Institutes & Conferences 2

The history of the Old Testament relates that the most wise Solomon, after receiving from God wisdom and prudence exceedingly great, and breadth of heart as innumerable as the sand of the sea—so that, by the Lord's testimony, none like him is said to have existed in ages past nor to arise after him—desiring to build that magnificent temple to the Lord, sought the aid of the foreign king of Tyre. And he, having sent to him Hiram, the son of a widow woman, brought to completion, by his ministry and disposition, whatever, at the suggestion of divine wisdom, Solomon was contriving of excellence in the temple of the Lord or in the sacred vessels.

If, then, that principate loftier than all the kingdoms of the earth, and that stock nobler and more excellent than the Israelite race, and that wisdom divinely inspired which surpassed the disciplines and institutions of all the Easterns and the Egyptians, did by no means disdain the counsel of a poor and foreign man—rightly do you too, instructed by these examples, most blessed pope Castor, purposing to build to God a true and reasonable temple, not of insensible stones but of a congregation of holy men, and not temporal and corruptible but eternal and impregnable, and desiring to consecrate to the Lord vessels also most precious, not molten of dumb metal, of gold or silver—which afterward the king of Babylon, having captured them, might assign to the pleasure of his concubines and princes—but of holy souls, which, shining with the integrity of innocence, justice, and chastity, carry about Christ the King abiding within themselves: you deign to summon me, needy and in every part most poor, to the communion of so great a work.

Since indeed you wish the institutions of the Easterns, and especially of the Egyptians, tried and proven in the province of the cenobia, to be established, though you yourself are perfect in all virtues and knowledge, and so filled with all spiritual riches that, for those seeking perfection, not only your discourse but even your life alone amply and abundantly suffices as an example, you ask and command even me—tongue-tied and poor in speech and knowledge—that I contribute something toward the fulfillment of your desire out of the poverty of my understanding, and that I set forth, though with unskilled pen, the institutions of the monasteries which we have observed to be kept throughout Egypt and Palestine, just as they were handed down to us there by the fathers; not seeking elegance of speech, in which you yourself are eminently learned, but desiring that the simple life of the saints be explained in simple speech to the brethren in your new monastery.

As much as the pious ardor of your desire provokes me to obey in this matter, so much do the manifold waves of my anxieties deter me, willing though I am, from complying. First, because the merits of my life do not so match up that I should be confident I can worthily embrace with mind and heart things so arduous, so obscure, so holy.

Secondly, because those things which, established from our boyhood among these same fathers and stirred up by their daily exhortations and examples, we either attempted to do, or learned, or perceived by sight, we can now by no means fully retain, drawn away by so many cycles of years from their company and from the imitation of their way of life—especially since the rationale of these matters can by no means be either handed down, or understood, or held in memory by idle meditation and the teaching of words. For the whole thing consists in experience and practice alone; and just as they cannot be handed down except by one who is experienced, so neither can they even be grasped or understood except by one who has labored to apprehend them with equal zeal and sweat.

These things, however, if they are not frequently discussed and polished by the continual conference of spiritual men, quickly slip away again through the negligence of the mind. Thirdly, because that very thing which, in some fashion—not according to the merit of the matter but according to the state of the present time—we are able to recall, an inexperienced speech is not fittingly able to explain. To this is added that upon this subject men noble both in life and illustrious in speech and knowledge have already sweated over many little works—I mean holy Basil and Jerome and certain others.

Of these, the former, when the brethren inquired concerning various institutions or questions, answered not only in eloquent but also in copious discourse, rich with the testimonies of the divine Scriptures; the latter, moreover, not only published books elaborated by his own genius, but also turned into Latin eloquence works composed in the Greek tongue. After such overflowing rivers of eloquence from these men, I might not undeservedly be branded with presumption, had I attempted to bring in any dripping of this stream, did not this confidence in your holiness and its promise animate me—namely, that either these trifles, of whatever sort they be, would be acceptable to you, or that you would assign them to the congregation of brethren dwelling only in the new monastery:

who, if anything perhaps has been put forth by us less cautiously, may both piously read it again and support it with a more indulgent pardon, seeking rather the faithfulness of my speech than the beauty of eloquence. Wherefore, most blessed pope, sole pattern of religion and humility, animated by your prayers, according to the strength of my talent I will undertake the work which you enjoin, and those things which have been left wholly untouched by our predecessors—inasmuch as they attempted to describe things heard rather than experienced—I will impart, as it were, to a raw monastery and to those who in truth thirst. Nor indeed shall I strive to weave together a narration of the wonders and signs of God.

For although we have not only heard many and incredible such things through our elders, but have also seen them fulfilled before our own eyes, yet, all these being passed over—since to readers they confer nothing beyond admiration toward the instruction of the perfect life—I will strive faithfully to explain only their institutions and the rules of the monasteries, and especially the origins, causes, and cures of the principal vices, which are reckoned by them as eight, according to their traditions, as far as with the Lord's help I shall be able. For my purpose is to discourse a little, not concerning the wonders of God, but concerning the correction of our morals and the consummation of the perfect life, according to those things which we have received from our elders.

In this too I will endeavor to satisfy your precepts: that if perchance I find in these regions anything either diminished or added—not according to the type of the ancients, grounded in the most ancient constitution, but according to the choice of each one instituting a monastery—I will, in faithful speech, either add or cut it away according to that rule of the monasteries which we have seen anciently founded throughout Egypt and Palestine; by no means believing that any more reasonable or more perfect novel constitution could have been found in the western parts of the Gauls than are those institutions in which, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, the monasteries founded by holy and spiritual fathers endure even unto us.

I shall indeed venture to weave into this little work that moderation, so that whatever I have found, according to the rule of the Egyptians, to be impossible, or too harsh, or too arduous in these regions—whether by reason of the severity of the climate or the difficulty and diversity of manners—I may to some degree temper by the customs of the monasteries which are kept throughout Palestine and Mesopotamia; for if a reasonable measure of what is possible be preserved, the same perfection of observance may be attained even with unequal means. ON THE DRESS OF MONKS. CHAPTERS. I. On the girdle of the monk. II. On the garment of the monk. III. On the hoods of the Egyptians. IV. On the tunics of the Egyptians. V. On their arm-bands. VI. On their capes. VII. On the sheepskin and goatskin. VIII. On the staff of the Egyptians.

