To n. 33. - Appendix I. Historical-Liturgical Appendix on the Canonical Hours

The Jews contemporary with Christ and the Apostles were accustomed twice, or even three times each day, to pour forth certain prayers and to sing certain psalms; indeed, for this purpose, at the time of the morning and evening sacrifice which was offered in the temple, they were accustomed to assemble in the synagogues. The first Christians seem to have deputed the same hours to prayer; whether they intended thus to continue the usage of the Jews is not clear. In the sole document of the end of the first century which we have, i.e., the Teaching of the Apostles, the Lord's Prayer recited three times each day is commended.

Then in the third century, Tertullian testifies to us the custom of praying each day at certain definite hours: first in the morning, as night began, and during the day at the third, sixth, and ninth hour. He calls only the two former lawful, as if commanded by law. But the prayer was made at home and privately (De oratione, c. 25).

Hitherto liturgical worship, certainly not in its whole structure and essential parts, but in its accidental parts, had been very uncertain and varied. But in the fourth century, having obtained a more stable form even in these things, it was divided into a few types, of which some were proper to the Eastern churches, others to the Western churches. Thus there were born the Alexandrian, Antiochene, Edessene, Neocaesarean, Armenian, and Constantinopolitan liturgies in the East; in the West, however, the Roman, Milanese, Gallican, and a little later the Mozarabic; to these certain of the principal doctors of the Church added authority.

By the work of St. Ambrose there was introduced into the Milanese church the antiphonal chant of psalms, sprung from Syria, by which the faithful people is divided into two choirs which sing alternate verses. The same Saint also introduced the custom of singing in church poetic hymns composed by himself, which afterwards from his name were called "Ambrosian." From this church both usages were diffused through the whole West.

In Gaul the faithful, assembled in church, "began and closed the day with morning and evening hymns." Whether at Rome, besides the customary vigils celebrated on the night of Easter and on the anniversaries of martyrs at their relics, definite times of praying were to be observed publicly is doubted. Eusebius of Caesarea certainly asserts the universal usage of morning and evening celebration in churches in his Commentary on the Psalms, which he wrote after the year 350 (In Psalm. 64, vv. 10, 11).

In the many monasteries multiplied at that time, some order of praying must at least by custom have been defined, which could not differ much from the order of the Egyptian and especially Syrian monks, and therefore, besides the morning and evening office and the three hours of the day, contained the nocturnal office or vigils. That office differed from the diurnal offices only in time; but since it was performed each night after necessary sleep had been taken, it differed from the ancient vigils, which were sacred watches drawn out through the whole night but celebrated only at certain times.

In the three following centuries, the fifth, sixth, and seventh, what the order of praying and singing was in the many monasteries then founded elsewhere and at Rome we know well enough from rules and similar documents. The most celebrated is the course according to the rule of St. Benedict. All those orders have the nocturnal office; most also have lessons in the individual hours. But the ecclesiastical office of the Gallican, Celtic, and Mozarabic liturgy is rather often declared by various decrees of councils in its public parts, i.e., in Mass, Matins, and Vespers. But the whole order of that age is set forth by writers. Thus St. Isidore of Seville hands down the Mozarabic order (De off. eccles. 1, 3 ff.), and St. Gregory of Tours the Gallican order.

But concerning the Ambrosian course almost no documents exist. As regards the order of the Suburbicarian Churches, the daily office of vigils is named, which on ordinary nights consisted of three or four psalms and as many lessons and responsories, at least from the seventh century, while on Sunday it always had nine psalms, lessons, and responsories (Liber diurnus, ed. Sickel, p. 77).

But as regards the City itself, in the fifth, sixth, and especially the seventh centuries, monasteries had been attached by the Pontiffs to certain Roman basilicas, whose monks discharged the office of the hours in those churches; and this already from the beginning consisted both of the nocturnal, morning, and evening office, and of the threefold diurnal office. Soon there were added the hour of Prime and Compline, which nevertheless were sung by the monks in the dormitory itself. St. Benedict seems to have used this office, such as already existed in the sixth century and which was called Roman, in composing his own course; for this is not dissimilar to the Roman course of the eighth century; it differs from it especially in Vespers, which have only four psalms, in the third nocturn of Sunday, in which three canticles are sung in place of psalms, in the division of the Psalter, etc.

