“Now About the Midst of the Feast” - Christ the Teacher in the Liturgy of Lent

Today’s Gospel in the Roman Rite, John 7, 14-31, begins with the words “Now about the midst of the feast”, referring to the feast of Tabernacles, which St John had previously mentioned in verse 2 of the same chapter. And indeed, the whole of this chapter is set within the context of this feast.

The Expulsion of the Money-Changers from the Temple, the Gospel of yesterday’s Mass, John 2, 13-25; part of the St Wolfgang Altarpiece, by the Tyrolean painter Michael Pacher (1435 ca. - 1498), made in 1471-79. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Uoaei1, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

In the Byzantine Rite, this same Gospel, minus the last verse, is read on the very ancient feast of Mid-Pentecost, exactly half-way between Easter and Pentecost, a custom which was formerly also found in the Ambrosian Rite. In the Mozarabic Rite (which is an outlier among liturgies in many ways), the opening words seem to have been taken instead to mean something like, “When the feast was half-way arrived,” meaning the feast of Easter. The same Gospel is therefore read on the 4th Sunday of Lent, and the words “Mediante die festo” are used as that Sunday’s nickname, as Romans say, “Laetare Sunday.” The Roman Rite, on the other hand, seems to have ignored the timing given by the Evangelist as a detail of no particular importance, and places this Gospel on a day that isn’t halfway between anything noteworthy.

The beginning of the Mass of the Fourth Sunday of Lent in a Mozarabic Missal printed in 1804, with the subtitle, ‘Mediante die festo.’

Most of this text is taken up with a dispute over Our Lord’s authority to teach, since He “had not studied”, which is to say, He had not been formally trained as a rabbi. This dispute ends with Him saying, “He is true, who sent me, whom ye know not. I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent me”, at which they sought to seize Him, but “no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.” Like the Gospel of the preceding day, St John’s account of the cleansing of the temple (2, 13-25), this reading begins to set the stage for the following week, when the Church shifts the focus of the liturgy to the Lord’s Passion.

The introits of these Masses, which are taken from two psalms in sequence, 53 and 54, also hint at this in their verses: on Monday, “For strangers have risen up against me; and the mighty have sought after my soul”, and on Tuesday, “I am grieved in my exercise, and am troubled at the voice of the enemy.” At Tenebrae of Holy Thursday, the lessons of the second nocturn are taken from St Augustine’s explanation of the latter verse as a prophecy of the Passion, in his great commentary on the Exposition of the Psalms.

A motet by Orlando de Lassus of the words of today’s Introit, the beginning of Psalm 54: “Exaudi, Deus, oratiónem meam, et ne despéxeris deprecatiónem meam: intende in me et exaudi me.” (Hearken, o God, to my prayer; and despise not my pleading; give heed to me, and hearken unto me.)

The epistle for this Mass is Exodus 32, 7-14, in which Moses is told by God to come down from the mountain, where he has been for forty days and nights, so that he may see that the people have rebelled against the Lord and made the golden calf. God offers to destroy them and raise up a new and great nation from Moses himself, but the prophet intercedes for them, “and the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against his people.” This lesson is clearly chosen in reference to Christ’s words in the Gospel (vs. 19), “Did not Moses give you the Law? and none of you keepeth the law.”

In the oldest lectionaries of the Roman Rite, a shorter version of this same reading, beginning at verse 11, was the fifth Old Testament lesson on the Ember Saturday of September, which falls near the beginning of the range of dates for the feast of Tabernacles. As I have described elsewhere, this reading is paired with an epistle from the Letter to the Hebrews (9, 2-12), which says that the Tabernacle of the Covenant was but “a parable of the time present… but Christ, being come as a high priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hand, that is, not of this creation: neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption.”

In the article linked above, I postulated that these readings were paired thus for the sake of those among the early Christians in Rome who still felt themselves to be close to their Jewish roots, and remembered mid-September as the time of the High Holy Days. These people may well have seen the refusal of their former coreligionists to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah as a rebellion against God, similar to that of the golden calf episode. The reading from Exodus would thus serve to remind them that God had been merciful at the appeal of Moses, and suggest that He would be similarly merciful through the appeal of Christ, “the high priest of the good things to come, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption by a greater and more perfect tabernacle.” And indeed, the Gospel for today in the Roman version includes the first part of verse 31, which is not read in either the Byzantine Rite, or the oldest lectionaries of the Mozarabic Rite, “But of the people many believed in him,” a reminder that many Jews did in fact accept the Messiah when He came.

The Worship of the Golden Calf, 1518-19, painted by Raphael and assistants in the loggia of the papal palace of the Vatican. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

This idea seems also to have determined the texts of the other chants of the Mass. The Gradual includes the first verse of Psalm 43, “We have heard, o God, with our ears: our fathers have declared to us the work which thou hast wrought in their days, and in the days of old.” As St Paul says at the very beginning of Hebrews, God “spoke at sundry times and in divers manners to our fathers by the prophets, (and) last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by his Son.” This would therefore profess that some of the Jews had in fact heard what God said by His Son when He was sent in the fulness of time.

The Offertory chant is taken from Psalm 39, and in this context, speaks of the longing of the Jewish people for their redemption: “Eagerly did I await the Lord, and He looked upon me and heard my prayers”, i.e. prayers for the coming of the Messiah. The next words, “And He put into my mouth a new song”, therefore refer to the establishment of a new people, a new Israel, and a new manner of worship. And thus the Communio is sung from Psalm 19, “We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we shall be exalted”, “salvation” being the meaning of the Holy Name of Jesus.

The Offertory Exspectans exspectavi, which is also sung on the 15th Sunday after Pentecost: “Exspectans exspectávi Dóminum, et respexit me, et exaudívit deprecatiónem meam, et immísit in os meum cánticum novum, hymnum Deo nostro. ~ Eagerly did I await the Lord, and He looked upon me, and put into my mouth a new song, a hymn to our God.”

The Communio Laetabimur in salutari tuo, recorded by the mighty brothers of OP Chant. “Laetábimur in salutári tuo, et in nómine Dómini, Dei nostri, magnificábimur. ~ We shall rejoice in Thy salvation, and in the name of the Lord, our God, we shall be glorified.”

In the oldest surviving sacramentary of the Roman Rite, known as the Old Gelasian Sacramentary (ca. 700 AD), the prayer “over the people” at the end of this Mass is as follows: “Pópuli tui, Deus, institútor et rector, peccáta, quibus impugnátur, expelle: ut semper tibi placátus, et tuo munímine sit secúrus. – O God, founder (or ‘teacher’) and ruler of Thy people, cast out the sins by which it is assailed, that being ever reconciled to Thee, it may also be secure in Thy protection.”