IX. On their footwear. X. On the moderation of observance, which is to be maintained according to the quality of the climate or the custom of the province. XI. On the spiritual girdle and its symbolic meaning. As we are about to speak of the customs and rules of the monasteries, from what more fitting starting-point—by God's gift—shall we begin than from the very dress of the monks? For we shall then be able fittingly to set forth their inner discipline once we have depicted their outward adornment before the gaze of the eyes. Therefore the monk, like a soldier of Christ ever stationed in readiness for battle, ought continually to go about with his loins girded.

For that these too walked in this attire—namely those who in the Old Testament laid the first foundations of this profession, that is Elijah and Elisha—is shown by the authority of the divine Scriptures; and thereafter we know that the chief authors and founders of the New Testament, namely John, Peter, and Paul, and the rest of men of the same order, went about in like manner.

Of these, the first—who in the Old Testament already prefigured the flowers of virginity and the examples of chastity and continence—when he had been sent by the Lord to rebuke the messengers of Ahaziah, the sacrilegious king of Israel (because, being hindered by sickness, he had resolved to consult Beelzebub the god of Ekron concerning the state of his health, and therefore, the same prophet meeting them, had denied to him any descent from the bed onto which he had fallen), was made known to the king lying sick by the description of the quality of his dress. For the king questioned the messengers who had returned to him and reported to him the prophet's verdict, of what form and habit was the man who had met them and had spoken such words. 'A hairy man,' they said, 'and girt with a leather belt about his loins.'

From which attire the king, at once perceiving the man of God, said, 'It is Elijah the Tishbite,' recognizing beyond doubt the man of God by the token of the belt and by the appearance of his rough and unkempt body—because this mark of his own manner of dress clung to him perpetually, like a kind of special impressed sign, while he dwelt among so many thousands of the people of Israel. Concerning John also, who came forth as a kind of most sacred boundary, an end and a beginning of the Old and New Testaments, we learn thus by the Evangelist's account: 'And John himself had a garment of camel's hair and a leather girdle about his loins.' To Peter also, cast by Herod into the custody of the prison and to be brought forth to death on the following day, an angel standing by gave command:

'Gird yourself and put on your sandals.' The angel of God would by no means have admonished him to do this, had he not seen that Peter, for the refreshment of his nightly rest, had for a little while loosened his weary limbs from the accustomed binding of the girdle. Paul also, as he was going up to Jerusalem and was straightway to be cast into bonds by the Jews, the prophet Agabus, finding him at Caesarea, took his girdle and bound his own hands and feet, that by the gesture of his own body he might prefigure the injuries of Paul's suffering, and said: 'Thus says the Holy Spirit: The man whose girdle this is, so shall the Jews bind him in Jerusalem, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'

This indeed the prophet could by no means have declared, nor could he have said 'the man whose girdle this is,' unless Paul had been accustomed unceasingly to fasten it upon his loins. Let the monk's garment likewise be such as merely covers the body and wards off the shame of nakedness and blunts the injury of the cold, not such as fosters the seed-beds of vanity or pride; even as the same Apostle proclaims: 'Having food and covering, with these let us be content.'

'Coverings,' he says—not 'garments,' as is inaccurately contained in certain Latin copies—that is, such things as merely cover the body, not such as flatter it with the glory of clothing; things so mean that they may not, by any novelty of color or fashion, be considered as marks of distinction among the rest of the men of this same purpose; things so far removed from studied elaborations, that on the other hand they may not be discolored by any filth affected through neglect; in short, let them be so separated from the adornment of this world that they may remain in all things common to the manner of dress of the servants of God.

For whatever is presumptuously undertaken among the servants of God by one or a few, and is not held in a catholic manner throughout the whole body of the brotherhood, must be judged either superfluous or presumptuous, and on that account harmful, and displaying rather a specimen of vanity than of virtue. And therefore it will be fitting for us also to cut away, as superfluous and useless, those examples which we see handed down neither by the ancient saints who laid the foundations of this profession, nor by the fathers of our own time who to this day preserve by successive tradition the institutions of those men.

For this reason they have wholly shunned the garment of haircloth, as being conspicuous to all and notable, and as one which by this very fact can confer no advantage whatever upon the spirit, but may even conceive the vanity of pride; and which, moreover, for the exercise of necessary labor—in which the monk ought always to go about active and unencumbered—is unwieldy and unfit. But if we have heard that certain men clad in this attire proved themselves worthy of approval, the rule of the monasteries is not on that account to be sanctioned by us, nor are the ancient decrees of the holy fathers to be overthrown, merely because a few, presuming upon the privilege of other virtues, are believed not to deserve reproof even in those things which were adopted by them not according to the catholic rule.

For the judgment of a few ought not to be set above, nor to prejudge, the general constitution of all. For we ought to yield undoubting faith and unquestioning obedience in all things to those institutions and rules which not the will of a few brought in, but which the antiquity of so many ages and the countless number of the holy fathers propagated to posterity by harmonious definition.

Nor indeed ought it to prejudge us, as an example for our daily manner of life, that Joram, the sacrilegious king of Israel, when hemmed in on all sides by the troops of his enemies, is reported to have had haircloth beneath his rent garment; or that the Ninevites, in order to soften the sentence of God which had been pronounced against them through the prophet, were clad in the roughness of haircloth—since that king too is shown to have been so secretly clothed inwardly with it that, unless his outer garment had been torn from above, it could by no means have been perceived by anyone; and those men wore the covering of haircloth at that time when, with all lamenting over the destruction impending upon the city and clad in the same attire, no one could be marked out by anyone as making a display—because, unless there be an insolent diversity, uniformity gives no offense.

There are, moreover, certain things in the very dress of the Egyptians which are suited not so much to the care of the body as to a pattern of conduct, so that the observance of simplicity and innocence may be maintained even in the very quality of the clothing. For they wear day and night, without ceasing, very small hoods reaching down to the borders of the neck and shoulders, which cover only the head—so that, namely, they may be admonished, even by the imitation of the very covering, continually to guard the innocence and simplicity of little children. These, having returned to infancy in Christ, at all hours sing with affection and virtue: 'O Lord, my heart is not exalted, neither are my eyes lofty; neither have I walked in great matters, nor in things too wonderful for me. If I was not humble in mind,'

'but exalted my soul, then let me be as a weaned child upon its mother.' Clothed also with linen tunics which scarcely reach to the ends of the elbows, they carry the rest of their arms bare, so that the cutting-off of the sleeves may suggest that they have their acts and works of this world cut away, and the garment of the linen covering may teach that they are mortified to every earthly manner of life; and that through this they may hear the Apostle daily saying to them: 'Mortify your members which are upon the earth'; that same attire also protesting: 'For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God'; and: 'Yet now it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me; and to me the world is crucified, and I to the world.'