Already at the beginning of the eighth century, by the splendor of ceremonies, the perfection of rites, the harmonious composition of parts, and the sweetness and nobility of chant, the Roman course so excelled that it was introduced and diffused into very many monasteries of England, into very many churches of Gaul and Germany, and soon, by royal decrees, into the whole empire of the Franks. Thus Amalarius, bishop of Metz, used the Roman antiphonary and responsory corrected by Hadrian I in order to restore the usages of his own church, which had once been introduced there from Rome but had been deformed, to their native purity. Yet because he retained not a few things from the usages of his own church, the office which thence arose was called Roman "Gallicanized." Diffused through all Gaul, it was afterwards partly received into the Roman church itself. But the ancient liturgies, slowly and imperceptibly, yielded place almost everywhere to the Roman (Liber de Ordine Antiphonasii, P.L. 165, 1293).

The Roman course of this age consists of three kinds of offices: offices of Sundays and ferias through the year, offices of solemn feasts or of the season, and offices of Saints. Documents describe the almost entire structure of each. It is enough to indicate briefly those things in which they are especially like or unlike modern offices.

As regards the Sunday and ferial office through the year, the division of the Psalter among the various days of the week and the hours of each day was altogether the same as in the modern office, i.e., before the reform of Pius X. The whole Psalter was divided into two parts, of which the first (ps. 1-108) was distributed among the seven nocturnal offices, the other (109-150) among Vespers, with the numerical order always observed; except, however, for twenty-five psalms which, with the numerical order disregarded, were each placed in its own place according to the sense which it bore, either in Matins (Lauds), or in the Hours, or in Compline. At Rome the "Roman Psalter," i.e., the ancient version of the psalms corrected by St. Jerome in the year 383, was used; but in Gaul the "Gallican Psalter," or the second Hieronymian correction of the same version (a. 392), was used. The individual Hours had their beginning at once from the verse Deus in adiutorium. In each, except Prime and Compline, a lesson was made; in none, however, did hymns have a place. To terminate the Hours, except in Sunday and festive Matins and Vespers, and, as it seems, in Prime and Compline, in place of the verse Dominus vobiscum and the prayer (collect), Kyrie eleison and the Lord's Prayer were said. After this prayer there were recited "chapters of prayers" (preces nostrae), but not in Prime and Compline. Only Vespers and Lauds, and the second and third Sunday nocturn, had antiphons; but these were sung not only before and after the psalms, but besides after individual verses (up to the ninth century). Compline consisted only of four psalms with the canticle Nunc dimittis and a prayer. This Hour was preceded by a spiritual reading held in the refectory or another place, almost as we shall soon say of Prime. In the daily nocturns, after the sung verse Domine labia mea aperies and Psalm 94 with its invitatory, twelve psalms were sung (with the doxology Gloria Patri added after every fourth psalm), then, after a verse had been said and a blessing given to the lector, three lessons were recited, each of which was followed by the conclusion Tu autem Domine. Deo gratias and the chant of its own responsory. (The responsories seem first to have been born at Rome, and there long before the sixth century.) The lessons were taken both from Sacred Scripture and from the treatises and homilies of the holy Fathers. (Hence the homiliaries of Alanus, abbot of Farfa, and others.) In the Sunday nocturns twice three psalms were added, of which the first were sung with an antiphon, the others with alleluia. Each series of psalms was likewise followed by three lessons with their responsories; the former of these were taken from the treatises of the Fathers, the latter from the Pauline epistles; soon the Gospel of the Sunday with a homily was joined beneath. Te Deum (a symbol written in the fifth century) was customarily sung only on the birthdays of the Roman Pontiffs, after the last responsory. We have already spoken summarily above of the psalms sung at Matins. But at this Hour besides, the same canticles as today in Lauds of the second schema were to be sung, and were divided in the same order among the days of the week. In its other parts Matins was altogether similar to Vespers, except that the canticle Benedictus took the place of the canticle Magnificat. But to Prime, or even sometimes to Terce, the exercise of Chapter was joined: after the general confession and absolution of all (Confiteor and the rest), and after Psalm Miserere had been sung, some spiritual reading was made; then the president noted the things to be corrected and ordered the things to be done, and, after the threefold invocation Deus in adiutorium had been sung and the verses Respice (the last of Psalm 89) had been said, he gave the prayer: Dirige Domine corda. In the ninth century there were introduced among the exercises of chapter the reading of the martyrology, accusations concerning faults committed ("culpa"), and the final blessing.