“Placatus” is one of the most commonly used words in the prayers of the Roman Rite, occurring nearly 60 times in the Gelasian Sacramentary, and more than 80 in the recent editions of the Missal of St Pius V. (In the former, many of these are within variable texts of the Hanc igitur for special occasions.) Ordinarily it refers to God, and means “placated” or “appeased.” However, in this one prayer, it refers to the people, for which reason, I have translated it as “reconciled” instead. [note]

This same word is used in the last sentence of the Epistle of this Mass, “and the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against his people.” In the context of this Mass, this expresses the hope that the Jewish people will indeed be reconciled to their teacher and ruler, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, whose hour has not yet come, but draws nigh.

“I am the light of the world”. Apsidal mosaic in the cathedral of Pisa, Italy, begun by Cimabue in 1302, completed by Vicino da Pistoia in 1321.

[note] At the end of the 8th century, this prayer was moved by the Gregorian Sacramentary, one of the ancestor texts of the modern missal, to the Mass of the following Thursday. The anomalous use of the word “placatus” described here was either felt to be inappropriate, or perhaps simply misunderstood, and is already found changed to “placitus – pleasing” in the Sacramentary of Hildoard (Cambrai, Bibl. Mun. 164) in 811-12. This latter reading is found in the majority of the early manuscripts, and carries through to the Missal of St Pius V.

Torah and Haftarah in the Roman Liturgy (Part 5.2): the Easter Vigil, Concluded

This is the final article in a series of seven: use the following links to read part 1, part 2, part 3.1, part 3.2, part 4, and part 5.1. 

In the previous articles in this series, I described the lectionary system of the Jewish liturgy by which readings from the Law of Moses (“Torah” in Hebrew) are paired with readings from the Prophets called “haftaroth”, which are chosen to match them thematically. I also described how this very ancient system influenced some very ancient features of the Roman lectionary, especially the readings of the Ember days, while noting various ways in which the Church of Rome altered the Jewish practice. For the purposes of this final article (in two parts, of which this is the second), we must note one of these changes in particular.

In the Jewish lectionary, the haftaroth always come immediately after the portions of the Torah to which they correspond. On the Ember Saturday of Lent and September, however, the readings begin with two lessons from the books of Moses; the third reading then serves as the haftarah of the first, and the fourth of the second. This same arrangement is also used for the first eight of the Old Testament prophecies at the Easter vigil: first four readings from the Torah, then their four corresponding haftaroth. The last four, however, are paired as in the Jewish tradition.

Torah	Haftarah
1. Genesis 1, 1 – 2, 2	5. Isaiah 54, 17 – 55, 11
2. Genesis 5, 31 – 8, 21    (17 verses are omitted from this passage)	6. Baruch 3, 9-38
3. Genesis 22, 1-19	7. Ezekiel 37, 1-14
4. Exodus 14, 24 – 15, 1, and Tract (15, 1-3)	8. Isaiah 4, 1-6, and Tract (5, 1-2 & 7)
9. Exodus 12, 1-12    (repeated from the Mass of the Presanctified)	10. Jonah 3, 1-10    (repeated from the Mass of Passion Tuesday)
11. Deuteronomy 31, 22-30, and Tract (32, 1-4)	12. Daniel 3, 1-24

Fourth pair: Exodus 14, 24 – 15, 1 (with tract, 15, 1-3), and Isaiah 4, 1-6 (with tract, 5, 1-2 & 7)

Following the lead of St Paul (1 Cor. 10, 1-2), the Church Fathers took the crossing of the Red Sea in the book of Exodus as a symbol of baptism. This is why the story is read at the Easter vigil, the baptismal ceremony par excellence, in nearly all ancient rites (Ambrosian, Gallican, Mozarabic, Byzantine etc.), while the prayer which accompanies it at the Roman vigil of Pentecost explicitly says that “the Red Sea is the form of the sacred font.”

On the other hand, the reading from Isaiah 4 which provides its haftarah (with the tract that follows it from chapter 5) is uniquely Roman. The connection of this passage with the sacrament of baptism is attested in St Jerome’s Commentary on Ezekiel (lib. iv), as he explains chapter 16, 9, in which the Lord says to Israel, “I washed thee with water, and cleansed away thy blood from thee… ”

“ ‘I washed thee’, he says, with the water of saving baptism. For ‘unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ (John 3, 5). And elsewhere we read, ‘He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.’ (Mark 1, 8). And Isaiah also (4, 4) speaks of this baptism, saying, ‘The Lord will wash the uncleanness of the sons and daughters of Sion, and cleanse the blood from their midst, with a spirit of judgment, and a spirit of burning.’ ” (Jerome quotes this from one of the Old Latin translations of the Septuagint, rather than his own.)

There is a further parallel between these passages. Exodus says that “the Lord looking upon the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, slew their host” (14, 24), while Isaiah says (4, 5) that “the Lord will create upon every place of Mount Sion, and where He is called upon, a cloud by day, … and the brightness of a flaming fire in the night: for over all the glory shall be a protection.”

The Crossing of the Red Sea, 1519, by Raphael and assistants; fresco in the Vatican Loggias. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In Exodus 14, 20, the fire and cloud are the means by which God protects the one people, standing between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. In Isaiah, on the other hand, the Lord will create the cloud and fire “where He is called upon”, which is to say, by all the nations that are made His disciples in baptism. And thus, the glory of the Lord, which the children of Israel proclaim as they pass the Red Sea (“this is my God, I will glorify Him”, verse 3 of the canticle), becomes a protection over all the world. This is beautifully expressed by the oration said after the tract from Exodus.

“O God, Whose ancient miracles we see shining forth also in our days, as by the water of regeneration Thou workest unto the salvation of the gentiles, that which by the power of Thy right hand Thou didst confer upon one people, … grant that the fullness of the whole world may pass into (becoming) the children of Abraham, and into the dignity of Israel. (in Abrahæ filios et in Israëlíticam dignitátem … tránseat…”)

This word “transeat – pass” refers to the verse 16 of the canticle, “until thy people, O Lord, pass by (pertranseat): until this thy people, which thou hast possessed, pass by,” for it is in their passing through the waters of baptism that the Lord takes possession of the fullness of the whole world.

The tract which follows the reading from Isaiah irenically omits the verses of chapter 5 spoken in criticism of Israel, which I have here italicized. (The text of this canticle is also in an Old Latin translation.)

“The beloved one had a vineyard on a horn (i.e. hill), in a fruitful place. And he fenced it in, and dug the stones out of it, and planted it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in the midst thereof, and dug a winepress therein. And he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. … I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted: I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will make it desolate: … For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel.”

Here again, the prayer that follows speaks of the conversion of the nations: “O God, who … hast made manifest among all the children of Thy Church, that in every place of Thy dominion, Thou art the sower of good seeds, and the cultivator of chosen branches: grant to Thy peoples who are reckoned by the name of the vines and harvests, that they … may become rich in worthy fruit.”