They wear also double cords woven of woolen thread, which the Greeks call analaboi, but which we may call under-girdles or bands, or properly arm-supports (rebracchiatoria). These, descending over the top of the neck and dividing on either side of the throat, encompass the hollows of both armpits and gird them up on this side and on that, so that, constricting the breadth of the garment, they may draw it in and fasten it close to the body; and thus, with their arms bound up, they may be rendered active and unimpeded for every work, striving to fulfill with all their might that precept of the Apostle: 'For these hands have ministered not only to me, but also to those who were with me.'

'Neither did we eat any man's bread for nought, but in labor and toil, working night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you'; and: 'If any will not work, neither let him eat.' After these things, with a narrow little cloak, pursuing both the humility of the garb and the cheapness of the price and economy, they cover their necks together with their shoulders; these are called mafortes, both in our speech and in theirs; and thus they avoid at once both the expense and the ostentation of the planeticae and byrri (traveling-cloaks). The last item of their attire is a goatskin, which is called a melotis or wallet, and a staff, which they carry in imitation of those who prefigured the pattern of this profession already in the Old Testament.

Concerning these the Apostle says: 'They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and in the caverns of the earth.' Yet this attire of goatskin signifies that they, having mortified all the wantonness of carnal passions, ought to stand fast in the utmost gravity of virtues, and that nothing wanton or hot-blooded of youth and of former levity should remain in their body. For that these same men carried a staff, Elisha too—who is one of them—teaches, when he says to Gehazi his servant, sending him to raise up the woman's son: 'Take my staff and go, run, lay it upon the face of the boy, and he shall live.'

Indeed the prophet would not have given it to him to carry, had he not been accustomed continually to bear it in his own hand. The carrying of this staff spiritually admonishes them that they ought never to go about unarmed among so many barking dogs of the vices and the invisible beasts of spiritual wickednesses (concerning which blessed David, seeking to be delivered, says: 'Deliver not, O Lord, to the beasts the soul that confesses to you'), but rather to beat back those that assail them with the sign of the cross and to drive them further off, and to extinguish those that rage against them by the continual remembrance of the Lord's Passion and by imitation of that mortification.

But as for footwear, refusing it as forbidden by the Gospel precept, whenever bodily weakness, or the morning cold of winter, or the fervent heat of midday demands it, they protect their feet with sandals only; interpreting that the use of these is signified by the Lord's permission, so that, if while set in this world we are by no means able to be wholly stripped of the care and anxiety of this flesh, nor are we able to be entirely loosed from it, we may at least, by a light occupation and slight entanglement, provide for the necessity of the body—and lest we suffer the feet of our soul (which ought always to be ready, unencumbered for the spiritual course and for preaching the peace of the Gospel—with which, after the fragrance of Christ's ointments, we run, and of which David says: 'I have run in thirst,' and Jeremiah:

'But I have not toiled in following you') be entangled with the deadly cares of this world—thinking, namely, of those things which pertain not to supplying the necessity of nature, but to superfluous and harmful pleasure. This we shall fulfill if, according to the Apostle, we make not provision for the flesh in its lusts. Yet although they use these sandals lawfully, as things permitted by the Lord's command, they nevertheless by no means allow them to cling to their feet when they draw near to celebrate or to receive the most holy Mysteries; deeming that even according to the letter that ought to be observed which is said to Moses, or to Joshua the son of Nun: 'Loose the latchet of your sandal,'

'for the place on which you stand is holy ground.' Let these things be said, lest we should seem to have passed over anything concerning the dress of the Egyptians. For the rest, only those things are to be maintained by us which the situation of the places or the custom of the province admits. For neither does the harshness of winter permit us to be content with sandals, or with tunics, or with a single garment; and the covering of a very small hood, or the wearing of a sheepskin, would furnish to those who see it derision rather than any edification.

Wherefore we judge that those things only, which we have mentioned above, and which are suited both to the humility of our profession and to the quality of the climate, are to be sought after by us also, so that the whole sum of our dress may consist not in novelty of habit—which might bring a stumbling-block to the men of this world—but in an honorable meanness. Clothed therefore with these garments, let the soldier of Christ know that he is first for this reason fortified with the constriction of the girdle: that he may go about, not only prompt in mind, but also ever unencumbered by the very habit, for all the uses and works of the monastery. For he will be proved so much the more fervent in spiritual progress and in the knowledge of divine things by the purity of his heart, the more devoted he shall be to the zeal of obedience and of labor.

Secondly, let him know that in the very habit of the girdle there lies no small mystery required of him. For the girding of the loins and the encircling of a dead skin signifies that he carries about the mortification of those members in which the seed-beds of lust and wantonness are contained; understanding that the Gospel command, which says, 'Let your loins be girded,' is by the apostolic interpretation ever pressed upon him: namely, 'Mortify your members which are upon the earth—fornication, uncleanness, lust, evil concupiscence.'

And for this reason we read in the Holy Scriptures that those only were girded with a girdle in whom the seed-beds of sexual union are found extinguished, and who sing forth in deed and in virtue that saying of blessed David: 'For I am become like a bottle in the frost'—inasmuch as, the flesh of the vices being scraped away to the very marrow, they stretch out by the strength of the spirit the deadened skin of the outer man.

And therefore he significantly added 'in the frost,' because, namely, they were by no means content with the mortification of the heart alone, but had also the motions of the outer man and the very incentives of nature frozen fast by the frost of continence coming upon them from without—no longer sustaining, according to the Apostle, any reign of sin in their mortal body, nor bearing flesh that wars against the spirit. ON THE CANONICAL MANNER OF THE NIGHTLY PRAYERS AND PSALMS. CHAPTERS. I. On the canonical manner of the nightly prayers and psalms. II. On the diversity of number appointed for the singing of psalms throughout the various provinces. III. On the observance of a uniform rule throughout all Egypt, and on the choosing of those who are set over the brethren. IV.

