19 April 2020

Not of much interest to anybody

I wonder why Cranmer truncated today's Gospel from S John Chapter 20 to make it end at verse 23.

The still very useful Liturgy and Worship  explains that "the events of the eighth day after Easter ... are now narrated in the second Lesson at Evensong." This may be true of twentieth century Anglican Lectionaries, but I cannot find that Cranmer made any such provision in 1549 or 1552. Maybe the fact that these verses appear as the Gospel on S Thomas's Day led him to avoid duplication. But he allowed substantially the same Gospel on Lent 4 and Trinity 25.

Just possibly ... ... could his problem have been the popularity in medieval Catholic iconography of the story after verse 24? And its close connection with the devotion to the Five Wounds? Already, in these earlier months of 1549 (the Prayer Book was printed in March), had there been rumours of Rustic Folk manufacturing banners of the Five Wounds?

This would not be only time in the History of Christianity when an intelligentsia committed to giving the Laity more Scripture ended up censoring the bits they were prepared to have the pewfodder hearing.

Incidentally, when did I John 5: 7-8, in today's Epistle, get dargged away from the Vulgate and the Textus Receptus? I suspect 1928.

1 comment:

frjustin said...

The comment that "the events of the eighth day after Easter ... are now narrated in the second Lesson at Evensong" is indeed true of twentieth century Anglican Lectionaries, but it was also true of the nineteenth century revision.

The Table of Lessons of 1871, in the Lessons Proper for Sundays, does in fact list John 20,v.24 to v.30 as the second Lesson at Evensong on the First Sunday after Easter.

As for today's Epistle, a comparison of 1662 with 1928 indicates that the text of 1 John 5:7-8 was changed in the proposed book, not that you'd notice from looking at the printed version of 1928. There's no sidebar to indicate a change from 1662, but the text has in fact been altered.