Pericope
set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought; usually of sacred scripture
In rhetoric, a pericope (; Greek περικοπή, "a cutting-out") is a set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought, suitable for public reading from a text, now usually of sacred scripture.
Description
The term can also be used as a way to identify certain themes in a chapter of sacred text. Its importance is mainly felt in, but not limited to, narrative portions of sacred scripture (as well as poetic sections).
Manuscripts—often illuminated—called pericopes, are normally evangeliaries, that is, abbreviated Gospel Books only containing the sections of the Gospels required for the Masses of the liturgical year. Notable examples, both Ottonian, are the Pericopes of Henry II and the Salzburg Pericopes.
Lectionaries are normally made up of pericopes containing the Epistle and Gospel readings for the liturgical year. A pericope consisting of passages from different parts of a single book, or from different books of the Bible, and linked together into a single reading is called a concatenation or composite reading.
See also
Jesus and the woman taken in adultery, known as the "Pericope Adulteræ"
Parashah, section of the Hebrew Bible
Weekly Torah portion
Sugya, a pericope of the Talmud
References
Meinolf Schumacher: "Perikope" in Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft. Vol.
The public source identifies “Pericope” as set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought; usually of sacred scripture. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Pericope, verses and forms.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Pericope”, the useful work is to connect “set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought; usually of sacred scripture” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q118289. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pericope” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.