That throughout Egypt and the Thebaid the number of twelve psalms is observed. V. On the number of twelve psalms received by the tradition of an angel. VI. On the custom of the twelve prayers. VII. On the discipline of prayer. VIII. On the prayer that follows after the psalm. IX. On the state of prayer, concerning which a fuller instruction is reserved for the Conferences of the elders. X. With how great silence and brevity the prayers are gathered up among the Egyptians. XI. By what discipline the psalms are said among the Egyptians. XII. Why, while one chants, the rest sit in the assembly; and with what zeal they afterward prolong their vigils in their cells until dawn. XIII. Why it is not fitting to sleep after the night office. XIV.

In what manner they exercise the work of their hands and prayers together in their cells. XV. By what law of modesty each one returns to his cell after the dismissal of the prayers, and to what rebuke he is subject who does otherwise. XVI. That it is lawful for no one to pray with him who has been suspended from prayer. XVII. That he who rouses the brethren for prayer ought to admonish them at the accustomed hour. XVIII. That from the evening of the Sabbath until the evening of the Lord's Day the knees are not bent, nor throughout all the days of Pentecost (the fifty days). Girded therefore with this double girdle of which we have spoken, let the soldier of Christ meanwhile take note what is the manner of the canonical prayers and psalms anciently appointed by the holy fathers in the regions of the East.

But concerning the quality of these, or in what manner we may be able to pray without ceasing, according to the Apostle's saying, we shall set forth in their proper places—as much as the Lord shall grant—when we have begun to expound the Conferences of the elders. For we have found that many throughout other regions, according to the capacity of their own mind—having indeed, as the Apostle says, a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge—have set up for themselves diverse forms and rules concerning this matter. For some have decreed that twenty or thirty psalms, and these prolonged by the melodies of antiphons and by the addition of certain modulations, ought to be said each night; others have attempted even to exceed this measure; some, eighteen.

And in this way we have come to know that in various places a different canon was instituted; and we have seen almost as many forms and rules adopted as we have beheld monasteries and cells. There are those to whom it seemed good that even in the daily offices of prayer—that is, at Terce, Sext, and None—according to the number of the hours in which these acts of homage are rendered to God, the number of psalms and prayers should be made equal; to some it seemed good that six should be assigned to each of the day's assemblies.

Wherefore I think it necessary to bring forward into the midst the most ancient constitution of the fathers, which to this day is observed by the servants of God throughout all Egypt, so that the raw infancy of a new monastery, unpracticed in Christ, may rather be imbued with the most venerable institutions of the most ancient fathers. And so throughout all Egypt and the Thebaid, where the monasteries are established not according to the choice of each one renouncing the world, but by the successions and traditions of the elders continue even to the present day, or are founded destined to endure, we have seen that a lawful manner of prayers is retained in the evening assemblies and the nightly vigils.

For no one is permitted to preside over an assembly of the brethren, nor even over his own self, before he is rendered a stranger not only to all his own possessions, but until he also acknowledges that he is not even lord of himself, nor has power over himself.

For it is necessary that one who renounces this world, endowed with any possessions and riches whatsoever, should so seek the dwelling of the coenobium that he flatter himself in nothing out of those things which he left behind or brought into the monastery; that he so obey all, that he know he must return, according to the sentence of the Lord, to his former infancy—presuming nothing to himself by consideration of age or by the multitude of his years, which he reckons that he has lost, spent vainly in the world, but rather, on account of the merit of a beginner and the newness of the recruit's service, which he recognizes himself to be undertaking in the warfare of Christ, let him not delay to subject himself even to those younger than himself.

He is also compelled to undertake the habit of labor and sweat in such a way that, providing with his own hands, according to the Apostle's precept, his daily sustenance—whether for his own uses or for the needs of those who come—he may be able both to forget the pride and delights of his former life, and to acquire humility of heart by the contrition of labor. And therefore no one is chosen to preside over a congregation of brethren before he who is to be set in charge has learned by obeying what he ought to command those who are to obey, and has attained, from the institutions of the elders, what he ought to hand down to the younger. For they declare that to govern well or to be governed belongs to a wise man, and they define it to be the highest gift and grace of the Holy Spirit.

For neither can anyone appoint saving precepts for those who obey, except one who has first been instructed in all the disciplines of the virtues; nor can anyone obey an elder, except one who has been perfected, consummate in the fear of God and in the virtue of humility. And therefore we see diverse forms and rules adopted throughout the other provinces, because for the most part we, being ignorant of the instruction of the elders, dare to preside over monasteries and, having professed ourselves abbots before we are disciples, we appoint whatever has pleased us, being more ready to exact the observance of our own inventions than to preserve the tested doctrine of our forefathers.

But while we wish to explain the manner of prayers which above all ought to be observed, being too eagerly provoked by the institutions of the fathers, we have by a too hasty digression anticipated a narration which we were reserving for its proper places. Now therefore let us return to our proposition. Therefore throughout all Egypt and the Thebaid, as we have said, the number of twelve psalms is observed both in the evening and in the nightly solemnities, in such a way, at least, that after this there follow two lessons, one each of the Old and of the New Testament.

This manner, anciently established, therefore endures inviolate even to this day through so many ages among all the monasteries of those provinces, because it is affirmed to have been appointed by the elders not by human invention, but to have been brought down from heaven to the fathers by the teaching of an angel.

For when, in the first beginnings of the faith, but few—yet those most approved—were reckoned by the name of monks, who received their rule of living, as it were, from the Evangelist Mark of blessed memory, who was the first bishop to preside over the city of Alexandria, they retained not only those magnificent things which we read that the Church, or the multitudes of believers, at first celebrated in the Acts of the Apostles (namely, 'the multitude of believers was of one heart and one soul, neither did any of them say that anything of what he possessed was his own, but all things were common to them; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses, selling them, brought the prices of the things which they sold, and laid them before the feet of the Apostles:'

'and distribution was made to each, according as anyone had need'), but they had also heaped up things far more sublime than these. For, withdrawing into the more secret places of the suburbs, they led a life so strictly bound by rigor of abstinence, that even to those who were strangers to their religion the profession of their so arduous manner of life was a cause of amazement.