The Latin verb “censentur”, translated here as “reckoned”, is related to the word “census”, and distantly reminds us that Christ was born for our salvation when the Roman Empire was holding a census of the whole world. It can also mean “honored”, which is to say, that the nations are now honored in receiving the dignity which once belonged to Israel alone, that of being the Lord’s people.

– For the final four prophecies, each reading of the Torah is followed immediately by its haftarah.

Fifth pair: Exodus 12, 1-11, and Jonah 3, 1-10

Both of these readings are used elsewhere, the first at the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday, and the second on Passion Tuesday. It may seem counterintuitive to repeat a lesson from the previous day, but the reason for doing so is explained by its haftarah; the theme that unites them is feasting and fasting.

The lesson from Exodus describes the preparation rite of the Paschal lamb for the great feast of Passover, the rite which was taking place even as the Lord was undergoing His Passion. The lamb, of course, is prepared so that it might be consumed, as also is the One whom John the Baptist was first to call “the Lamb of God.” The Easter vigil is the first occasion on which the newly baptized, for whom these readings are especially (though not exclusively) chosen, receive the Lamb of God in Holy Communion. And perhaps it was also for this reason that the Agnus Dei was never added to the Communion rite of the Easter vigil, the only Mass at which it is not said, since this reading effectively held its place.

The Byzantine Rite, following the ancient rite of Jerusalem, reads the whole book of Jonah at the Easter vigil, while the Ambrosians have it at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. This is done, of course, because Christ Himself calls His Resurrection “the sign of Jonah”, and many ancient depictions of the prophet show him coming out of the whale as a symbol of the Resurrection.

A third-century sarcophagus from the Pio-Christian collection of the Vatican Museums. This is one of the best preserved and most elaborate representations of the Jonah story, and is therefore known as “the Jonah Sarcophagus,” although there are many other ancient sculptures and paintings of the story. Note that Noah is seen standing in a square ark above the sea-monster on the right, a clever use of the extra space to add another important Biblical episode.

The Roman Rite, on the other hand, choses just the third chapter, in which God’s wrath against the Ninevites is appeased by their fasting. This teaches the catechumens, and reminds the baptized, that worthy participation in the Holy Eucharist must be accompanied by sincere repentance for our sins, and that the Church routinely prepares itself for the celebration of the Mass, and for the service of God more generally, by fasting. The story is also a reminder that in Christ and in the Church, the fullness of the whole world passes into becoming the children of Abraham, since the Ninevites are a pagan nation.

Sixth pair: Deuteronomy 31, 22-30 (with tract, 32, 1-4) and Daniel 3, 1-24

The theme of this last pair of readings is the worship of the one true God, and the rejection of idolatry.

In the lesson from Deuteronomy, as the Torah nears its conclusion, and Moses is soon to die, he foretells the repeated lapses into idolatry which will characterize so much of Israel’s future. “You will do wickedly, and will quickly turn aside from the way that I have commanded you: and evils shall come upon you in the latter times, when you shall do evil in the sight of the Lord.” The prayer that follows the tract, therefore, asks for the transformation of idolatrous peoples, in language that reminds us of the Crossing of the Red Sea: “may that which was declared unto vengeance pass (transeat) unto salvation (in salutem)”, where the canticle of Exodus 15 reads, “factus est mihi in salutem – He hath become my salvation.”

In the book of Daniel, on the other hand, we have an example of Israel rejecting idolatry, and of willingness to accept martyrdom in order to remain faithful to God, as the three children say to the king of Babylon, “It is not even allowed that we answer thee concerning this matter. For behold our God, whom we worship, is able to save us … and to deliver us out of thy hands, o king. But if He will not … we will not worship thy gods…”

Detail of a Christian sarcophagus of the Constantinian period (ca. 305-35), known as the Sarcophagus of Adelphia, discovered in the church of St John in Syracuse, Sicily, in 1872. On the far left, the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar points to a bust of himself set on a column, the gesture by which he commands the three children to worship it. Even though the Biblical text states quite unmistakably that the emperor made an enormous “statue”, in early Christian art, it is usually represented as a bust on a column, since that it what the Romans used. (On the right side are represented the Miracle at Cana and one of the three Magi. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Davide Mauro; CC BY-SA 4.0)

Babylon was taken by the Persians in 539 BC, as noted later on in Daniel (5, 31), and then reduced to insignificance by the conquests of Alexander the Great; although it remained inhabited, and even had a Christian bishopric, it was very small and unimportant. When the Apostles Peter (1 Pet. 5, 13) and John (Apoc. passim) speak of it, they are actually talking about the Roman Empire, which in the early centuries, persecuted the Christians principally because of their refusal to worship the emperor’s image. This last lesson, therefore, is a reminder to the catechumens, just before they depart for the baptistery and the beginning of their new life in Christ, that as Christians, they are called and required to imitate the people of Israel at their greatest, and worship none other than the one true God.

Torah and Haftarah in the Roman Liturgy (Part 5.1): the Easter Vigil

This is the sixth article in a series of seven: use the following links to read part 1, part 2, part 3.1, part 3.2, and part 4.

In the previous articles in this series, I described the lectionary system of the Jewish liturgy by which readings from the Law of Moses (“Torah” in Hebrew) are paired with readings from the Prophets called “haftaroth”, which are chosen to match them thematically. I also described how this very ancient system influenced some very ancient features of the Roman lectionary, especially the readings of the Ember days, while noting various ways in which the Church of Rome altered the Jewish practice. For the purposes of this final article (in two parts), we must note one of these changes in particular.

In the Jewish lectionary, the haftaroth always come immediately after the portions of the Torah to which they correspond. On the Ember Saturday of Lent and September, however, the readings begin with two lessons from the books of Moses; the third reading then serves as the haftarah of the first, and the fourth of the second. This same arrangement is also used for the first eight of the Old Testament prophecies at the Easter vigil: first four readings from the Torah, then their four corresponding haftaroth. The last four, however, are paired as in the Jewish tradition.

Torah	Haftarah
1. Genesis 1, 1 – 2, 2	5. Isaiah 54, 17 – 55, 11
2. Genesis 5, 31 – 8, 21    (17 verses are omitted from this passage)	6. Baruch 3, 9-38
3. Genesis 22, 1-19	7. Ezekiel 37, 1-14
4. Exodus 14, 24 – 15, 1, and Tract (15, 1-3)	8. Isaiah 4, 1-6, and Tract (5, 1-2 & 7)
9. Exodus 12, 1-12    (repeated from the Mass of the Presanctified)	10. Jonah 3, 1-10    (repeated from the Mass of Passion Tuesday)
11. Deuteronomy 31, 22-30, and Tract (32, 1-4)	12. Daniel 3, 1-24

First pair: Genesis 1, 1 – 2, 2 and Isaiah 54, 17 – 55, 11

The first reading from the book of Genesis describes the six days of Creation, and God’s rest on the seventh, which is of course part of the reason why the Jewish people rest on the Sabbath and keep it as their holy day. The seven repetitions of “God saw that it was good” were often adduced by the Church Fathers against the heresy known as Gnosticism, which claimed that the material creation was made by an evil (or at least strictly just, but not merciful) god of the Old Testament, and that Christ came to reveal another god, good and merciful, but who has nothing to do with the material creation.

