Evangeliary

The Evangeliary or Book of the Gospels is a liturgical book containing only those portions of the four gospels which are read during Mass or in other public offices of the Church. The corresponding terms in Latin are Evangeliarium and Librum evangeliorum.

The Evangeliary developed from marginal notes in manuscripts of the Gospels and from lists of gospel readings (capitularia evangeliorum). Generally included at the beginning or end of the book containing the whole gospels, these lists indicated the days on which the various extracts or pericopes were to be read. They developed into books in which they were accompanied by the texts to which they referred, with the passages arranged in accordance with the liturgical year rather than in their order within the gospels themselves, and omitting passages not used in the liturgy.

The name does not date back earlier than the 17th century. The Greeks called such collections Euangelion 'good message', i.e. "Gospel", or eklogadion tou euangeliou, "Selections from the Gospel".

The collection of readings from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles known as Apostolos, "Apostle", or praxapostolos. In churches of the Latin Rite, the lessons from the Old Testament, the Epistles from the New Testament and portions of the Gospels are usually grouped in the same book, under the name Comes, Liber comitis, Liber comicus (from the Latin comes, companion), or Lectionarium 'book of reading'. Separate Evangeliaria are seldom to be met with in Latin. Tables indicating passages to be read, as well as the Sundays and Holy Days on which they are to be read, are called by the Greeks "Evangelistarium", a name sometimes given to the Evangeliaria proper; they are also called "Synaxarium", and by the Latins are known as "Capitulare". Although the word Evangeliarium is of recent origin, it has been universally adopted. The word lectionary is employed, however, to denote either the collection of passages from the Old and New Testaments, including the Gospels, or else these passages alone without the corresponding Gospels.

Following the Jewish custom of the synagogue, the Scriptures of the Old Testament were read at the primitive Christian assemblies. According as the canon of the New Testament was decided on, certain extracts from it were included in these readings. The apologist St. Justin Martyr tells how in his day, when the Christians met together, they read the Memoirs of the Apostles and the writings of the Prophets (Apol., I, lxvii). Tertullian, Cyprian and other writers bear witness to the same custom; and in the West the clerical minor order of lector existed as early as the 3rd century.

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