A pericope (;

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, "a cutting-out") in

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...

is a set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought, suitable for public reading from a text, now usually of

sacred scripture Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual prac ...

. Also can be used as a way to identify certain themes in a chapter of sacred text. Its importance is mainly felt in, but not limited to, narrative portions of Sacred Scripture (as well as poetic sections).

Manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

s—often

illuminated Illuminated may refer to: * "Illuminated" (song), by Hurts * Illuminated Film Company, a British animation house * ''Illuminated'', alternative title of Black Sheep (Nat & Alex Wolff album) * Illuminated manuscript See also * Illuminate (disambi ...

—called pericopes, are normally

evangeliaries The Evangeliary or Book of the Gospels is a liturgical book containing only those portions of the four gospels which are read during Mass or in other public offices of the Church. The corresponding terms in Latin are and . The Evangeliary develo ...

, that is, abbreviated

Gospel Book A Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels (Greek: , ''Evangélion'') is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament – normally all four – centering on the life of Jesus of Nazar ...

s only containing the sections of the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

s required for the

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

es of the

liturgical year The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical seasons in Christian churches that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and whi ...

. Notable examples, both

Ottonian The Ottonian dynasty (german: Ottonen) was a Saxons, Saxon dynasty of List of German monarchs, German monarchs (919–1024), named after three of its kings and Holy Roman Emperors named Otto, especially its first Emperor Otto I, Holy Roman Empe ...

, are the

Pericopes of Henry II The Pericopes of Henry II (german: Perikopenbuch Heinrichs II.; Munich, Bavarian State Library, Clm 4452) is a luxurious medieval illuminated manuscript made for Henry II, the last Ottonian Holy Roman Emperor, made 1002–1012 AD. The manuscrip ...

and the

Salzburg Pericopes The Salzburg Pericopes (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 15713) is a medieval Ottonian illuminated gospel pericopes made ''c.'' 1020 at St. Peter's Monastery, Salzburg, during the reign of Henry II, the last Ottonian Holy Roman Emperor. It was mad ...

Lectionaries A lectionary ( la, lectionarium) is a book or listing that contains a collection of scripture readings appointed for Christian or Judaic worship on a given day or occasion. There are sub-types such as a "gospel lectionary" or evangeliary, and a ...

are normally made up of pericopes containing the

Epistle An epistle (; el, ἐπιστολή, ''epistolē,'' "letter") is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as par ...

and

readings for the

. A pericope consisting of passages from different parts of a single book, or from different books of the Bible, and linked together into a single reading is called a ''

concatenation In formal language, formal language theory and computer programming, string concatenation is the operation of joining character string (computer science), character strings wikt:end-to-end, end-to-end. For example, the concatenation of "sno ...

'' or ''composite reading''.

References

* Meinolf Schumacher: "Perikope" in ''Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft''. Vol. 3, edited by Jan-Dirk Müller, 43-45, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 200
PDF

External links

Pericope in the ''Concordia Cyclopedia''
Rhetoric Types of illuminated manuscript Christian genres Hebrew Bible {{Hebrew-Bible-stub