God the Son as the Creator of the World, from a three-volume picture Bible created for St Louis IX, king of France, between 1226 and 1234, and later given to the Spanish King Alfonse X; it has been in the possession of the cathedral of Toledo since at least 1539. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 

The corresponding haftarah reading begins with the words “This is the inheritance of the servants of the Lord, and their justice with me, saith the Lord”, perhaps a reference to the Israelites as the heirs of the Lord’s promises. The second verse, “All you that thirst, come to the waters” is of course intended as an invitation to Baptism. But the passage ends with verse 11, “So shall my word be, which shall go forth from my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it.” In a Christian context, this means the Word, the Son of God the Father, and His agent in making the material creation (“through whom all things were made”), the creation that He saw was good.

Second pair: Genesis 5, 31 – 8, 21 and Baruch 3, 9-38

The second reading is the story of Noah’s ark, which St Peter himself (1 Pet. 3, 20-21) explains as a symbol of the Church, just as the waters of the flood are a symbol of Baptism. “(the Fathers in limbo) waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah, when the ark was being built, wherein a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. Whereunto baptism, being of the like form, now saveth you also.” This is also stated in the blessing of the baptismal font: “(God), who through the waters didst wash away the crimes of a guilty world, and in the very outpouring of the flood, didst signify regeneration, so that in the mystery of one and the same element, there might be the end of the vices and the origin of the virtues...”

Part of a Christian sarcophagus of the 4th century, decorated with images from two of the prophecies of the Easter vigil, Noah and the Ark and the Three Children in the Furnace. In Hebrew (mostly unknown to the Christians in antiquity, even Jewish ones), Greek and Latin, the word for “ark” in Genesis 6, 14 etc. can also mean a box, chest or coffer. Noah’s ark is there often depicted as such for economy of space. (Image from Wikimedia Commons, released to the public domain by the photographer.)

The haftarah is taken from the prophet Baruch, a deuterocanonical book which is not accepted as Scriptural by the Jewish people. It addresses Israel directly four times, beginning with “Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life: give ear, that thou mayst learn wisdom”, and later, in verse 24, “O Israel, how great is the house of God, and how vast is the place of his possession!” This may be read as an invitation to Israel to recognize that the house of God, i.e. the Church, symbolized by the ark, is in fact greater than just one nation, since the eight persons on board it are the ancestors of all the nations of the world, now called by Christ to the knowledge of the true God.

Verse 10 reads, “How happeneth it, o Israel, that thou art in thy enemies’ land?” In the context of the lectionary created by the Church of Rome, this refers to the condition of the Jewish diaspora after the Romans had ended their political independence, destroying first their temple and then their capital city. The words of verse 12, “Thou hast forsaken the fountain of wisdom” would refer to the Jews’ failure to accept Christ, “the power (virtus) of God, and the wisdom of God”, and institutor of the sacrament of Baptism. Verse 14, “Learn where is wisdom, where is strength (virtus)” would then be another invitation to them from the Church to accept Him.

Verse 26, “There were the giants, those renowned men that were from the beginning, of great stature, expert in war,” refers to a verse from the reading from Genesis (6,4), “Now giants were upon the earth in those days.” The prophecy ends with the words, “This is our God, and there shall no other be accounted of in comparison of him. He found out all the way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. Afterwards he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.” The last verse was of course understood by the Church Fathers as a prophecy of the Incarnation; in this context, it is also an appeal to God’s beloved people to embrace the Incarnate one as the true Messiah.

The Prophets Jeremiah and Baruch, date uncertain (after 1600), by the Sienese painter Rutilio di Lorenzo Manetti (1571-1639); public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

Third pair: Genesis 22, 1-19 and Ezekiel 37, 1-14

The third pair of readings unite a prophecy of Christ’s Passion with one of His Resurrection. (Благодарю тѧ, Отче Стефане!)

The third Torah reading, Genesis 22, 1-18, is the story somewhat inaccurately known as the Sacrifice of Isaac, who is, of course, not actually sacrificed in the end. (Jewish tradition calls it “the binding of Isaac.”) The oldest known sermon on Easter, the Paschal homily of St Melito of Sardis (ca. 170), refers to this as a prefiguration of the Sacrifice of another Son:

“Thus if you wish to see the mystery of the Lord, look at Abel who is likewise slain, at Isaac who is likewise tied up (59), … And he bore the wood on his shoulders, going up to slaughter like Isaac at the hand of his father. But Christ suffered. Isaac did not suffer, for he was a type of the passion of Christ which was to come… (frag. 9)”

Likewise, his contemporary St Irenaeus:

“Righteously also do we, possessing the same faith as Abraham, and taking up the cross as Isaac did the wood, follow (Christ). … For Abraham, according to his faith, followed the command of the Word of God, and with a ready mind delivered up as a sacrifice to God his only-begotten and beloved son, in order that God also might be pleased to offer up for all his seed His own beloved and only-begotten Son, as a sacrifice for our redemption.” (Adversus Haereses, 4, 5, 4)

The Vision of Ezechiel, 1630, by Francisco Collantes (Madrid, 1599-1656); Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

The haftarah, Ezekiel 37, 1-14, was accepted by the Church Fathers from the most ancient times as a prophecy of the resurrection of the body at the end of the world, and hence of the Resurrection of Christ that makes this possible. Again St Irenaeus:

“Now Isaias thus declares (26, 19), that He who at the beginning created man, did promise him a second birth after his dissolution into earth: ‘The dead shall rise again, and they who are in the tombs shall arise, and they who are in the earth shall rejoice. … ’ And Ezekiel speaks as follows: ‘And the hand of the Lord came upon me, and the Lord led me forth in the Spirit, and set me down in the midst of the plain, and this place was full of bones. … Thus saith the Lord to these bones, Behold, I will cause the spirit of life to come upon you, and I will lay sinews upon you, and bring up flesh again upon you, and I will stretch skin upon you, and will put my Spirit into you, and ye shall live, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. … ’ ”

This passage is cited to the same effect by Tertullian, St Cyprian and St Ambrose in the West, by Origen, St Cyril of Jerusalem and St John Chrysostom in the East, among many others.

