The readings in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer for Eighth Sunday after Trinity are again focused on the writings of St. Paul (Romans 8:12-17), this time on mankind’s struggle against passions, and the second of nine readings in Trinitytide from the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 7:15-21), Jesus’ warning against false pr0phets. The contents of both readings are not easily made into graphic images and so these texts were not often illustrated in the many illuminated Bibles, sacramentaries, Books of Hours, and other types of documents intended for worship or study..
I have chosen two images, the first a Byzantine 11th C. mosaic of St. Paul and the second a colorful illumination from the 10th C. in the Western Church tradition after the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne. I hope the second image will help modern Christians visualize and understand certain phrases in the Collect for Eighth Sunday after Trinity and the final words of the Gospel reading, both of which include a reference to heaven. The Collect for the day, which was adapted from the Gelasian Sacramentary, with changes made in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, refers to a “never-failing providence” who rules over “all things both in heaven and earth.” In the last verse of the reading from Matthew, Jesus refers to the conditions for admission into the “kingdom of heaven.”
The first image is a small Byzantine-style mosaic of St. Paul, one of two in the Inner Narthex (Greek: Esonarthex), Chora Church, Chora region, Constantinople/Istanbul, Turkey. The oldest portion of the building dates to the 4th C, with major additions dating to the 11th C. and the 14th C. The image of Paul is part of the 11th C. improvements. The same image was used in the AIC Christian Education Video series, Trinitytide: the Teaching Season, Episode Four, linked from the Digital Library page. The image presents Paul in the traditional manner, with receding hairline and pointed beard. Note that many tiles which make up the lower level of the mosaic have been lost, likely owing to either earthquake damage or Moslem attempts to cover or destroy Christian images after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
The second image is a 10th C. illumination in tempera and gold on parchtment depicting the kingdom of heaven. It was made in Liege, Belgium (then Francia), in the 9th C. and taken to England around 942 A.D., when it came into the collection of Athelstan, King of Wessex. Wessex then included all or parts of modern England’s West Country, including the modern counties of Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset, Cornwall and Devon. The manuscript was damaged in a fire in October 1731 in which the outer edges were damaged by smoke and water and the parchment was warped by the heat of the fire. The Athelstan Psalter was fully digitized before the hacking of the British Library’s web site and collections in October 2023, an event which took their systems offline. When the system is fully restored, which is now espected to be accomplished in the late Fall of 2024 A.D., the entire Athelstan Psalter will once again by available for viewing.
Error corrected: the posting for Second Sunday after Trinity included an incorrect calculation of the number of readings from the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. The correct number for Matthew is 9 and for Mark is two. Apologies for the counting error. The original blog post and the count in the posts for Sixth & Seventh Sundays after Trinity have been corrected.
As always, thank you for your interest and support. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!
Anglican Internet Church 
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