History
The ancient Church observed seven hours of prayer, or seven times of prayer every day. Instruction to pray in this way, through daily offices, is drawn from both the Scriptures and historical practice. The Didache teaches us to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. The monasteries devised complicated and involved prayer times called the Daily Office, in which they would pray seven times a day and, in some cases, pray through the entire Psalter in some amount of time; sometimes once a month, sometimes once a week, sometimes daily. Some of the Scripture passages that have been used to teach a daily prayer are:
Psalm 119:164
Seven Times a day I praise You
Psalm 119:62
At midnight I rise to praise You
Acts 3:1
Now, Peter and John were going to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.
Daniel 6:10
When Daniel knew that document was to be signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.
From the sixth century until the reformation there were typically eight services each day:
Matins 2 a.m.; Lauds 5 a.m.; Prime 6 a.m. also called the first hour; Terse 9 a.m. also called the third hour; Sext 12 p.m. also called the sixth hour; None 3 p.m. also called the ninth hour; Vespers 6 p.m.; Compline 7 p.m.
Patristic Era (A.D. 70-300)
Daily prayer at fixed times was a received tradition within Christianity. The Judaism of the first century had already set times of prayer, daily prayer patterns, and fixed texts used in those prayers.1 Judaism took advantage of “Market Days” (Monday and Thursday) and conducted services when most people would be in the area and able to attend.2 Attestation for the Christian practice of prayer at set times presents itself in the writings of the Church Fathers and Early Church documents like the Didache (A.D. 50-70), mentioned above. Some other notable mentions are found in 1 Clement 40:1-4 (2nd Century),
We should do in order (taxei) everything that the Master commanded us to do at set times (kata kairous tetagmenous). He has ordered oblations (prosphoras) and services (leitourgias) to be accomplished, and not by chance in the disorderly fashion but at the set times and hours (ôrismenois kairois kai hôrais)…3
Later, Clement of Rome insists that the true Christian prays always but include in their lives time of more serious devotion and intentional prayer. He also indicates that there is symbolic value to the rhythm of such times of prayer
Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord continually manifests to us the resurrection to come, whose first fruits he made Christ by raising him from the dead. We see, beloved, that the resurrection was accomplished according to the time. Day and night make visible to us a resurrection. Night goes to sleep, the day rises; the day departs, the night follows.4
Tertullian (post A.D. 220) makes mention of the hours of prayer in his work On Prayer in which he states:
Concerning the time [of prayer], however, the external observance of certain hours will not be unprofitable. I mean those common hours that mark the intervals of the day: the third, sixth, and ninth, which are found to have been more solemn in the Scriptures. At the third hour the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the gathered disciples (Acts 2:15). Peter, on the day he experienced the vision of the whole community in that small vessel, had gone upstairs to pray at the sixth hour (Acts 10:9). The same one was going into the temple with John at the ninth hour when he restored the paralytic to health (Acts 3:1). Although these hours simply exist without any command for their observance, still it is good to establish a presumption that might reinforce the admonition to pray, and tear us away from our affairs for this duty as if by law, so that we at least pray not less than three times a day.5
Tertullian also encouraged the praying before and after meals, before bathing, and when with guests. Prayers were to be rooted in the Scripture and utilizing the Psalms highly encouraged.6
Another important source of the historical practice of the early Church is the Apostolic Tradition which was most probably written by Hippolytus of Rome in the year 215. It is a collection of Christian teachings and rulings regarding the conduct of a Christian life. The Apostolic Tradition instructs in both theology and practice. In it, we find this regarding prayer:
The faithful, as soon as they have woken and got up, before they turn to this work, shall pray to God, and so hasten to their work [catechetical instruction]. If there is any verbal instruction, one should give preference to this, and go and hear the word of God, to the comfort of his soul. Let him hasten to the Church where the Spirit flourishes.7
Contained within the teachings of the Apostolic Tradition are set prayer offices related to the chief hours of the day: morning prayer, ninth hour, evening agape, evening prayer, midnight prayer, and prayer at cockcrow. These prayer offices were devised to give a rhythm to the ancient day wherein the major division of the day would begin, for the Christian, with prayer. Each section of the day would instill in the Christian’s mind the important and noteworthy moments in Biblical history, as mentioned above, and provide them with rich Psalmody and hymnody with which to grace their coming in and going out.
