_When_ the Lectionary first took the form of a separate book, has not been ascertained. That no copy is known to exist (whether in Greek or in Syriac) older than the viiith century, proves nothing. Codices in daily use, (like the Bibles used in our Churches,) must of necessity have been of exceptionally brief duration; and Lectionaries, more even than Biblical MSS. were liable to injury and decay. II. But it is to be observed,—(and to explain this, is much more to my present purpose,)—that besides transcribing the Ecclesiastical lections into separate books, it became the practice at a very early period _to adapt copies of the Gospel to lectionary purposes_. I suspect that this practice began in the Churches of Syria; for Syriac copies of the Gospels (_at least_ of the viith century) abound, which have the Lections more or less systematically rubricated in the Text.(396) There is in the British Museum a copy of S. Mark’s Gospel according to the Peshito version, _certainly written previous to _A.D. 583, which has at least five or six rubrics so inserted by the original scribe.(397) As a rule, in all later cursive Greek MSS., (I mean those of the xiith to the xvth century,) the Ecclesiastical lections are indicated throughout: while either at the summit, or else at the foot of the page, the formula with which the Lection was to be introduced is elaborately inserted; prefaced probably by a rubricated statement (not always very easy to decipher) of the occasion _when_ the ensuing portion of Scripture was to be read. The ancients, to a far greater extent than ourselves,(398) were accustomed,—(in fact, they made it _a rule_,)—to prefix unauthorized formulæ to their public Lections; and these are sometimes found to have established themselves so firmly, that at last they became as it were ineradicable; and later copyists of the fourfold Gospel are observed to introduce them unsuspiciously into the inspired text.(399) All that belongs to this subject deserves particular attention; because it is _this_ which explains not a few of the perturbations (so to express oneself) which the text of the New Testament has experienced. We are made to understand how, what was originally intended only as a _liturgical note_, became mistaken, through the inadvertence or the stupidity of copyists, for a _critical suggestion_; and thus, besides transpositions without number, there has arisen, at one time, the insertion of something unauthorized into the text of Scripture,—at another, the omission of certain inspired words, to the manifest detriment of the sacred deposit. For although the _systematic_ rubrication of the Gospels for liturgical purposes is a comparatively recent invention,—(I question if it be older in Greek MSS. than the xth century,)—yet will persons engaged in the public Services of GOD’S House have been prone, from the very earliest age, to insert memoranda of the kind referred to, into the margin of their copies. In this way, in fact,