Endnote 15 – The Binding or Sacrifice of Isaac

See John Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, (Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips, 1981), p. 253f.; and Thomas Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York: Pueblo, 1986), p. 47f. Egeria does not give details of the vigil readings when she was in Jerusalem, but liturgical scholars have argued that it is reasonably safe to assume the readings outlined in the Armenian lectionaries reflect a late-fourth-century tradition in Jerusalem. The readings include the Genesis stories of creation and sacrifice of Isaac.

Talley argues that Egeria omitted the Easter vigil readings in Jerusalem because they were the ones she already knew and took for granted. Talley includes a table that shows fifth- to eighth-century documents that contain Easter vigil readings from Genesis 22.