Revising the Date of the Armenian Lectionary of Jerusalem

Abstract

This article challenges the current consensus dating the Armenian Lectionary (AL), the earliest record the feasts and liturgical readings the church Jerusalem. For over fifty years, most studies have followed Athanase Renoux in assigning the Greek Vorlagen AL to the early fifth century c.e., or more precisely, to the years intervening between 417 and 439. This paper highlights severe problems in Renoux's arguments, however, and produces new evidence supporting a later dating. It concludes that AL reflects the city's ritual practices in the years following (a) the dedication Eudocia's Church St. Stephen (439), (b) the collapse the bishop Juvenal's efforts to integrate the 25 December Christmas feast into the local calendar (after 439), and (c) the construction Ikelia's Church Mary (Kathisma) near Bethlehem (c. 456). In turn, through a close comparison AL's readings for the 15 August feast of Mary Theotokos with homilies by two local preachers—Hesychius and Chrysippus—the paper concludes that the Greek Vorlagen AL can date no later than 479. In this analysis, AL represents the ritual practices the Jerusalem church at the beginning its patriarchal period—that is, after the Councils Ephesus and Chalcedon, or roughly during the episcopacy Anastasius I (458–478).