, Originally it was read by a lector. The privileges of the deacon to sing the Gospel and (in the West) of the subdeacon to read the Epistle are a later develop- ment (sec Gospels in the Liturgy). It seems that in the West lectors read the Epistle as well as the other lessons down to about the fifth century (Reuter, "Das Subdiakonat", Augsburg, 1890, pp. 177, 185). Gradually, then, the feeling grew that the Epistle be- jongs to the subdeacon. This is apparently an imita- tion of the deacon's right to the Gospel. When the custom had obtained of celebrating High Mass with two ministers only — a deacon and a subdeacon — in place of the number of concelebrating priests, region- ary deacons, and assistant subdeacons whom we see around the celebrating bishop in the first centuries at Rome, when further the liturgical lessons were re- duced to two, and one of them was sung by the deacon, it seemed natural that the subdeacon should read the other. The first Roman Ordo (sixth-eighth century) describes the Epistle as read by a subdeacon (I, 10). But not till the fourteenth century was the subdea- con's peculiar office of reading the Epistle expressed and acknowledged by his symbolic reception of the book of Epistles at his ordination. Even now the Roman Pontifical keeps unchanged the old form of the admonition in the ordination of subdeacons (Adep- turi, filii dilectissimi, officium subdiaconatus . . . etc.), which, although it describes their dutios at length, says nothing about reading the Epistle. In the correBponding aamonition to deacons, on the other

hand, there is a clear reference to their duty of singing the Gospel. In the time of Durandus (thirteenth cen- tury) the question was still not clear to every one. He insists that " no one may read the Epistle solemnly in church unless he be a subdeacon, or, if no subdeacon be present, it must be said by a deacon" (Rationale Div. Offic, iv. 16); but when he treats of the duties of a subdeacon he nnds it still necessary to answer the question: "W^hy the subdeacon reads the lessons at Mass, since this does not seem to belong to him either from his name or the office given to him" (ii, 8). We have even now a relic of the older use in the rubric of the Missal which prescribes that in a sung Mass, where there arc no deacon and subdeacon, a lector in a sur- plice should read the Epistle (Ritus eel. Missam, vi, 8); in case of necessity at high Mass, too, a clerk, not ordained subdeacon, may wear the tunicle (not the maniple) and perform nearly all the subdeacon's duties, including the reading of the Epistle (S. R. C., 15 July, 1698). In the Eastern rites there is no pro- vision for a subdeacon in the liturgy, except in the one case of the Maronites, who here, too,^ have romanixed their rite. In all the others the Epistle is still chanted by a reader {dpaytnifrrii.)

The Epistle is the last lesson before the Gospel, the first when there are only two lessons. In this case its place is immediately after the Collects. Originally it came between the two chants that we now call the Gradual (see Gradual). It was read from an ambo, the reader or subdeacon turning towards the people. AVhere there were two or more ambos, one was uised only for the Gospel. The common arrangement was that of an ambo on either side of the church, between the choir and the nave, as ma^ stUl be seen in many old basilicas (e. g., S. Maria m Cosmcdin at Rome, etc.). In this case the ambo on the north side was reserved for the Gospel, from which the deacon faced the south, where the men stood (Gospel in the Lit- urgy). The north is also the right, and therefore the more honourable, side of the altar. The ambo on the south was used for the Epistle, and for other lessons if there were only two. In the case of three ambos, two were on the south, one for all other lessons, one for the Epistles. This arrangement still subsists, inasmuch as the Epistle is always read on the south side (sup- posing the church to be orientated). Where there was only one amix) it had two platforms, a lower one for the Epistle and other lessons, a higher one for the Gospel (Durandus, "Rationale", IV^ 16). The ambo for the Epistle should still be used m the Roman Rite where the church has one; it is used regu- larly at Milan. In the Byzantine Rite the Apostle may be read from an ambo; if there is none the reader stands at the "high place", the solca (jnaXia), that is, the raised platform m front of the iconostasis. Am- bos were still built in Western churches down to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (see "Ambon " in Ca- brol's ' ' Dictionnaire d'arch^'ologie chr^tienne "). Since then they have disappeared, except in some old churches. From that time the subdeacon as a rule stands in the choir on the south side of the altar (to- wards what the rubrics of the Missal call the comu epistolw), facing the altar, as he reads the Epistle. The Byzantine reader, however, faces the people. The Epistle has always been chanted to a simpler tone than the Gospel; generally it is simply read on one note. The answer "Deo gratias" after the Epistle is the common one after the reading of any lesson (e. g., in the Office too) . It was originally a sign f rOm the cele* brant or presiding bishop that enough had been read. The medieval commentators (e. g., Durandus, IV, 17) note that the subdeacon, having finished his reading, goes to make a reverence to the celebrant and kisses his hand. During the Epistle in every rite the hearers sit. The First Roman Ordo notes this (10); they also cover their heads. This is the natural attitude for hearing a lesson read (so also at Matins, eto.}; tO