This is a brief synopsis of some of the earliest Christian writings dealing with regular prayer hours and prayer attitudes. In the interest of historical practice, we will interrogate some more recent sources and move on to modern iterations of the Daily Office as well as the texts comprising, specifically, the Matins service.
Prayers in the Western Cathedral Hours (A.D. 300-500)
Such fathers during the “middle ages” as Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, indicate that the church at that time had the habit of practicing Cathedral Services what we would call the Daily Office or Liturgy of the Hours. Though, their services, in the West, seem to be less organized than the East. Certainly, Psalmody featured extensively in their worship pattern, but a fully developed and catholic set liturgy is poorly attested in the West. Ambrose’ notes about these Cathedral Services a similar contour to our current prayer offices. Matins for example contained: Psalm 118, Isaiah 26, Biblical canticles, and the beatitudes. Or, you could say, Psalmody, readings, and Biblical songs or hymns. “Ambrose himself composed hymns for use at the hours.”8
During this time, the monastic hours had undergone significant development which is easily traceable and well documented. Matins looked something like this: Opening Psalm 50/51 or 62/63 with collect; Variable Psalms; Lesson; OT Canticle; Psalms 148-150 with collect; Hymn of Light; Gloria in Excelsis; Intercessions and Collect; Concluding prayer of blessing; Dismissal.
Reformation Era: Prayer Books & Breviaries
Of particular interest to us, perhaps, is the practice of the Friar. Martin Luther was Friar and served at the University of Wittenburg. Friars, during this period were required to stop and say the Daily Office wherever they were. This, and their frequent tours around Europe, popularized the prayer offices and required the production of books called Breviaries. These books contained all of the prayer offices, readings, and homilies necessary to complete the Daily Office and often included an entire Psalter with pointing. Notable Breviaries of this period are: The Breviary of Quiñones and The Breviary of Pious V.
The Hours of Evangelical Catholics
Catholics and Protestants alike found the Medieval breviaries cumbersome and difficult to use. Therefore, the Breviaries underwent significant reform – within the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Luther, in his particular style, removed the services original emphasis – prayer – and replaced it with the hearing of God’s Word. In effect, Lutheran Daily Offices were services of the Word. His “innovations” made way for more reading of Scripture and the proclamation of the Gospel – these were common, daily services in Lutheran Churches. In fact, these services continued to be sung in Latin well into the 19th century.
The Hours of Modern Evangelical Catholics (Lutherans)
The Lutheran Book of Worship contained the services Matins, Vespers, and Compline. Our Lutheran Service Book contains Matins, Vespers, Compline, Morning and Evening Prayer. LCMS Lutherans also have the option to purchase two Lutheran Breviaries should they wish to pray the Daily Office. Oremus: A Lutheran Breviary9 and The Brotherhood Prayer Book.10 Both are excellent choices though Oremus is more friendly to beginners and contains more homilies from Church Fathers and Lutheran Fathers than does Brotherhood. Both follow the one-year lectionary church year and have propers for all major and minor feasts and festivals of the Lutheran Church. CPH also publishes a breviary like book called the Treasury of Daily Prayer and it is also a very good, breviary like resource. It can be found here.
Pastor Spangler uses Oremus: a Lutheran Breviary along with the Lutheran Service Book with his family every day.
1Paul F. Bradshaw, “The Origins of the Daily Office” in Alcuin: The Occasional Journal of the Alcuin Club, (London: SPCK, 1978), 2.
2Ibid., 2.
3Robert F. Taft, The Liturgy of the hours in East and West: the origins of the divine office and its meaning for today, (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1986), 14.
4Ibid., 14.
5Ibid., 18
6Ibid., 18
7Ibid., 22; trans. Geoffrey J. Cuming.
8Ibid., 142.
9https://lutheranbreviary.wordpress.com/
10https://emmanuelpress.us/books/the-brotherhood-prayer-book-second-revised-edition/
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