Chapter VI.
Of the Custom of having Twelve Prayers.
the venerable
assembly of the Fathers understood that by Divine Providence a general
rule had been fixed for the congregations of the brethren through the
angel’s direction, and so decreed that this number should be
preserved both in their evening and in their nocturnal services; and
when they added to these two lessons, one from the Old and one from the
New Testament, they added them simply as extras and of their own
appointment, only for those who liked, and who were eager to gain by
constant study a mind well stored with Holy Scripture. But on Saturday
and Sunday they read them both from the New Testament; viz., one from
the Epistles or the Acts of the
Apostles, and one from the Gospel. And this also
those do whose concern is the reading and the recollection of the
Scriptures, from Easter to Whitsuntide.