![]() These two gatherings were the longer hours, meaning they were composed of more psalms and other sacred texts. ![]() Cassian claims the monks in Bethlehem invented Prime to keep monks from returning to bed between Lauds and Terce! That sounds reasonable enough!įor the early Christians, morning and evening prayers were the principal or major hours, as in the Jewish tradition. It should be noted, however, that Prime was known to John Cassian in the Egyptian desert at an earlier date ( Institutes, 3.4). Because of its late beginning, it is not universally accepted as an authentic part of the Divine Office, and so it is disputed whether or not Prime is to be celebrated as an hour of the Divine Office. Prime, the first hour, was a later innovation in the West beginning close to the time of Saint Benedict (480-547) in the sixth century. Since the hours of the day were counted from sunrise (approximately 6:00 am), Terce, Sext, and None, as the hours eventually came to be known, corresponded to the third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day, that is, three, six, and nine hours after sunrise. These gatherings of early Christians would have been in the morning and evening, but likely also at midmorning, midday, and mid-afternoon, that is, the third, sixth, and ninth hours. First Thessalonians 5:17 seems to have encouraged early Christians to gather regularly for prayer following the example of the Apostles and “Mary the mother of Jesus” as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:14). The continuity between Jewish and Christian traditions seems clear, as Christ’s first followers were Jewish and no doubt comfortable with existing forms of public prayer.Īlong with possible Jewish roots, another important source of the Divine Office is the New Testament injunction to “pray without ceasing,” found in Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, a document that even pre-dates the written Gospels. Jews and Christians prayed the Psalms and other Scripture texts especially in the morning and evening and continue to do so. Many scholars hold that the origins of the Christian Office are within the Jewish liturgical tradition due to the fact that the Book of Psalms is the bulk of the structure for both Jewish and Christian public prayer (outside of the Mass). No exact date, however, can be assigned to the inauguration of the official “Prayer of the Church,” the Divine Office, as we’ve come to know it. ![]() The origins of the Divine Office, the Opus Dei or “Work of God,” are to be found in the early Church.
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