In the Byzantine Rite, Orthros of Holy Saturday, one of the most beautiful services of the year (commonly called Jerusalem Matins), ends with a special synaxis of three readings: Ezekiel 37, 1-14; 1 Corinthians 5, 6-8 and Galatians 3, 13-14 (as a single reading, titled to the former); and Matthew 27, 62-66, the setting of the guards at the Lord’s tomb. In the Slavic tradition, the reading from Ezekiel may be sung according to a special tone, as heard in this recording made at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York, seven years ago.

This English version is also very beautiful; the prophecy is preceded by a chant from a Psalm called a prokimen, like most Scriptural readings in the Byzantine Rite other than the Gospel. This recording skips the Epistle and its prokimen, and goes straight to the Alleluia before the Gospel, one of the most beautiful in the repertoire.

Torah and Haftarah in the Roman Liturgy (Part 4): An Inheritance Repudiated

This is the fifth article in an ongoing series (part 1, part 2, part 3.1, part 3.2), the first part of which explains the meaning of the terms “Torah” and “haftarah” in the context of the Jewish liturgy, and of its influence on some very ancient parts of the Roman lectionary.

Long before the post-Conciliar Rite was invented, it was widely, perhaps universally, believed that the Roman Rite had originally had three readings at every Mass. [1] It is a testament (one of many) to the absolutely dire state of liturgical scholarship in the 19th and 20th centuries that this idea was accepted, despite the absence of even a single Roman lectionary which has three readings on a regular basis, or a single reference to such a custom in the writings of any of the Roman Church Fathers. But it was, unfortunately, an idea very much in harmony with the mentality of the times, also evidenced in many other fields of study. The notion which underlies it is that the Church’s “authentic” and “original” (such words to conjure with!) liturgy is not to be found in its actual sources, no matter how ancient those sources might be, and no matter how widely and consistently said customs are attested in them. Rather, the “authentic” and “original” liturgy is to be found in reconstructions of what scholars believed, or wanted to believe, things must have been like before the period from which we have our earliest sources.

The first two readings from the Prophet Isaiah on the Ember Saturday in Advent, in the so-called Lectionary of Alcuin, an epistolary of the 9th century whose contents represent the state of the Roman lectionary in the early 7th century. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 9452.)

Well might one wonder how this idea could have been accepted in the absence of a lectionary that attests to it. Many reconstructions of the early liturgy are purely theoretical, but many others derive from real facts and sources, badly understood and interpreted, and the three-readings theory is one of the latter. I outlined these facts and sources, and explained how they were understood and interpreted to arrive at it, in an article published here in November of 2013.

One of the lynchpins of the argument is the presence of such a set of readings on only seven days: Good Friday, and the Wednesdays of the Embertides, of the fourth week of Lent, and of Holy Week. These were understood to be holdovers of a more ancient practice formerly part of every Mass, which is why Fr Adrian Fortescue writes, in the original Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Lessons in the Liturgy, “The Roman Rite also certainly once had these three lessons at every Mass.”

The post-Conciliar rite is nothing if not ironic, a term which derives from the Greek word “eironeia – feigning or dissembling.” Feigning to restore the Roman Rite’s supposed ancient and original custom of having three readings at every Mass [2], it appoints three readings at … some Masses, namely, those of Sundays, solemnities, Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday, but only those. (The Easter vigil and the longer form of the Pentecost vigil, which have several Old Testament readings before the Epistle, are exceptions to the general order.)

The ferial lectionary was then rearranged in such a way that not one of the seven days listed above kept its original Old Testament readings, the very ones used to justify the theory that a three-reading system was the Roman Church’s original custom. This happened, of course, partly as a function of the suppression of the Ember days, which are indisputably among the Roman Rite’s most ancient features. Of the 14 readings in question, three were completely deleted from the lectionary, and the other eleven were moved; some of the latter were also altered by lengthening, shortening, or censoring.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever claimed that the Ember Saturdays, which have five Old Testament readings before the Epistle, were anything other than a special exception. Since they all share the same fifth reading, there are a total of 17 such readings between them. Eight of these were suppressed in the post-Conciliar lectionary, eight moved to a different day (all but one of them also altered in various ways, although one only very slightly), and only one left in its place, but slightly shortened.

To these we must add, for the purposes of this series, the reading of the Ember Friday in September, Hosea 14, 2-10, which has been retained, and indeed, on two different Fridays [3], but neither anywhere near its original position.

These changes, which were, of course, in no way, shape or form countenanced by Sacrosanctum Concilium, disperse all of the pairs of lessons which derive from the Jewish liturgical custom of reading the Law and the Prophets together, the subject of this series. I hasten to add that this does not seem to have been done with any deliberate animus against Jewish influence on the Roman liturgy per se, but solely as a result of the callous zeal for efficiency and uniformity which taints so much of the reform. [4] Nevertheless, where the Psalmist says, “I am become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to the sons of my mother,” the post-Conciliar liturgy, which routinely does no less outrage to his work, can rightly say, “I have made myself a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to the sons of my mother.”

The bishops and prelates of the world at Vatican II, busily not even remotely thinking about suppressing the Ember days.

Notes:

[1] In his memoire, Archbishop Bugnini describes the three-reading system as “a return to the authentic, primitive tradition attested at Rome until the 5th century, and preserved at Milan etc.” (p. 416 of the Italian edition.) On August 20, 1965, in notes taken in French by the secretary of Coetus XI, the subcommittee responsible for the revision of the lectionary, we find the statement that “The Gallican tradition and the Ambrosian Rite have remained more faithful to the ancient Roman tradition.”

[2] While purportedly “restoring” the Roman lectionary, Coetus XI also effectively abolished it in October of 1966, when its members resolved unanimously not to consider themselves bound to retain what they tendentiously described as the “current” lectionary cycle, then in use for well over a millennium, “the grave deficiencies of which are admitted by all.”

[3] The Fridays of the third week of Lent, and of the 14th week of Ordinary time in year 2.

[4] My thanks to Matthew Hazell for checking what was said about this topic in the vota (requests) of the world’s bishops on proposals for liturgical reform, submitted to the Roma Curia Vatican in preparation for Vatican II.

Torah and Haftarah in the Roman Liturgy (Part 3.2): The Ember Saturday of Pentecost, and Good Friday

This is the fourth article in an ongoing series (part 1, part 2, part 3.1), the first part of which explains the meaning of the terms “Torah” and “haftarah” in the context of the Jewish liturgy, and of its influence on some very ancient parts of the Roman lectionary.

