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Recited soon after dawn, Prime was the figure of childhood; Tierce of youth; Sext the full vigour of age; None the approaches of old age, while Vespers were an allegory of decrepitude. They belonged, moreover, to the Nocturns, and were sung about six o'clock in the evening, at that hour when, at the time of the Equinoxes, the sun sets in the red cinder of the clouds.
Nor is this unusual: for "the ecclesiastical day is considered to begin with the evening or Vesper service, according to the Jewish reckoning, as alluded to in the text. The office of Matin so called from Matuta or Aurora consists at Tenebræ of three nocturns. Each of these is composed of three appropriate psalms with their anthems, followed by three lessons taken from scripture or the fathers.
The lessons for the second and third nocturns were not taken from the Bible, but from the works of the Fathers. These extracts were collected in book form the homilaria.
'The merlins have better hoods than the Sisters; and as to the Hours, no one ever gets up in the night to say Nocturns or even Matins but old Sister Scholastica, and she is as strict and cross as may be. Here the flow of confidence was interrupted by the return of Hal, who gazed eagerly, though in a shamefaced way, at the guest as he set down a bowl of ewe milk.
From the first Sunday of Advent until the first Sunday of August the lessons of the first and second nocturns are given in the Breviary in the Proprium de Tempore, after the Psaltery. The lessons of third nocturn for same period are given after those of second nocturn. The suffrages are not said in Advent. In Advent the lectio brevis is "Domine miserere."
But in the end of the fourteenth century, simples came to be celebrated in the same manner as semi-doubles, with nine lessons and their nocturns, and in case of occurrence were transferred. As a result the offices of Sunday and the ferial offices were practically crushed out of the Breviary.
There were not standard editions of these old books, and great diversities of use and text were in existence. Divisions of the Divine Office. How is the daily Office divided? The Office is divided into the night Office and the day Office. The night Office is so called because it was originally recited at night. It embraces three nocturns and Lauds.
A nocturn, a round of Psalms, was said on Saturday night by the vigilants preparing for the Sunday services. Before the eighth century two other short nocturns were added. This addition, which was copied from the monastic practice, built up the three nocturn form of office and became the model and form of the office for saints.
The precise number of lights is determined by that of the psalms, which is the same as at ordinary matins of three nocturns.
He also arranged the Sunday, Festal and Ferial offices. For the recitation of the offices of a saint's day, St. Benedict arranged that the Matins shall have the same form as a Sunday office i.e., three nocturns, twelve lessons and responsories, but the psalms, antiphons and lessons are proper to each saint.
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