lesson out of the “Gospels.”(333) It is, in fact, universally received that the Eastern Church has, from a period of even Apostolic antiquity, enjoyed a Lectionary,—or established system of Scripture lessons,—of her own. In its conception, this Lectionary is discovered to have been fashioned (as was natural) upon the model of the Lectionary of God’s ancient people, the Jews: for it commences, as theirs did, _in the autumn_, (in September(334)); and prescribes two immovable “Lections” for every _Saturday_ (as well as for every Sunday) in the year: differing chiefly in this,—that the prominent place which had been hitherto assigned to “the Law and the Prophets,”(335) was henceforth enjoyed by the Gospels and the Apostolic writings. “Saturday-Sunday” lections—(σαββατοκυριακαί, for so these Lections were called,)—retain their place in the “Synaxarium” of the East to the present hour. It seems also a singular note of antiquity that the Sabbath and the Sunday succeeding it do as it were cohere, and bear one appellation; so that the week takes its name—_not_ from the Sunday with which it commences,(336) but—from the Sabbath-and-Sunday with which _it concludes_. To mention only one out of a hundred minute traits of identity which the public Service of the sanctuary retained:—Easter Eve, which from the earliest period to this day has been called “μέγα σάββατον,”(337) is discovered to have borne the self-same appellation in the Church of the Circumcision.(338)—If I do not enter more minutely into the structure of the Oriental Lectionary,—(some will perhaps think I have said too much, but the interest of the subject ought to be a sufficient apology,)—it is because further details would be irrelevant to my present purpose; which is only to call attention to the three following facts: (I.) That the practice in the Christian Church of reading publicly before the congregation certain fixed portions of Holy Writ, according to an established and generally received rule, must have existed from a period long anterior to the date of any known Greek copy of the New Testament Scriptures. (II.) That although there happens to be extant neither “Synaxarium,” (i.e. Table of Proper Lessons of the Greek Church), nor “Evangelistarium,” (i.e. Book containing the Ecclesiastical Lections _in extenso_), of higher antiquity than the viiith century,—yet that the scheme itself, as exhibited by those monuments,—certainly in every essential particular,—is older than any known Greek MS. which contains it, by _at least_ four, in fact by full _five_ hundred years. (III.) Lastly,—That in the said Lectionaries of the Greek and of the Syrian Churches, the twelve concluding verses of S. Mark which are the subject of discussion throughout the present pages are observed _invariably_ to occupy the same singularly conspicuous, as well as most honourable place.