For with such fervor did they apply themselves day and night to the readings of the divine Scriptures, and to prayer, and to the work of their hands, that not even the appetite or the memory of food would interrupt them, unless on the second or third day the hunger of the body called for it; and they took food and drink not so much as desired but as necessary, and not even this before the setting of the sun—so that they might join the time of light with the pursuits of spiritual meditations, but the care of the body with the night; and they accomplished other things far more sublime than these. Concerning which even he who has learned less from the report of the natives may be instructed by ecclesiastical history. In that time, then, when the perfection of that primitive Church—

—while it still endured inviolate in a memory yet fresh among their successors, and the fervent faith of the few had not yet grown lukewarm by being dispersed into a multitude—the venerable fathers, with vigilant care taking counsel for those who should come after, met together to deliberate what manner should be decreed for the daily worship throughout the whole body of the brotherhood, so that they might transmit even to their successors an inheritance of piety and peace, freed from all strife of dissension; fearing, namely, lest some discord or variety, arising at any time in the daily solemnities among men who shared the same worship, should hereafter send forth the seed of error, or of rivalry, or of harmful schism.

And since each man, according to his own fervour and forgetful of another's weakness, judged that a rule ought to be established which he reckoned very easy in the confidence of his own faith and strength, giving too little thought to what was generally possible for the whole body of the brethren -- among whom the greater part must of necessity be found to consist of the weak -- they contended to institute an enormous number of psalms in diverse ways according to the vigour of their own spirit: some judged that fifty psalms should be said, others sixty, while some, not content even with this number, held that it ought to be exceeded. And there was among them, in the matter of the rule of religious life, a holy disagreement of pious contention, so that the hour of the most sacred evening solemnity came upon them while the question was still unsettled, when they were desiring to celebrate the daily rites of prayer.

One rose up into the midst to chant the psalms to the Lord. And while all were seated -- as is still the custom to this day in the regions of Egypt -- with their whole heart's attention fixed upon the words of the one chanting, he sang eleven psalms, separated by the interposition of prayers, with continuous verses in an even delivery; and completing the twelfth with the response of Alleluia, he was suddenly withdrawn from the eyes of all, and thus at once put an end both to the question and to the ceremonies.

Thereupon the venerable senate of the fathers, understanding that by the teaching of the angel a general rule had been appointed for the congregations of the brethren not without the dispensation of the Lord, decreed that this number should be kept both in the evening and in the nocturnal assemblies. To these they added two lessons, one from the Old Testament and the other from the New, joining them as though handed down by themselves and as it were beyond the ordinary rule, for those only who so wished and who by constant meditation strove to possess the memory of the divine Scriptures. But on the Sabbath day and on the Lord's day they recite both from the New Testament: one from the Apostle or from the Acts of the Apostles, and the other from the Gospels.

This also those do throughout all the days of Pentecost who have a care for reading or for the memory of the Scriptures. These aforesaid prayers, therefore, they begin and end in this manner: when the psalm is finished they do not at once fall down to the bowing of the knees, as many of us do in this region, who, before the psalm is well ended, hasten to prostrate ourselves in prayer, pressing on as quickly as possible to the swift completion of the office. And while we wish to exceed its measure, which was of old established by our elders, reckoning up the number of the remaining psalms, we are driven to hurry toward the end, thinking rather of the refreshment of our weary body than seeking the profit and advantages of prayer.

Among them, however, it is not so; but before they bend their knees they pray a little while, and standing they spend the greater part of the time in supplication. And so, after this, for a very brief moment they fall to the ground, as though only adoring the divine mercy, and rise again with the utmost speed; and once more standing erect with hands outstretched, they linger in their prayers in the same manner as they had before prayed while standing. For they say that one who lies prostrate too long upon the ground is assailed more grievously not only by wandering thoughts but also by sleep. Would that we too did not know this to be true by experience and by daily habit -- we who, often prostrate on the ground, desire this very bowing of our limbs to be prolonged the longer, not so much for prayer's sake as under the pretext of refreshment.

But when he who is to gather up the prayer has risen from the ground, all rise together at the same moment, so that no one presumes either to bend the knee before he inclines, or to tarry when he has risen from the ground, lest he be thought not so much to have followed the conclusion of the one who gathers up the prayer as to have celebrated his own.

That practice too which we have seen in this province -- that when one is chanting, at the close of the psalm all who stand by sing together with a loud voice, 'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit' -- we have nowhere throughout all the East heard; but rather, in the silence of all, when the psalm is finished by the one chanting, a prayer follows, while it is customary for the antiphon to be concluded only with this glorification of the Trinity. And since the order of the subject has led us on consequently to the manner of the canonical prayers -- of which, although we reserve a fuller treatment for the Conferences of the elders, where we shall set them forth more fully when we begin to discuss their quality and continuance in the words of those men -- nevertheless I think it necessary, as the occasion of the place and of the narrative itself has thus offered, even at present to touch briefly on a few points, so that, forming meanwhile the movements of the outer man and, as it were, laying now certain foundations of prayer, we may hereafter with less labour, when we begin to treat of the state of the inner man, also raise up the heights of his prayers.

Above all providing for this: that if the end of our life, coming beforehand, should shut us out from that narrative which we desire, God willing, to set forth at the fitting time, we may at least leave to you in this work the beginnings of a matter so especially necessary -- for those who burn with desire everything is too slow -- so that, while the respite of this present sojourn is granted us, we may at least meanwhile sketch beforehand certain outlines of prayer, by which those especially who dwell in the coenobia may be able to some extent to be instructed.

At the same time also making provision for those who perhaps, coming upon this book only, will not be able to reach that other one, so that they may be found imbued, even in this part, with instruction concerning the quality of prayer; and just as they have been instructed concerning the habit and clothing of the outer man, so also they may not be ignorant of how they ought to present him for the offering of spiritual sacrifices. For indeed these little books, which at present we are arranging, with the Lord's help, to hammer out, will be more suitably fitted to the observance of the outer man and to the institution of the coenobia; but those others will pertain rather to the discipline of the inner man and to the perfection of the heart, and to the life and teaching of the anchorites.

When, therefore, they come together to celebrate the aforesaid solemnities, which they call the synaxis, so great a silence is maintained by all that, although so numerous a multitude of brethren assembles into one place, no man whatever is believed to be present except the one who, rising up, chants the psalm in the midst -- and especially when the prayer is being completed.

