Earliest Christian Liturgical Books
In early Christianity (until perhaps the fourth century) there were no books except the Bible, from which lessons were read and psalms were sung. Nothing in the liturgy was written, because nothing was fixed. Even after certain forms had become so stereotyped as to make already what we should call a more or less fixed liturgy, it does not seem that there was at first any idea that they should be written down. Habit and memory made the celebrant repeat more or less the same forms each Sunday; the people answered his prayers with the accustomed acclamations and responses - all without books.
Adrian Fortescue, in his article on liturgical books in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia, quotes one writer who argued that there were liturgical books back to the time of the Apostolic Fathers, and another who claimed that there were no liturgical books even by the end of the fourth century. He himself concludes that they were certainly in existence by the fourth century.
Read more about this topic: Liturgical Books Of The Roman Rite
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