LECTION, Lectionary, Lector. The Jewish custom of reading the books of Moses in the synagogues every Sabbath day was already ancient in the apostolic age, and we learn from Luke iv. 16, 17, that portions were also read from the prophets, though the system of prophetic lessons at least had not yet reached the fixity of the later ritual. For obvious reasons the reading of Scripture at public worship was continued by the Christian Church with certain modifications (1 Thess. v. 27; Col. iv. 16). An authority so early as Justin Martyr (ApoZ., i. 67) states that in the Christian assemblies of his day “the memoirs of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read as long as time permits.” What we are precisely to understand by these “memoirs of the apostles” is doubtful; but the evidence we have, fragmentary though it is, may be said to make it certain that neither in his day, nor for many years afterwards, was the canon of sacred books to be read in public worship rigidly fixed, and still less were definite portions of Scripture appointed to be read on particular days of the ecclesiastical year. Traces of the office of reader as distinct from that of deacon begin to appear in Tertullian (De Prsεscr., 41), who makes frequent allusions to the public reading of both Old and New Testament Scriptures (Apol., 39 ; De Presser., 36 ; De A' ∣ ι., 9), but says nothing that can be construed as implying anything like a fixed table of lessons. Towards the end of the 4th century, however, indications of a widely spread custom of reading the Scriptures according to a uniform and rigid scheme became frequent; and the practice even then was spoken of as ancient. Thus Chrysostom and Augustine both show incidentally that the Acts of the Apostles were publicly read between ...Easter and Pentecost and then laid aside, while Genesis was read in Lent. In the Apostolical Constitutions (ii. 57) a very methodical service is enjoined; it prescribes two lessons from the Old Testament by a reader; the Psalms of David are then to be sung, next the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles of Paul, and finally (by a deacon or presbyter) the gospels, are to be read. The labours of Scholz and Tischendorf have brought to light a large body of MS. Greek lectionaries ranging between the 7th and the 10th century, from which, when fully collated, it will probably be possible to ascertain with precision the order of yearly lections contemplated within the circles to which the documents respectively belong. Most of them contain gospel lessons only; the rest lessons from the Acts and the epistles. The Evangelion and Apostolos of the modern Greek Church has a proper gospel and epistle, not only for every Saturday and Sunday, but for every day of the week. The order of (continuous) lessons for the five ordinary week days cannot be traced with certainty further back than to the 10th century, but those for the Sundays, also for the most part continuous, can be traced, so far as the gospels at least are concerned, to the 8th, and large coincidences with the Armenian lectionary lead to the inference that much had been already fixed before 595. Of Western lectionaries the earliest is probably the Liber Comitis sive Lectioηamus, which used to be attributed to Jerome. On the whole it does not observe a lectio continua, but is characterized rather by free selection of suitable passages for each Sunday. Next in chronological order is the Tabula, drawn up by Victor of Capua (546); it was printed by Gerbert in his Monum. Veh Liturg. Alem. in 1777. It also has no trace of lectio continua. The same remark applies to the Luxueil lectionary, edited by Mabillon in the De Liturgia Gallicana (Migne, Ρatr., lxxii.); it is assigned by Mabillon to the end of the 7th century, and certainly is not later than the time of Charlemagne; besides the usual gospel and epistle, it prescribes a lesson from the Old Testament.
The earliest allusion seeming to imply an order of lectors or readers as one of the standing orders of the church occurs, as already mentioned, in a solitary passage in Tertullian. In Cyprian, allusions much less ambiguous are frequent. The Apostolic Constitutions give a form of prayer to be used at the ordination of lectors by the imposition of hands. In the modern Greek Church the functions of the Anagnostes are strictly confined to the reading of the epistle, that of the gospel being reserved for the deacon. In the old Catholic Church, the ordination of lectors was by publicly placing the Bible in their hands, with some such formula of exhortation as is prescribed in can. 8 of the fourth council of Carthage. By the council of Trent the order of lector was recognized as one of the minor orders of the Roman Catholic Church, but it has no actual independent existence, being regarded merely as a necessary step in promotion to a higher office.