On the Ember Saturdays of Lent and September, the third reading is the haftarah of the first, and the fourth of the second. On the last day of Pentecost, however, the order is reversed, as also on the Ember Wednesday of September: the first reading is from a prophet, and the third from the Law. It seems likely that the lesson from the prophet Joel (chapter 2, 28-32), is given pride of place because the Apostle St Peter quotes him in his sermon on the very first Christian Pentecost. “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. … upon my servants and handmaids … I will pour forth my spirit, and I will show wonders in heaven…” (Acts 2, 17-21)

The Prophet Joel, depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1508-12. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The corresponding reading from Deuteronomy 26 (1-3b and 7b-11a) instructs the Israelites on the offering of their first fruits to the Lord, who “brought (them) out of Egypt with a strong hand, and with arm outstretched, with great terror, with signs and wonders.” From the most ancient times, the Church has understood the crossing of the Red Sea, at which God worked these signs and wonders, as a symbol of baptism. The Roman Church therefore reads the story from Exodus (14, 24 – 15, 1, with its canticle) at the vigil of both of its great baptismal feasts, Easter and Pentecost. One week after the latter, She reminds us that in the Old Testament, both the Law and the Prophets bear witness to the signs and wonders which God has done, and above all, in the conversion of the nations, which began at Pentecost.

On the other hand, the second and fourth readings are both taken from the book of Leviticus, breaking the Torah-haftarah pattern. The former, a selection of verses from chapter 23, prescribes the manner of offering first fruits at Pentecost, and the latter, chapter 26, 3-12, is a promise that God will grant the fruitfulness of the earth and the defense of the land, if the people “walk in (His) precepts and keep (His) commandments.” In the annual Jewish liturgical cycle of Torah readings, the “parashoth” (sections) to which these passages belong will generally be read around the same time as Pentecost, from mid-May to mid-June, so it seems likely that this choice was also made in imitation of the custom of the synagogue.

The Ember Wednesday and Saturday of Advent, and the Wednesdays of the fourth week of Lent, of Holy Week, and of Pentecost, all have more than one reading before the Gospel, but these do not fit the Torah-haftarah pattern either. Thus, there remains only one last Mass to consider among those that do fit the pattern, the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday.

Here again, the order is reversed from that of the Jewish tradition, with the Prophet before the Law: the first reading is Hosea 6, 1-6, and the second, Exodus 12, 1-11.

St Jerome begins his commentary on Hosea by saying, “If we need the Holy Spirit to come to us when explaining any of the prophets, … how much more must we pray the Lord (to help us) in explaining Hosea… especially since he himself attests to the obscurity of his book at the end, where he writes, ‘Who is wise and shall understand these things, intelligent and shall know them?’ ” Such a mysterious book is eminently appropriate for a day of such ineffable mysteries, when the Church stands present at the death of the Creator Himself.

The Prophet Habakkuk, by Girolamo Romanino, from the Sacrament Chapel of the church of St John the Evangelist in Brescia, Italy (1521-4). The quotation on the banderole, the opening words of the canticle, follows the Old Latin text, which was translated from the Septuagint, rather than the Vulgate version of St. Jerome.

“... He will revive us after two days: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. We shall know, and we shall follow on, that we may know the Lord. … For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts.” This is explained by the words of the tract which follows, taken from Habakkuk 3 according to the Old Latin translation of the Septuagint: “O Lord, I heard Thy report, and was afraid: I considered thy works, and was amazed. Between two living creatures Thou shalt be known”. The “two living creatures” were first understood by St Augustine to be the two thieves crucified alongside the Lord; the tract therefore shows us that we attain to “the knowledge of God” in beholding the Crucified Lord. And likewise, as Hosea says “For I desired mercy…”, the tract says “in wrath Thou shalt remember mercy,” an expression of the idea, “a scandal to the Jews, and foolishness to the gentiles,” that God’s supreme act of mercy was to undergo His Passion, in the very midst of which He prayed for the forgiveness of those who inflicted it upon Him.

The second reading from Exodus 12 describes the slaying of the Paschal Lamb under the Old Law, which was of course taking place in Jerusalem even as Christ was in the midst of the Passion. This choice is grounded in the Christian understanding of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, of whom St Paul writes, “Christ our Pasch has been sacrificed”; but also, in the very nature of the ancient Good Friday ceremony, the vivid representation of the death of Lord, for which we are truly present.

Two readings, one from the Law and one from the Prophets, are therefore united as witnesses to the Passion, just as Moses and Elijah appeared at the beginning of Lent as witnesses to the Transfiguration.

Lastly, then, we may cite some of the many passages in which the Lord Himself and the authors of the New Testament refer to this custom of the two readings, the Torah and the haftarah.

• Do not think that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. (Matthew 5, 17)
• All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them. For this is the Law and the Prophets. (7, 12)
• On these two commandments dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets. (22, 40)
• If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead. (Luke 16, 31)
• And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were concerning Him. … all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me. (24, 27 and 44)

Christ and the Two Disciples on the Road to Emmaus (the occasion on which the first part of the citation above is spoken by the Lord), 1560-65, by the Italian painter Lelio Orsi (1508/11-87). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

• We have found him of whom Moses in the Law, and the Prophets did write, Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth. (John 1, 45)
• And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them. … the voices of the Prophets, which are read every sabbath… (Acts 13, 15 and 27)
• so do I serve the Father and my God, believing all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets… (24, 14)
• But now without the law the justice of God is made manifest, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. (Romans 3, 21)

Torah and Haftarah in the Roman Liturgy (Part 3.1): The Ember Saturday of Lent

In the previous articles of this series, I described the Jewish liturgical custom of pairing readings from the Law of Moses (the Torah, as it is called in Hebrew) with readings from the Prophets called “haftaroth”, which are selected to match them thematically. I also described how this very ancient custom seems to have had an influence on some very ancient parts of the Roman lectionary, as evidenced by the Old Testament lessons for the Ember Days of September. These lessons coincide in part with some of the haftaroth of the major Jewish feasts known as the High Holy Days, which often fall in mid-September.

Moses, 1325, by Ugolino di Nerio. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 

However, even where it was inspired by this custom, the Roman lectionary often did not follow the Jewish arrangement exactly. For example, the haftaroth are read after the lessons from the Torah, but on the Ember Wednesday of September, the prophetic reading (Amos 9, 13-15) comes first, and the second reading, Nehemiah 8, 1-10, is not from the Torah, but about it. Similar changes are found on some of the other days on which the choice of readings is inspired by this custom.

As previously noted, on the Ember Wednesday of Lent, the first reading, Exodus 24, 12-18, ends with Moses fasting for forty days and nights, and the second, 3 Kings 19, 3-8, ends with the prophet Elijah fasting for forty days and nights. These readings look back to the Gospel of the previous Sunday, in which the Lord fasts for forty days and nights before His temptation by Satan, and to that of the following Saturday and Sunday, Matthew 17, 1-9, in which Moses and Elijah appear beside Him at His transfiguration.