During it no spitting is sent forth, no clearing of the throat is heard to disturb, no cough breaks in, no sleepy yawn is drawn out with gaping and slackened jaws; no groans, no sighs are uttered even by the bystanders such as would hinder others; no voice at all is heard except that of the priest concluding the prayer -- unless perhaps such a sound as has escaped the enclosure of the mouth through an ecstasy of mind, and which has crept imperceptibly upon the heart when the spirit is kindled with an immoderate and intolerable fervour, while it strives to breathe out through a certain unutterable groaning, from the inmost chambers of its breast, those things which the enkindled mind cannot restrain within itself.

But the man who, set in a lukewarmness of mind, supplicates with a loud cry, or sends forth from his throat any of those things we have mentioned above -- and especially one who is overcome by yawning -- they declare to sin in two ways: first, because he is guilty in regard to his own prayer, in that he plainly offers it negligently; secondly, because by his undisciplined noise he also interrupts the attention of another who perhaps could have prayed more intently. And therefore they enjoin that the prayer be concluded with a swift ending, lest, if we linger in it, some overflow of spittle or phlegm interrupt the ecstasy of our prayer.

And therefore, while it is still fervent, it must be snatched up swiftly, as it were, from the very jaws of the enemy; who, since he is ever hostile to us, then stands by most hostile of all, when he perceives that we wish to offer prayers to the Lord against him -- hastening, by stirring up thoughts or various humours, to lead our mind away from the intent of supplication, and thereby striving to cool it from the fervour it had begun. For this reason they judge it more profitable that prayers be short indeed, but very frequent: on the one hand, that by more frequently beseeching God we may be able to cleave to Him continually; on the other, that by concise brevity we may escape the darts of the ensnaring devil, which he presses to inflict upon us especially when we pray.

And therefore they are not eager to conclude even those very psalms, which they chant in the congregation, with a continuous delivery, but according to the number of verses they complete them divided by two or three breaks with the interposition of prayers, distinctly and part by part. For they are delighted not by the multitude of verses, but by the understanding of the mind, pursuing with all their strength that saying: 'I will sing with the spirit, I will sing also with the mind.'

And so they hold it more profitable that ten verses be sung with reasonable articulation than that a whole psalm be poured out with confusion of mind -- which is sometimes produced by the haste of the one reciting, when, considering the measure and number of the remaining psalms that are to be chanted, he takes no care to lay open the distinction of the senses to his hearers, but hastens to arrive at the end of the synaxis.

Finally, if any of the younger men, whether through fervour of spirit or because he is not yet trained, begins to exceed the measure of chanting, the progress of the one chanting is cut short by a clap of the elder, who, giving it with his hand upon the seat on which he sits, makes all rise to prayer -- providing above all that no weariness be produced in those sitting by the prolixity of the psalms, whereby he who chants not only loses through himself the fruit of understanding, but also incurs damage through those whom he has caused, by his excess, to run into a loathing of the synaxis. This too is observed among them with all diligence: that in the response of the Alleluia no psalm is said except that which is marked in its title with the inscription of Alleluia.

But the aforesaid number of twelve psalms they so divide that, if there be two brethren, they each chant six; if three, four each; if four, three each. Below which number they never chant in the congregation, and likewise, however great a multitude may have assembled, they never chant more than four brethren in the synaxis. This canonical number of twelve psalms, which we have mentioned, they relieve with such rest of the body that, when they celebrate these same solemnities of the congregations after their custom, all -- except the one who has risen up to say the psalms in the midst -- sitting upon very lowly seats, hang upon the voice of the one chanting with the whole attention of the heart.

For they grow so weary with fasting and with the labour of the whole day and night, that unless they were aided by refreshment of this kind, they could not accomplish even this number standing. For they allow no time to pass free from the exercise of work, because they strive not only to exercise with all urgency by their hands those tasks which the brightness of day permits, but they also seek out with anxious mind those kinds of labour which not even the thickest darkness of night itself can hinder -- believing that they will attain a so much loftier and purer contemplation of spiritual things in the mind's gaze, the more devoutly they are set upon the pursuit of work and of toil.

And therefore they judge a moderate number of canonical prayers to have been divinely appointed, so that for those more ardent in faith a space might be reserved, in which the tireless course of their virtue might extend itself, and yet, for the weary and sick bodies, no loathing might be begotten from excess.

And so, when the offices of the canonical prayers have been finished according to their custom, each one, returning to his own cell -- which he is permitted to inhabit either alone or with only one other, namely one whom the fellowship of work, or the training of discipleship and the instilling of discipline has joined to him, or at any rate one whom a likeness of virtues has made his equal -- they again celebrate the same office of prayers more diligently, as a kind of private sacrifice; nor thereafter is any of them relaxed into the rest of sleep, until, with the brightness of day coming on, the daily work succeeds to the nocturnal labour and meditation.

This labour, besides that reason by which -- striving with all their industry -- they believe themselves to offer a sacrifice to God from the fruit of their hands, they keep with all observance for two causes. Which we too, if we are zealous for perfection, it behooves to observe with the same diligence. The first: lest perchance the envious enemy, grudging our purity -- against which he ever especially lies in wait and is unceasingly hostile -- should defile by some illusion of sleep the purification acquired by us through the nocturnal psalms and prayers.

For he, after that satisfaction which we have offered for our negligences and ignorances, and after the pardon of our confession implored with copious groanings, hastens all the more anxiously to stain us, if he finds a time of rest -- striving then especially to cast down and unnerve our confidence, when he perceives us tending more fervently toward God through the purity of our prayers; so that sometimes those whom he could not wound through the whole space of the night, he attempts to dishonour under the very brief time of that hour. But the second cause: that, even though no such dread illusion of the devil should arise, an intervening pure slumber may bring forth sluggishness in the monk who is soon to awake.

And, bringing a sluggish torpor upon the mind, it blunts its vigour throughout the whole space of the day, and dulls that keenness of perception and drains away that richness of heart which is able to keep us more cautious and more robust through the whole day against all the snares of the enemy. Wherefore, to the canonical vigils they subjoin private watches of their own, and these succeed the former with greater observance, so that both the purification which has been acquired by psalms and prayers may not perish, and a more intent solicitude, to guard us more diligently through the day, may be prepared by nocturnal meditation. And therefore they carry these out with the addition of work, lest sleep should be able to creep upon them as though idle.

For just as scarcely any time of leisure is excepted by them, so neither is any end set even to spiritual meditation.