The offices of Saints, first celebrated only in the places of burial or of title, and merely juxtaposed to the ferial offices of basilicas, were in the eighth century finally admitted among those offices by an indivisible bond. Those feasts were divided into greater and lesser: the lesser, besides the lessons of the nocturn, brought scarcely any change in the Sunday or ferial office; but the greater had proper Vespers and Matins, and the whole nocturnal office. Indeed, in certain principal feasts, the first nocturnal office was celebrated immediately after Vespers, but on the following night another office was made from the Common of Saints or from the Sunday or feria.

Solemnities of the season had altogether proper offices, already very similar to those of today; on the night of Easter there were only three psalms, because on it the office of vigils had already to be celebrated, which lasted almost until dawn. Of the other solemnities, certain had a double nocturnal office, as we have said of certain feasts of Saints; in this usage there seems to us to appear a vestige of the ancient distinction between vigils properly so called and the nocturnal office. From that usage besides it is probable that the name of double feasts arose.

From the end of the eighth century to the beginning of the twelfth century, the office of the hours at Rome remained almost unchanged, especially since Gregory VII preserved it immune from imprudent changes and abbreviations. But after this age, at least outside the City, it underwent several changes. Antiphons were no longer repeated after individual verses; lessons were always more compressed; "Ambrosian" hymns (from the Benedictine office) were introduced into the individual Hours; the symbol Quicumque was added to Prime, and common commemorations of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all Saints to Vespers and Lauds; indeed, besides the office of the day itself, not only the whole office of the Blessed Virgin Mary but also the office of the dead (Vespers, Nocturns, and Lauds) had to be sung almost daily. But even at Rome, in the twelfth century, the office of the basilicas, except the Lateran, underwent certain changes. Only the stational liturgy seems to have remained intact in them.

Therefore in the same twelfth century a peculiar office was formed in the pontifical Curia, very similar to the office described above. At the beginning of the thirteenth century this was conceded to the Friars Minor, accommodated by them to their own utility, and by their work diffused through the universal Church; it finally returned to Rome, and there, having again been assumed into the use of the Curia, a short time afterwards it was imposed by Pope Nicholas IV on all Roman churches.

The modern office, entangled with too many additions, enriched with too many feasts of Saints and dishonored by spurious lessons, indeed by manifest fables, was first reformed by St. Pius V; but other Pontiffs took care to perfect this reform, especially as regards the legends of Saints and the composition of hymns. Yet no reform up to this point had been sufficient.

Indeed soon, with the Pian reform in this part deserted, many feasts had been established or restored to the detriment of the other offices. Therefore in the eighteenth century Benedict XIV created a new commission; this, undertaking a reform of the whole work, submitted it to the Pontiff. He, not much approving the proposed plan of reform, himself set himself to the work, when he was overtaken by death.

And thus it has come down to the present process of reform initiated by Pius X a few years ago; among the others this is the most radical. What has already been done up to this point for restoring somewhat the offices of the season is sufficiently known; but as regards the division of the Psalter, the new law can be expressed summarily thus: not only must all the psalms be recited through the week, but each once. Among the further labors of reform will be both the correction of the text of the Psalter, which will follow the new edition of the Vulgate, and the more perfect cleansing of the legends of martyrs and Saints.

The various parts of the office can be referred to four heads: prayers, chants, lessons, and brief formulas of salutation and other things of that kind.

The eight Hours, one nocturnal and seven diurnal, are better distinguished than seven Hours in all; for the latter cannot be done unless Matins and Lauds are joined into one Hour. For the former division responds better to tradition and to the true composition of the office, and it observes the law of the psalmist: Septies in die, laudem dixi tibi et media nocte surgebam ad confitendum tibi (Ps. 118).

For a rather long time the diverse parts of the office (psalms, antiphons and responsories, hymns, lessons) were presented in separate books. Then they were joined, according to the order of the composition of the office, in several tomes, of which the former (libri matutinales) handed down the nocturnal office, the last (liber diurnalis) the diurnal office.

Indeed, especially for the convenience of travelers, the whole office was enclosed in one book, which, with chant suppressed, besides the lessons noted only the beginnings of antiphons and of other chants, because clerics were thought to know all the rest by memory. The lessons themselves had been compressed to very few verses. These books had the name of breviaries. The more frequent use of these did not a little bring it about that even the choral office itself was abbreviated; indeed, today the office of the breviary and the office of the choir are one and the same.

I. M. H., S.I.^†