50 or more. Each portion was divided into seven parts, read by
seven different Readers (a Priest and a Levite being the first two).
This Lesson apparently stood alone until in B.C. 163 Antiochus
Epiphanes forbade the use of the Pentateuch. Lessons from the Prophets
were used instead, and were not discontinued when the use of the
Pentateuch was restored. Thus arose a practice of having a First
Lesson from the Law, which they called Parascha (or, _Division_), and a
Second Lesson from the Prophets, called Haphtarah (or, _Conclusion_).
The word _Holy_ was said before and after the First Lesson and a
Doxology before and after the Second Lesson--an arrangement similar to
our own. We may, indeed, believe that we derived from the Jews this
and other uses of our Services. For we read in Acts vi. 7 that a great
company of the priests were obedient to the faith, and {54} in Acts
xviii. 7, 8 that at Corinth, when they ceased to be able to go to the
Synagogue, the ruler of the Synagogue himself went with them to the
worship and teaching which they carried on in a house hard by. It
would not be surprising, then, if the worship thus begun was arranged
after the old pattern to which they were all accustomed. For there
are, not a few, proofs in the Acts of the Apostles that in those early
days they attended the Services of the Temple at Jerusalem, and of the
Synagogues in other places.

Justin Martyr[5], writing in defence of Christianity to the Emperor of
Rome, describes the Holy Communion Service of his time as comprising
two Lessons--one from the Prophets and the other from the Apostles,
i.e., we suppose, the Gospels; a stage nearer to the two New Testament
Lessons which are read at the Communion now. The use of an Old
Testament and a New Testament Lesson at Daily Prayers may be a survival
of the intermediate stage as described by Justin.

A Lectionary is a Table of Lessons arranged for a year. Our Table of
Epistles and Gospels is derived from one which has been attributed to
S. Jerome. The Sermons of his age show that there were stated Lessons
for particular days[6]. Moreover, certain variations in the
manuscripts of the New Testament are explained by the early use of
books in {55} which the Lessons for the days were written out in
full[7], called Lectionaries or Evangelistaria.

The principle which governs our own Lectionary is that the Bible shall
be read through[8]. The books are taken in order, beginning with
Gen