For, exercising equally the virtues of body and soul, they balance the wages of the outer man with the profits of the inner man; fixing the weights of works, against the slippery motions of the heart and the unstable fluctuation of thoughts, like a certain tenacious and immovable anchor, to which the volubility and roving of the heart, being bound, may be kept within the enclosure of the cell as though in the most trusty harbour; and thus, being intent only upon spiritual meditation and the guarding of thoughts, it may not only not allow the ever-watchful mind to fall into consent to any evil suggestion, but may also guard it from every superfluous and idle thought -- so that it can scarcely easily be discerned by anyone which depends upon which: that is, whether it is for the sake of spiritual meditation that they exercise the incessant work of their hands, or whether it is by reason of the continuance of work that they acquire so illustrious a progress of the spirit and light of knowledge.

When, therefore, the psalms are finished and the daily congregation, as we have mentioned above, is dismissed, none of them dares to stay behind even for a little, or to converse with another; nor, throughout the whole space of the day, does he presume to go forth from his cell or to forsake the work which he is accustomed to exercise in it -- unless perhaps they be summoned to the office of some necessary work. This they perform, having gone outside, in such a way that no conversation at all is joined among them.

But each one so carries out the work enjoined upon him that, by rehearsing from memory some psalm or portion of Scripture, he gives no room or time not only to a harmful conspiracy or to evil counsels, but not even to idle conversations -- the office of both mouth and heart being continually occupied in spiritual meditation. For it is guarded with the utmost observance that no one be caught, together with another -- and especially the younger men -- to have stood still even for a moment together, or to have withdrawn anywhere, or to have held one another's hands.

But if any be found to have committed something of those things which are forbidden, contrary to the discipline of this rule, as contumacious men and transgressors of the commandments, pronounced guilty of no light fault, they cannot be free even from the suspicion of conspiracy and of evil counsel. Which fault, unless they wipe away by public penance with all the brethren gathered together into one, none of them is permitted to be present at the prayer of the brethren. Indeed, if anyone for any committed offense has been suspended from prayer, no one whatever has license to pray with him, before his reconciliation and the pardon of his offense has been publicly granted by the abbot in the presence of all the brethren, with penance submitted to the ground.

For on this account, with such observance, they separate and set themselves apart from the fellowship of his prayer, because they believe that he who is suspended from prayer is, according to the Apostle, delivered over to Satan; and that whoever, moved by inconsiderate piety, should presume to communicate in his prayer before he is received back by the elder, makes himself a partner in his condemnation -- delivering, namely, himself voluntarily to Satan, to whom that other had been assigned for the amendment of his guilt: incurring thereby an even far graver crime, in that, by mingling himself with the other in the communion either of conversation or of prayer, he begets in him a greater kindling of insolence and nourishes the contumacy of the offender unto worse.

For, granting a pernicious solace, he will make his heart more and more hardened, and will not suffer him to be humbled on account of that for which he had been separated; and thereby he will make him either to make no great account of the elder's rebuke, or carelessly to think of satisfaction and pardon.

But he to whom the summoning of the religious assembly, or the care of the synaxis, is committed, does not presume to rouse the brethren also to the daily vigils at random, as it pleases him, nor just as he happens to have been awakened in the night, or as the opportunity of his own sleep or wakefulness exhorts him; but, although the daily custom compels him to awake at the usual hour, nevertheless, anxiously and frequently exploring by the course of the stars the time appointed for the congregation, he invites them to the office of prayers -- providing that in neither respect he be found incautious: whether, oppressed by sleep, he pass beyond the appointed hour of the night, or, about to sleep and hastening to slumber, he anticipate that same hour, and be believed not so much to have served the spiritual office or the rest of all, as to have satisfied his own repose.

XVIII. This too we ought to know: that from the evening of the Sabbath, which dawns into the Lord's day, until the following evening, among the Egyptians the knees are not bent -- nor even throughout all the days of Pentecost -- nor is the rule of fasting kept on those days. The reason for these matters will be set forth in its proper place in the Conferences of the elders, when the Lord shall so command. Now it is our purpose only to run through the causes in a brief narrative, lest, exceeding the chastened measure of the volume, it burden the reader either with weariness or with toil. ON THE CANONICAL MANNER OF THE DAILY PRAYERS AND PSALMS. CHAPTERS. I. On the solemnity of the third, sixth, or ninth hour, which are observed in the regions of Syria. II.

That among the Egyptians, without any distinction of hours, throughout the whole day they persist continually, with the addition of work, in prayers and psalms. III. That throughout all the East the solemnity of the third, sixth, or ninth hour is finished with only three psalms and prayers, and why these spiritual offices are more especially assigned to these hours. IIII. That the morning solemnity was not established by ancient tradition, but was devised in our own time for a certain reason. V. That after the morning prayers one ought not to return to sleep. VI. That nothing has been changed by the elders concerning the ancient order of the psalms, when the morning solemnity was established. VII.

That for him who has not come to the daily prayer before the first psalm is finished, it is not permitted to enter the oratory; but in the nocturnal offices there is a pardonable delay up to the end of the second psalm. VIII. What measure of time the vigils, which are celebrated from the evening as the Sabbath dawns, should keep, or in what order they should be celebrated. VIIII. Why the vigils were appointed as the Sabbath day dawns, and why throughout all the East the release from fasting is undertaken on the Sabbath day. X. Whence it came about that in the City fasting is observed on the Sabbath day. XI. In what respect the solemnity of the Lord's day is held to differ from the custom of the other days. XII.

On what days, when supper is set before the brethren, no psalm is said by those coming to the refection, as is wont to be done at the midday meals. Concerning the nocturnal manner of prayers and psalms, which is held throughout Egypt, I think, God granting it, that it has been dealt with as far as the slenderness of our ability has prevailed. Now we must discourse concerning the solemnities of the third, sixth, and ninth hours according to the rule of the monasteries of Palestine or Mesopotamia, as we said beforehand in the prologue -- moderating the perfection of the Egyptians and the inimitable rigour of their discipline by the institutes of these.

For among those men, these offices, which we are constrained to discharge to the Lord through the distinctions of hours and the intervals of time with the admonition of one who compels us, are celebrated spontaneously and continually throughout the whole space of the day, with the addition of work. For the labour of the hands is so incessantly exercised by them privately throughout their cells, that the meditation of the psalms or of the other Scriptures is never wholly omitted at all; and mingling with it prayers and supplications at every single moment, they consume the whole time of the day in those offices which we celebrate at an appointed time.

