St John the Baptist and Subdeacon

Today is the feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptist; by a nice coincidence, I happened to consult the part of William Durandus’ Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, the Summa Theologica of medieval liturgical commentaries, which discusses the rites of Mass (book 4), and thus discover his interesting explanation of the subdeacon’s singing of the Epistle, which he sees as a symbol of St John and his role in the life of Christ.

The Epistle should be read, according to Master William of Auxerre, on the right side of the Church, because Christ came first to the Jews, who are said to be on the right (i.e. the place of honor); nonetheless, it is better that it be done in the middle of the church, since John was in the middle between the Apostles and the Prophets. ... (This also refers to the opening words of the Introit of St John the Evangelist, ‘In the midst of the Church he opened his mouth’, Sir. 15, 5, also used in several other places in the liturgy.)

But the Epistle is put before the Gospel, for it designates the office which John exercised before Christ, since he ‘went before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, as he himself bear witness, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the desert” prepare ye the way of the Lord.’ John is therefore like the subdeacon, the minister under Him who said about Himself, ‘The Son of man came not to be served.’ Wherefore, just as the preaching of John went before the preaching of Christ, so the Epistle goes before the Gospel. The Epistle also bears the figure of the Law and Prophecy, which preceded the coming of Christ, just as it precedes the Gospel; for the Law preceded the Gospel, as shadow goes before light, as fear before charity, and a beginning before perfection.

John the Baptist Preaching Before Herod, by the Dutch painter Pieter de Grebbe (1600 ca. - 1652/3; public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) 

Only one acolyte accompanies the subdeacon when he is about to read the Epistle (a very typical medieval custom), because few followed the preaching of John, since the Law brings no one to perfection, but when the deacon is about the read the Gospel, subdeacons and acolytes and others accompany him, because very many received the preaching of the Gospel, which does bring to perfection. It can also be said that by the procession of the subdeacon and deacon to read, the two-fold manifestation of Christ in His two comings is signified. The first of these had only one Forerunner, namely John, which is signified by the procession of the subdeacon. The second will have two, namely, Enoch and Elijah (Apoc. 11), who are figured by the two or more who go before the deacon.

The face of the one who reads the Epistle should be turned to the altar, which signifies Christ, because the preaching of John directed himself and others towards Christ, from Whose countenance come forth judgment and justice. But (the acolyte) who goes before the subdeacon as he goes to read, does not turn his face towards the reader, because John directed those who heard him not to himself, but to Christ.

However, those who go before the deacon as he goes to read look towards the Gospel, and towards the face of the one who recites it, first, so that by the mutual regarding of each other, the love and charity of Christ may be designated, which are preached in the Gospel: secondly, that they may show themselves to be witness of the teaching of the Gospel, as we read in Isaiah, ‘Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord.’

St John the Baptist (lower right) at the head of the “praiseworthy number of the prophets”; fresco on the ceiling of the San Brizio chapel of the cathedral of Orvieto, Italy, by Fra Angelico and Benozzo Gozzoli. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

But because John was the boundary between what preceded and what followed, in the middle between the Apostles and the Prophets, (for ‘the law and prophets (were) unto John, and from then, the kingdom of God was proclaimed’ (Luke 16, 6)), therefore the Epistle is not always read from the prophets, nor always from the Apostles, but sometimes is taken from the Old Testament, and sometimes from the New. For John, whose voice the Epistle represents, preached along with the ancients that Christ would come, saying ‘He that is to come after me was before me’, and with the more recent, he shows that Christ is present, saying, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, behold him that taketh away the sins of the world.’ ”