They are almost invariably written in double columns, and not unfrequently are splendidly executed.

The use of Uncial letters is observed to have been retained in documents of this class to a later period than in the case of the Evangelia, viz.

down to the eleventh century.

For the most part they are furnished with a kind of musical notation executed in vermilion; evidently intended to guide the reader in that peculiar recitative which is still customary in the oriental Church.
In these books the Gospels always stand in the following order: St.
John: St.Matthew: St.Luke: St.Mark.The lessons are brief,-- resembling the Epistles and Gospels in our Book of Common Prayer.
They seem to me to fall into two classes: (_a_) Those which contain a lesson for every day in the year: (_b_) Those which only contain [lessons for fixed Festivals and] the Saturday-Sunday lessons ([Greek: sabbatokyriakai]).

We are reminded by this peculiarity that it was not till a very late period in her history that the Eastern Church was able to shake herself clear of the shadow of the old Jewish Sabbath[147].