Also as previously noted, on the Ember Saturday of September, the first two readings are taken from the Torah, and their corresponding “haftaroth” are the third and fourth. The Ember Saturday of Lent follows a similar arrangement, but the haftaroth are taken not from the Prophets, but from two different deuterocanonical books. The two Torah readings also do not correspond to the order of the Jewish lectionary, which begins reading Deuteronomy in late July or early August.

Here we must also note that the Missal of St Pius V has the same readings for this day found in all previous printed editions, and in the manuscript lectionaries before them, going back to the very oldest. However, in the second edition (issued by Pope Clement VIII in 1604), the first reading was lengthened, and the third substantially changed, a very unusual case in the history of a very conservative liturgical tradition.

Missal of St Pius V (1570)	Missal of Clement VIII (1604)
Deuteronomy 26, 15-19	Deuteronomy 26, 12-19 (omitting the 2nd half of vs. 12 and the 1st of vs. 14)
Deuteronomy 11, 22-25	Deuteronomy 11, 22-25
II Maccabees 1, 23 & 2-5	II Maccabees 1, 23-26 & 27d
Sirach 36, 1-10	Sirach 36, 1-10

The first reading from Deuteronomy contains three references to Israel as the people of God, which are underlined here: the words in bold type are liturgical additions to the Biblical text.

“Look, o Lord, from Thy sanctuary, and Thy high habitation of heaven, and bless Thy people Israel, and the land which Thou hast given us… Hear, o Israel: this day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these commandments and judgments, and to keep and fulfill them with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. … the Lord hath chosen thee this day, to be His own people … to keep all his commandments, and to make thee higher than all nations which He hath created, to His own praise, and name, and glory, that thou mayst be a holy people of the Lord thy God, as He hath spoken to thee.”

This is the original haftarah of this reading, from Second Maccabees, again, with liturgical additions in bold:

“All the priests were praying, while they offered the sacrifice for the people of Israel, with Jonathan beginning, and the rest answering and saying, ‘May God be gracious to you, and remember His covenant which He spoke to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, (the covenant of) His faithful servants: and give you all a heart to worship Him, and to do His will with a great heart and a willing mind. May He open your heart in His law, and in His commandments, and send you peace. May He hear your prayers, and be reconciled unto you, and never forsake you in the evil time, even the Lord your God.’ ”

The reading from II Maccabees, the third of the Ember Saturday in Lent, in the so-called Lectionary of Alcuin, an epistolary of the 9th century whose contents represent the state of the Roman lectionary in the early 7th century. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 9452; folio 27r, image cropped.)

Before Ash Wednesday and the three days following were added to Lent, these lessons were read on the first Sabbath, the Jewish holy day, of the Church’s preparation for Easter. On this day, the Church does not just make her own a prayer which Moses, the author of the Torah, “who is read on every sabbath in the synagogues”, offers for the people of Israel. She addresses it directly to that people, adding the words “Hear, o Israel”, and saying that God “hath spoken to thee.” She then comments on it with the prayer from 2 Maccabees, adding her own words that it is made “for the people of Israel.” Moses says that Israel is commanded “to keep and fulfill (the Lord’s commandments) with all (its) heart”, and the corresponding haftarah asks that God may grant it to do just that: “May He open your heart in His law…”

At the same time, both of the “haftaroth” readings are taken from deuterocanonical books. Perhaps this is a subtle way of saying that just as Israel has not received its Messiah, it has not received the fullness of God’s commandments in the Old Testament either. The prayer should therefore be read as a plea from the Church to the synagogue, forthright, but peaceable, to become truly part of God’s holy people by accepting them both, and thus, being truly reconciled to God, to receive His peace.

An Allegory of the Old and New Testaments, 1530, by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497 ca. - 1547). Counter-clockwise from the upper left: Moses receives the Law on Mt Sinai; Original Sin, and the Mystery of Justification (represented by the episode of the bronze serpent in Number 21), with the plagues of Egypt in the background: death; the Prophet Isaiah telling Man of the Virgin who shall conceive a child; St John the Baptist pointing to the Lamb of God, with the Annunciation to the Shepherds next to his head, and the Crucifixion above his outstretched arm, with the words “our justification written over the Cross”; Christ as the victor over death; the Lamb of God among His disciples; and an allegorical figure of Grace. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In the second reading, Moses says to Israel, “if you keep the commandments … and walk in all (the Lord’s) ways, … (He) will destroy all these nations before your face, and you shall possess them, which are greater and stronger than you. … None shall stand against you…. the Lord your God shall lay the dread and fear of you upon all the land that you shall tread upon.” The reading from Sirach is on a very similar theme: “Have mercy upon us, … and shew us the light of thy mercies: and send thy fear upon the nations, that have not sought after thee… Lift up thy hand over the strange nations, that they may see thy power… that they may know thee, as we also have known thee…”

Here it should be remembered that this lectionary was compiled in Rome, the capital of the empire that conquered and ruled the lands of the Jewish people. Two rebellions against Roman rule in the Holy Land, one in 66-70 AD and another 132-35, were utterly crushed; the Jerusalem temple was destroyed after the first, and the city itself after the second. These readings seem to have been chosen to say that since God had not destroyed the nations from before Israel’s face, and since Israel had not possessed them, which are greater and stronger than it, this must have happened because it had not kept the commandments and walked in all the Lord’s ways. The prayer of Sirach is thus fulfilled not in the synagogue, but in the Church, in which the nations “know God as Israel has known Him.”

A relief panel on the inside of the Arch of Titus in Roman Forum, 81 AD, showing Roman soldiers carrying the spoils of the Jewish war into Rome in a triumphal procession, mostly notably among them, the seven-branched menorah which was kept in the Jerusalem Temple, and symbolized God’s presence therein. (Image from Wikimedia Commons, released to the public domain by the author.) 

Torah and Haftarah in the Roman Liturgy (Part 2): The Ember Saturday of September

In the first part of this series, I described the Jewish liturgical custom of pairing readings from the Law of Moses (the Torah, as it is called in Hebrew) with readings from the Prophets called “haftaroth”, which are selected to match them thematically. I also described how this very ancient custom seems to have had an influence on some very ancient parts of the Roman lectionary, as evidenced by the choice of readings for the Ember Wednesdays of Lent and September. The Ember Days of September coincide with the period during which several important Jewish feasts may occur, and in the Masses of the Friday and Saturday, this influence is even more notable.

The first two of the five Scriptural readings on Saturday are taken from the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus. The first, verses 26-32, is about Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. “Upon the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the day of atonement, … a day of propitiation, that the Lord your God may be merciful unto you.” The second, verses 39-43, describes the feast of Tabernacles (“booths” in the King James translation, Sukkoth in Hebrew, which Yiddish-speakers pronounce “sukkus.”)