Wherefore, except for the evening and nocturnal congregations, no public solemnity is celebrated among them during the day, apart from the Sabbath day or the Lord's day, on which at the third hour they come together for the sake of the sacred communion. For that which is offered incessantly is more than that which is discharged at intervals of time; and a voluntary gift is more welcome than the functions which are rendered by canonical compulsion -- David also exulting in something more glorious on this account, when he says: 'I will sacrifice to Thee voluntarily,' and: 'Let the freewill offerings of my mouth be well-pleasing to Thee, O Lord.'

And so in the monasteries of Palestine or Mesopotamia and of the whole East, the solemnities of the aforesaid hours are daily finished with three psalms, so that both the assiduity of prayers may be offered to God at appointed times, and the necessary offices of work, with the spiritual services completed in due measure, may in no way be able to be hindered. For at these three times we know that the prophet Daniel also daily, with the windows opened in his upper chamber, poured out prayers to the Lord. And not undeservedly are these times more especially assigned to religious offices: for at them the fulfillment of the promises and the summit of our salvation has been accomplished.

For at the third hour it is proved that the Holy Spirit, once promised through the prophets, first descended upon the apostles as they were set in the office of prayers. For when, on account of the utterance of tongues which flowed forth from them by the infusion of the Holy Spirit, the unbelieving nation of the Jews, astonished and at the same time mocking, said that they were filled with new wine, Peter, standing in the midst of them, said: 'Men of Israel, and all you who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is the third hour of the day; but this is that which was spoken through the prophet Joel:'

'And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: yea, upon My servants and upon My handmaids in those days will I pour out of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy.' All of which things we see fulfilled at the third hour, and the foretold coming of the Holy Spirit, prophesied through the prophets, passed upon the apostles at that same time. But at the sixth hour our Lord and Saviour, an immaculate victim, was offered to the Father, and, ascending the cross for the salvation of the whole world, He blotted out the sins of the human race:

Having despoiled the principalities and powers, he led them openly in triumph, and set free all of us who were liable and bound fast by the debt of an unbreakable bond, taking it out of the way and fastening it to the trophy of his cross. At that same hour, too, in a rapture of mind, there was revealed to Peter from heaven, by a voice sent down from God, the calling of the nations, through the lowering of the evangelical vessel let down from on high, and the purification of every kind of living creatures set within it, when the voice said to him: 'Rise, Peter, kill and eat.' And that vessel, let down from heaven by four beginnings, is plainly recognized to signify nothing other than the Gospel.

For although, being distinguished by the fourfold narrative of the Evangelists, it seems to have four beginnings, yet there is but one body of the Gospel, embracing namely both the nativity and the divinity of the same Christ, and his miracles and his passion as well. And beautifully it does not say 'a linen cloth,' but 'as it were a linen cloth': for a linen cloth is a sign of mortification. Since therefore the death of the Lord's passion is undergone not by the law of human nature, but by the choice of his own will, it is called 'as it were a linen cloth.' For being dead according to the flesh, he was not dead according to the spirit, since neither was his soul left in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption. And again he says, 'No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself:'

'I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.' And so in this vessel of the Gospels destined once more, that is, inscribed by the Holy Spirit, all the nations, which were once accounted unclean as being placed outside the observance of the Law, flowing together through the trustfulness of faith, that from the worship of idols they might be wholesomely offered up and might advance to the food of salvation, are brought to Peter, purified by the Lord's voice. But at the ninth hour, penetrating the lower regions, he extinguished the inextricable darkness of Tartarus by the flashing of his own splendor, and shattering its brazen gates and breaking in pieces its iron bars, the captivity of the saints which was shut up

held fast in the pitiless darkness of hell—he wholesomely carried captive with him up to the heavens, and having removed the fiery sword, he restored the ancient dweller to paradise by a devout confession. At that same hour also Cornelius the centurion, persevering in his prayers with his accustomed devotion, learned—an angel speaking with him—that the memorial of his prayers and of his almsgiving had been made before the Lord, and openly at the ninth hour the mysteries of the calling of the nations were disclosed to him, which had been revealed to Peter at the sixth hour in a rapture of mind. In another place too, concerning this same time, it is thus narrated in the Acts of the Apostles: 'Now Peter and John were going up into the temple at the ninth hour of prayer.'

By these things it is clearly proved that these hours were consecrated to religious observances by the holy and apostolic men not without reason, and that they ought likewise to be observed by us as well: for unless we are compelled, as by a kind of law, to discharge these offices of piety at least at the appointed times, we spend the whole space of the day wrapped in forgetfulness or sloth or occupations, without any interposition of prayer. And what should be said of the evening sacrifices, which are decreed to be continually offered even in the Old Testament under the Mosaic law? For that morning holocausts and evening sacrifices were unceasingly offered all the days in the temple, even though with figurative victims, we can prove even from this, that it is sung by David:

'Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight: the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.' In which passage a still more sacred meaning can be understood of that true evening sacrifice as well, which either in the evening was handed down by the Lord and Savior to the apostles as they supped, when he instituted the most sacred mysteries of the Church, or which he himself on the following day, in the very end of the ages, was offered to the Father as an evening sacrifice by the lifting up of his hands for the salvation of the whole world. And this stretching out of his hands upon the gibbet is quite properly called a 'lifting up.' For all of us lying in hell he lifted up to the heavens, according to the sentence of his promise, when he said: 'When I shall be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself.'

Concerning the morning solemnity, that too instructs us which is wont to be chanted daily in it: 'O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day,' and: 'In the mornings I will meditate on thee,' and: 'I prevented the dawn, and cried,' and again: 'My eyes prevented the morning watches: that I might meditate on thy words.' At these hours also that Gospel householder hired laborers into his vineyard. For thus is he described as having hired first in the early morning, which time designates our morning solemnity; then at the third, thence at the sixth, after these at the ninth, and last of all at the eleventh, in which the hour of lamp-lighting is signified.

It should nevertheless be known that this morning office, which is now observed especially in the western regions, was in our time first instituted as a canonical function in our own monastery, where our Lord Jesus Christ, born of a Virgin and deigning to take on the increases of human infancy, confirmed by his grace our infancy also, still tender and suckling in religion. For up to that time we find that this morning solemnity—which after the night psalms and prayers is wont to be celebrated in the monasteries of Gaul after a little interval of time—was consummated together with the daily vigils, and the remaining hours were assigned by our elders to the refreshment of the body.