Chapter XI.
Of the points in which the service held on Sunday differs from what is customary on other days.
But we ought to know this, too, that on Sunday only one office [754] is celebrated before dinner, at which, out of regard for the actual service [755] and the Lord's communion, they use a more solemn and a longer service of Psalms and prayers and lessons, and so consider that Tierce and Sext are included in it. And hence it results that, owing to the addition of the lessons, there is no diminution of the amount of their devotions, and yet some difference is made, and an indulgence over other times seems to be granted to the brethren out of reverence for the Lord's resurrection; and this seems to lighten the observance all through the week, and, by reason of the difference which is interposed, it makes the day to be looked forward to more solemnly as a festival, and owing to the anticipation of it the fasts of the coming week are less felt. For any weariness is always borne with greater equanimity, and labour undertaken without aversion, if some variety is interposed or change of work succeeds.
[754] Missa.
[755] Collecta. This word, from which our word "Collect" is possibly derived, is used for an assembly for worship in the Vulgate in Lev. xxiii. 36; Deut. xvi. 8; 2 Chron. vii. 9; Neh. viii. 18: and compare the phrase, "Ad Collectam," in the Sacramentary of Gregory for the Feast of the Purification.
Chapter XII.
Of the days on which, when supper is provided for the brethren, a Psalm is not said as they assemble for the meals as is usual at dinner.
Lastly, also, on those days,--i.e., on Saturday and Sunday,--and on holy days, on which it is usual for both dinner and supper to be provided for the brethren, a Psalm is not said in the evening, either when they come to supper or when they rise from it, as is usual at their ordinary dinner [756] and the canonical refreshment on fast days, which the customary Psalms usually precede and follow. But they simply make a plain prayer and come to supper, and again, when they rise from it, conclude with prayer alone; because this repast is something special among the monks: nor are they all obliged to come to it, but it is only for strangers who have come to see the brethren, and those whom bodily weakness or their own inclination invites to it.
[756] In sollemnibus prandiis. The phrase must here refer to their dinner on ordinary days (cf. solemnitatem ciborum, "their usual food," Book IV. c. xxi.). Among the early monks it was the custom ordinarily to have but one meal a day on the fast days (viz., Wednesday and Friday); this was at the ninth hour; on other days, at the sixth (i.e., midday). Cf. the Conferences XXI. c. xxiii. On festivals (viz., Saturday, Sunday, and holy days), beside the midday meal a supper was allowed as well. And on these days, as we learn from the passage before us, the ordinary grace before and after meat was shortened by the omission of the customary Psalms at other times included in it. On the meals of the monks, cf. S. Jerome's Preface to the Rule of Pachomius and the Rule of S. Benedict, cc. xxxix.-xli., the former of which tells us that, except on Wednesday and Friday, dinner was at midday, and a table was also set for labourers, old men, and children, and (apparently) for all, in the height of summer. For the use of Psalms at grace, see Clement of Alexandria, Poedag. II. iv. 44; Stromateis VII. vii. 49.
Book IV.
Of the Institutes of the Renunciants.
Chapter I.
Of the training of those who renounce this world, and of the way in which those are taught among the monks of Tabenna and the Egyptians who are received into the monasteries.
From the canonical system of Psalms and prayers which ought to be observed in the daily services throughout the monasteries, we pass, in the due course of our narrative, to the training of one who renounces this world; endeavouring first, as well as we can, to embrace, in a short account, the terms on which those who desire to turn to the Lord can be received in the monasteries; adding some things from the rule of the Egyptians, some from that of the monks of Tabenna, [757] whose monastery in the Thebaid is better filled as regards numbers, as it is stricter in the rigour of its system, than all others, for there are in it more than five thousand brethren under the rule of one Abbot; and the obedience with which the whole number of monks is at all times subject to one Elder is what no one among us would render to another even for a short time, or would demand from him.
[757] Tabenna, or Tabennæ, was an island in the Nile, where was founded a flourishing monastery by Pachomius c. 330 a.d. Of Pachomius there is a notice in Sozomen H. E. Book III. c. xiv., and his Rule was translated into Latin, with a preface by S. Jerome who mentions his fame in Ep. cxxvii. There is a Life of Pachomius given by Rosweyde (Vitæ Patrum), which is said to be a translation of a work by a contemporary of his.