I.I880HS
197
LESSOHS
before it), which introduces the canticle " Benedictus
ee, Domine"; this is sung as a kind of Tract. Then
come the usual Collects for the day and the Epistle.
The Lent ember Wednesday has two. the Saturday
five lessons before the Gospel. The Whitsun ember
Wednesday has two lessons from Acts, Saturday five
prophecies and an Epistle. The ember-days in Sep-
teniber have on Wednesdav two lessons, on Saturday
four lessons and an Epistle before the Gospel. Wednes-
day in Holy Week also has two lessons from Isaias.
In all these cases the arrangement is the same: a col-
lect, the lesson, a gradual or tract. The lessons
other than the last (technicaUv the Epistle) are
chanted by the celebrant to the Epistle tone; the dea-
con and subdeacon answer, Deo gratias", except in
the case of the lesson from Daniel that introduces the
canticle (de Uerdt, S. litur^ praxis , I, 435).
Palm Sunday, in the missa sicca in which the pauns are
blessed, has a lesson from Exodus, xy and xiv, sung by
the subdeacon as if it were an Epistle, as well as a
Gospel. On Maundy Thursday the Gospel of the
Mass is sung again at the Maundy (washing of feet).
The Mass of the Presanctificd on Good Friday, as part
of its archaic character, begins with three lessons. The
first is the "Prophecy from Osoe, vi. This is sung
by a lector — ^the only occasion on which^such a person
is mentioned in the text of the Missal (apart from the
preface). A tract and collect follow. Then comes
the Epistle (in this case, according to the rule for
we^-days in Lent, a lesson from the Old Testament,
Ex., xii) chanted by the subdeacon in the usual way,
another tract, and the Gospel (the Passion from 8t,
John).
Hol]r Saturday and Whitsun eve keep a relic of very early times in the long series of lessons (called here too "Pfophecies") before the Mass. It is often said that they represent the last instruction of the catechumens before l>aptism. Mgr BatilTol ("Histoire du Br6- viaire Romain", Paris, 1895, pp. 114-115) and Father Thurston ("Lent and Holy Week", London, 1904) see in them rather a renmant of the old vigil-office of the type of the fourth-century vigil, but now despoiled of the psalms that once alternated with the lessons. The nunier of the Prophecies on Holy Saturday varied in different churches. Durandus, who ex- plains them in the usual medieval way as instructions for the catechumens, says: "In some churches four lessons are read, in some six, in some twelve, and in some fourteen", and proceeds to give mystic reasons for these numbers (Rationale, vi, 81 ) . The number at Rome seems to have been always, as it is now, twelve. A tradition ascribes the arrangement of these twelve to St. Gregory I. They were once chanted first in Latin and then in Greek. As they stand in the Missal th^ represent very well a general survey of the Old Testament as a preparation for Christ; the Collects which follow each emphasize this idea. The eighth and ninth only are followed by Tracts. They are chanted by readers (now practically anyone from the choir) before the altar, while the celebrant reads them in a low voice at the epistle side. They begin without any title. The celebrant, of course, sinj^s the CoUect that follows each. Their tone is given in the appendix of the Vatican Missal (no. 11). It agrees iimh that for lessons at Matins; namely, they are chanted on one note (do) with a fall of a perfect fifth (to fa) on the last syllable before each full stop, a fall of half a tone (si) before a colon, and the same cadence for questions as in the Epistle (see above). Only the last cadence is different, being formed of the four notes re, do, «>>, 81)^, on the last four syllables. The lessons on YHiitsun eve are (like the whole service) an imita- tion of Holy Saturday. It is supposed that the rites of the Easter vigil, including the baptisms, were trans- f emd to Whitsun eve in the North because of the cold climate. Th^r then reacted so as to produce a dupli- catkm, such tm is not uncommon in the Roman Rite.
The whole rite follows that of Easter eve exactly; but
there are only six prophecies, being the 3rd, 4th, 11th
8th, 6th, and 7th of the Easter series.
VI. Lessons in the Office. — Lessons of various kinds also form a very important part of the canonical hours in all rites. The essential and original ele- ments of the Divine Office in East and West are the singing of psalms, the reading of lessons, and saying of prayers. The Canons of flippolytus (second cen- tury) ordain that clerks arc to come together at cock- crow and "occupy themselves with psalms and the reading of Scripture and with prayers" (can. xxi). The history of these lessons is bound up closely with that of the Office itself (oae Baumer, "ueschichte dee Breviers", Freiburg, 1895, ch. ii, etc.; Batiffol^ "His- toire du Br^viaireRomain", Paris, 1895, ch. i, etc.). We may note here that in the Office, as in the Liturgy, we see at first the principle of continuous readings from the Bible; to these are added the reading of Acts of Martyrs and then of homilies of approved Fathers. In the West this idea ha« becYi preser\'ed more exactly in the Office than in Ihe Mass. In the Roman and indeed in all Western Rites the most important les- sons belong to the night Office, the noctums that we now call Matins. The Rule of St. Benedict (d. 543) gives us exactly the arrangement still observed in the monastic rite (chap. xi). The development of the Roman Rite is described by Batiffol, op. cit. (chaps, ii and iii especially). Till the seventh century the ferial Noctum had no lessons, that of Sunday had after the twelve psalms three lessons from Scripture; the lessons followed from the text of the Bible so that it was read through (except the Gospels and Psalms) in a year. The distribution of the books was much the same as now (Batiffol, op. cit., p. 93). In the seventh century lessons began to be read in the ferial Office too. The presiding priest or bishop gave a sign when enough had been read; the reader ended, as now, with the ejaculation, "Tu autem Domine miserere nobis", and the choir answered, "Deo gratias".
A further development of the Sunday Office men- tioned by St. Gregory I (d. 604) was that a second and third noctum were added to the first. Each of these had three psalms and three lessons taken, not from the Bible, but from the works of the Fathers (Batiffol, p. 96). For these lessons a hbrarj' of their works was required, till the homilies and treatises to be read be- gan to be collected in books called homilmria. Paul the Deacon made a famous collection of this kind. It was published by authority of Charles the Great, who himself wrote a preface to it; it was used throughout his kingdom. It became the chief source of our pres- ent Roman series of les.sons from the Fathers (in P. L., XCV). Eventually then the arrangement of lessons in the Roman Rite has bec^ome this: The lessons from Scripture are arranged throughout the year in the proprium ternporis. They form what is called the scriptura occurrens. The chief books of the Bible (ex- cept the Gospels and Psalms) are begun and read for a time. The shortening of the lessons, overlapping of seasons, and especially the number of feasts that have special lessons have produced the result that no book is ever finished. But the principle of at least begin- ning each book is mahitained, so that if for any re^ison the scriptura occurrens of a day on which a book is be- gun falls out, the lessons of that day arc read instead of the normal ones on the next free day.
Although the ecclesiastical year begins with Ad- vent, the course of the scriptwa occurrens is begun at Septuagesima with Genesis. This is a relic of an older calculation that began the year in the spring (see above, II). The course of the continuous reading is continually interrupted for special reiusons. So the first Sunday of I^nt has lessons from II Cor., vi and vii ("Now is the acceptable time"). The week-days in Lent have no scriptura occurrni^ but a Gospel and a homily, according to the rule for the feria) that were
