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Is there a Lectionary Text of the Gospels?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

Ernest Cadman Colwell
Ernest Cadman Colwell
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

Do the majority of the Greek lectionaries of the gospels agree with one another so consistently that it is possible to speak of their text as “the lectionary text”? It has generally been assumed that the text of lectionaries does not merit serious attention, and that even if they should agree in text, the quality of that text would not justify its study. But the discussion of the quality and significance of this text may reasonably be postponed until its existence has been established.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 1932 , pp. 73 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1932

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References

1 This is the position, for instance, of von Soden (Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, I. i. 19 f.), who excluded lectionaries from his studies.

2 The Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago is carrying on as a research project under the direction of Professor D. W. Riddle and the author an exhaustive investigation of the text of the lectionaries. Our plans look ultimately to the publication of a critical edition of the lectionary text. Some progress has already been made in the collation of MSS., and we hope to publish a volume of Prolegomena within the next few years. Our studies, as far as they have gone, indicate that the lectionary text has a valuable contribution to make to the early history as well as to the mediaeval history of the text of the New Testament.

3 A large part of the evidence which follows was collected in the summer of 1930 in a three-months' study of the lectionaries in the Bodleian Library, the British Museum, the John Rylands Library, and the Bibliothèque Nationale.

4 By ‘lection’ is meant the section of the gospels read at one service; thus, the ‘lection’ for Easter Sunday is John 1, 1–17.

5 β′ of γ′ ἑβδ of John (4, 46–54); σάββατoν γ′ of John (15, 17–16, 2); σάββατoν of Matthew (7, 24–8, 4).

6 κυριακή πρò τῶνϕώτων (Mark 1, 1–8); September 8 (John 10, 9–16); June 24 (Luke 1, 1–15); and ἑωθινóν γ′ (Mark 16, 9–20).

7 κυριακή δ′ of John (5, 1–15); β′ of γ′ ὲβδ. of Matthew (9, 36–10, 8); κυριακή ια′ of Matthew (18, 28–35); γ′ of γ′ ἐβδ. of Luke (6,87–45); κυριακή ε′ of Luke (16, 19–31); δ′ of ιε′ ἐβδ. of Luke, Mark (11, 23–27); σάββατoν β′ of Lent, Mark (1,35–45); κυριακή ε′ of Lent, Mark (10, 32–45); ἁγία γ′ πρωί Matthew (22,15–25[–46]); ῶρα γ′ Mark (15, 16–41); ἁγία γ′ λειτ., Matthew (24, 36–25, 18); January 6 óρθρoς, Mark (1, 9–11); πάθoς θ′, John (19, 25b–37); πάθoς ξ′, Matthew (27, 33–54).

8 The numbers given to the MSS. in the Table are Gregory's lectionary numbers.

9 Harvard Theological Review, XXI, October 1928, 349–357Google Scholar.

10 A study of the variants read by 184 in Tables II and IV will show the same high agreement with other lectionaries. And the same is true in six out of eight other lections in which a comparison is possible.