3. Prime, a service performed at about six o'clock A.1M., " the first hour," mentioned by Athanasius (Ps«. xcii,2; v,3; lix, IG).
4. Tierce or Terce, a service performed at 9 A.^I., " the third hour ;" mentioned by Tertullian with Sexts and Nones (see below), as commemorating the time when the disciples were assembled at Pentecost (Acts ii, 15).
5. Sext, a service performed at noonday, " the sixth hour," commemorating Peter's praying (Acts x, 19).
6. Nones, a service performed at 3 P.M., " the ninth hour," commemorating the time when Peter and John went up to the Temple (Acts iii, 1).
7. Vespers, a service performed in the early evening ; mentioned by Basil, Ambrose, and Jerome, and by the Apostolical Constitutions (which we cite below), to com- memorate the time when Christ instituted the Eucha- rist, showing it was the eventide of the world. " This hour is called from evening, according to St. Augustine, or the evening star, says St. Isidore." It was also known as the office and the hour of lights, as, until the 8th or 9th century, was usual in the East and at Jlilan ; also when the lamps were lighted (Zech. xiv, 7). '• The Ro- man custom of saying Vesper after Nones then came into use in the West" (Walcott, Sac. A rchmil. p. 31(!).
8. Compline, the last evening or " bedtime service" (Psa. cxxxii, 3) ; first separated from Vespers bj' Bene- dict.
The office of Lauds was, however, very rarely separ- ated from that of Jlatins, and these eight hours of jiray- cr were therefore practically only seven, founded on Da- vid's habit (Psa. Iv, 17 ; cxix, G2).
The Apostolical Constitutions (viii, 34) mention the hours as follows: "Ye shall make prayer in the morn- ing, giving thanks, because the Lord hath enlightened you, removing the night, and bringing the day ; at the third hour, because the Lord then received sentence from Pilate ; at the sixth, because he was crucified ; at the ninth, because all things were shaken when the Lord was crucified, trembling at the audacity of the imjiious Jews, not enduring that the Lord should be insulted ; at evening giving thanks, because he hath given the night for rest from labor ; at cock-crowing, because that liour gives glad tidings that the day is dawning in which to work the works of light." Cassian likewise mentions the obser\-ation of Tierce, Sext, and Nones in monaster- ies. Tertullian and Pliny speak of Christian services before daylight. Jerome names Tierce, Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Lauds; also Augustine— for the two latter hours, however, substituting '• Early ^'igil." Archdea- con Freeman, of the Church of England, gives (Princi- ples ofDiv. Serv. i, 219 sq.) the following explanation, viz. that these offices, " though neither of apostolic nor
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early post-apostolic date as Church sendees, had, never- tiieless, probably existed in a rudimentary i'orm, as pri- vate or household devotions, from a very early period, and had been received into the number of recognised public formularies previous to the reorganization of the AVestern ritual after the Eastern model." " Various rea- sons have been assigned for a deeper meaning in the hours ; one is, that they are the thanksgiving for the completion of creation on the seventh day. Another theory beautifidJy connects them with the acts of our Lord in his jiassion : Evensong with his institution of the Eucharist, and washing the disciples' feet, and the going out to Gethsemane ; Compline with his agony and bloody sweat; Matins with his appearance before Caia- phas; Prime and Tierce with that in the presence of Pilate ; Tierce also with his scoui-ging, crown of thorns, and presentation to the people ; Sext with his bearing the cross, the seven words, and crucifixion ; Nones with his dismission of his Spirit, descent into hell, and rout of the devil ; Vespers with his deposition from the cross and entombment; Compline with the setting of the watch ; Matins with his resurrection" (Walcott, Sacred A rchceol. p. 317). Of the origin of these " hours," Bing- ham (^Antiquities of the Christ. Church, bk. xiii, ch. ix, p.G61 sq.) says that " they who have made the most ex- act inquiries can find no footsteps of them in the first three ages, but conclude that they came first into the Church with the monastic life" (compare also Pearson, Prcelecf^ in Act. Apost. num. 3, 4). It is observable fur- ther, that most of the writers of the fourth age, who speak of six or seven hours of prayer, speak of the ob- servances of tlie monks only, and not of the whole body of the Church. Thus Jerome, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Cassian, Cassiodorus, and most other writers of the early Christian Church, speak but of three hours of prayers ; thus, also, even Chrysostom himself, who, however, when " speaking of the monks and their institutions (f/omil. 14 in 1 Tim. p. 1599), gives about the same number of canonical hours as others do." Yet it is very likely even that in some Eastern churches these hours of pray- ers might have been jiractised in the 4th century, and quite certain that the different churches observing the liuiu-s varied greatly both as to the number of the hours and the service in their first original. "At the time of the Reformation, the canonical hours were reduced in the Lutheran Church to t\vo, morning and evening ; the Keformed Chm'ch never observed them" (Brande and Cox, Diet, of Science, lAterat. and Art, ii, 152). In the Chm-ch of England these services were, at the time of the English Keformation, used as distinct offices only by stricter religious persons and the clerg}\ At the revision of the liturgy of that Church under Edward VI, it was decided to have " only two solemn services of public worship in the day, viz. Matins, composed of matins, lauds, and prime ; and Evensong, consisting of vespers and compline." In the Greek Church, Neale {Essays on LUurgiolofjy and Church Hist., Essay i, p. 6 sq.) says, " There are eight canonical hours ; prayers are actually, for the most part, said three times daily— mat- ins, lauds, and prime, by aggregation early in the morn- ing; tierce, sexts, and the liturgy (commmiion) later; nones, vespers, and compline, by aggregation in the evening." So, also, is it in the West. " Except in mo- nastic bodies," says the same writer (p. 46 sq.),"the breviary as a church office is scarcely ever used as a whole. You may go, we do not say from chiurch to church, but from cathedral to cathedral of Central Eu- rope, and never hear matins save at high festivals. In Spain and Portugal it is somewhat more frequent, but there, as everpvhere, it is a clerical devotion exclusive- ly ... . Then the lesser hours are not often publicly said except in cathedrals, and then principally by ag- gregation, and in connection with mass In no