Properly handled, an adequate study of the Lectionaries of the ancient Church would become the labour of a life.

We require exact collations of at least 100 of them.

From such a practical acquaintance with about a tenth of the extant copies some very interesting results would infallibly be obtained[146].
As for the external appearance of these documents, it may be enough to say that they range, like the mass of uncial and cursive copies, over a space of about 700 years,--the oldest extant being of about the eighth century, and the latest dating in the fifteenth.

Rarely are any so old as the former date,--or so recent as the last named.

When they began to be executed is not known; but much older copies than any which at present exist must have perished through constant use: [for they are in perfect order when we first become acquainted with them, and as a whole they are remarkably consistent with one another].