The celebration of the feast of Tabernacles: illustration from a Bible printed in the Dutch city of Dordrecht in 1682. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

“…when you shall have gathered in all the fruits of your land, you shall celebrate the feast of the Lord for seven days… and you shall dwell … in tabernacles, that your posterity may know, that I made the children of Israel to dwell in tabernacles, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.” In fulfillment of this passage, observant Jews still keep this feast by “dwelling” in a temporary structure covered in palm branches outside their houses, i.e. at least taking their meals in it, but sometimes sleeping in it as well.

On the Sabbath before Yom Kippur, the haftarah reading is Hosea 14, 2-10, with a passage added to it at the end, either Joel 2 (11-27 or 15-27), or Micah 7, 18-20. (It is now a common custom to add them both, with Micah first.) At the afternoon service on Yom Kippur itself, the haftarah is the entire book of Jonah, with the same three verses of Micah appended, an especially appropriate choice for the Day of Atonement: “He will turn again, and have mercy on us: he will put away our iniquities, and he will cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea.”

In the Roman lectionary, the exact same passage from Hosea serves as the Mass epistle of the Ember Friday of September. The third reading of Ember Saturday is verses 14, 16 and 18-20 of Micah 7, a slightly longer version of the end of the Yom Kippur haftarah. It seems obvious that this cannot be a coincidence, and is intended as a way of Christianizing the ancient Jewish feast.

The Prophets Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Micah, Joel and Zachariah; mosaic in the dome of the parekklesion of the Pammakaristos Church in Constantinople, early 14th century. (The complex of which this side chapel is part served as the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from 1456 to 1587. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0.)

Following the pattern that the third reading serves as a kind of haftarah for the first, the fourth does the same for the second, but here, the Roman lectionary departs from the Jewish tradition. The haftarah for the first day of Sukkoth is the whole last chapter of Zachariah (14, 1-21), because of verse 16: “And all they that shall be left of all nations that came against Jerusalem, shall go up from year to year, to adore the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.” The fourth reading of Ember Saturday, however, is chapter 8, 14-19 of the same book, a choice which seems to be motivated by the fact that the Ember Days are a period of fasting, rather than a feast like Sukkoth, which is here redesigned, so to speak. In fact, the first part of this passage is rather more consonant with the penitential spirit of Yom Kippur.

“As I purposed to afflict you, when your fathers had provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord, and I had no mercy: so turning again I have thought in these days to do good to the house of Juda, and Jerusalem: fear not.”

The last verse from Zachariah is especially interesting for its connection with the Ember Days.

“Thus saith the Lord of hosts: The fast [of the first month, and] of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Juda, joy, and gladness, and great solemnities: only love ye truth and peace.”

In the oldest Roman liturgical books, the Ember Days are not called “Quatuor Temporum – of the four times”, as they are in the Tridentine books. Those of Pentecost are called “the fast of the fourth month”, and those of September and December, “of the seventh” and “of the tenth month” respectively, according to the ancient Roman system in which March was originally the first month of the year. For this reason, several early epistle lectionaries add the words “the fast of the first month” (bracketed above) to the Biblical text, in order to include the Ember days of Lent.

The fourth prophecy of Ember Saturday of September, Zachariah 8, 14-19, in the so-called Lectionary of Alcuin, an epistolary of the 9th century whose contents represent the state of the Roman lectionary in the early 7th century. The words “jejunium primi” are in the 5th and 4th line from the bottom. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 9452; folio 99r, image cropped.)

The very end of the reading serves as the ferial chapter of Prime in the Roman Breviary, a reminder to continually cultivate the virtues which the Church seeks to instill in us by periods of fasting throughout the year.

In the oldest lectionaries of the Roman Rite, the fifth reading of Ember Saturday is not from Daniel 3 as it is now, but Exodus 32, 11-14.

“In those days, Moses prayed to the Lord his God, saying, ‘Why, O Lord, is thy indignation kindled against thy people, whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, with great power, and with a mighty hand? Let not the Egyptians say, I beseech thee, “He craftily brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains, and destroy them from the earth”; let thy anger cease, and be appeased upon the wickedness of thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou didst swear by thy own self, saying, “I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and this whole land that I have spoken of, I will give to your seed, and you shall possess it forever.” ’ And the Lord our God was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against his people.”

This reading is obviously intended to speak to the penitential character of the Ember days, but also refers to the feast of Tabernacles, which God instituted so that the “posterity” of the Jewish people, i.e., the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Israel which He swore to multiply, “may know, that (He) made the children of Israel to dwell in tabernacles, when (He) brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

The Tabernacle of the Covenant, represented in a cartouche on a map of the Holy Land made in Germany in 1720. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The lesson from the Epistle to the Hebrews which follows it, chapter 9, 2-12, serves as a haftarah for this reading. It explains that the Tabernacle of the Covenant was divided into two parts. The first was the one into which “the priests indeed always entered, accomplishing the offices of sacrifices… but into the second, the high priest (entered) alone, once a year, not without blood, which he offereth for his own, and the people’s ignorance.” The latter part of this is the rite of Yom Kippur, described in detail in Leviticus 16.

In Exodus 25-30, Moses receives a detailed description of the Tabernacle, with its many furnishings and rites, during his forty days and nights on Mt Sinai. But while he is there, the Israelites rebel and begin to worship the golden calf; God therefore says to him, “Let me alone, that my wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them, and I will make of thee a great nation.” The reading given above from Exodus 32 is Moses’ reply to this, which stays God’s anger.

(The Offertory of the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, which comes from this same reading: “Precátus est Moyses in conspectu Dómini, Dei sui, et dixit: Quare, Dómine, irásceris in pópulo tuo? Parce irae ánimae tuae: memento Abraham, Isaac et Jacob, quibus jurasti dare terram fluentem lac et mel. Et placátus factus est Dóminus de malignitáte, quam dixit fácere pópulo suo. – Moses prayed in the sight of the Lord his God and said, ‘Why, o Lord, art Thou angered with Thy people? Spare Thine anger; remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom Thou sworest to give a land flowing with milk and honey.’ And the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which He had spoken of doing against His people.”)

The letter to the Hebrews goes on to say that the Tabernacle of the Covenant was but “a parable of the time present… but Christ, being come an high priest of the good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand, that is, not of this creation: neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption.”

Perhaps these readings were paired for the sake of those among the early Christians who still felt themselves to be close to their Jewish roots, and remembered mid-September as the time of the High Holy Days. Might they not have been tempted to see the refusal of their former coreligionists to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah as a rebellion against God similar to that of the golden calf episode? The reading from Exodus would thus serve to remind them that God had been merciful at the appeal of Moses, and suggest that He would be similarly merciful through the appeal of Christ, the high priest of the good things to come, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption by a greater and more perfect tabernacle.