Testament of Our Lord

Historical English source page 257

II. 24] NOTES 237 thou shalt remember another day and make the type of the resurrection ” (see below). (3) Hauler 119 begins a fragment thus: “God who lieth nut, who remembereth His saints, and sent out His Word, illuminating them. Therefore at that hour Christ was pierced in (His) side, and poured out water and blood, and illuminating the rest of the day brought (them) to the evening. Pray also before going to bed. At midnight wash the hands and pray.” In Eg.C.O. and H. the sunset prayer is omitted. But as we find it in C.H., and also (see below) in A.C., St. Jerome, and Silvia, distinct from that of the ninth hour, it is probable that Test. purposely altered the phrase in Eg. C.O. and H. about our Lord illuminating the rest of the day (which is much involved, and which Test. probably did not well understand), and made a separate hour of prayer out of it. In the Test. midnight prayer the words “ because of the resurrection” are an addition, as is the second reference to the dawn. In the latter, note the obvious anachronism about the apostles singing psalms. For the “beginning of another day,” see Note on “Day and night” in I. 21 (p. 159). (4) In A.C. viii. 33 (Lagarde, 27018 ff.) the hours are dawn, the third, sixth, ninth, evening, cockcrow; prayers to be said publicly or privately; the evening and dawn congregations are to be convened by the bishop. The reasons for these hours are not the same as in Test., but are similar in kind. If they cannot go to church because of the unbelievers, the bishop is to assemble them at home (xar’ ofxov)—apparently if the ungodly have taken possession of the church. If there cannot be a congregation, each one, or two or three, are to pray, etc., in private. The appointed service in A.C. viii. is only for evening and dawn, in that order. (5) St. Jerome, Hp. 27, speaking of Paula’s convent at Bethlehem at the end of the fourth century (see Dict. Chr. Biog. iv. 218; and Wordsworth, Ministry of Grace, 347), mentions the hours of prayer as the morning, the third, sixth, and ninth hours, evening, midnight. But here he carries us a step further, for he is speaking of community prayers at these hours; they say the Psalter together in order. In Zp. 7, ad Laetam, he names these hours as times for private devotion, substituting “in the night” for “midnight” ; and “lamp light- ing” and “evening” are synonymous. Cassian (nst. iu. 3, quoted by Wordsworth) says the full order of hour services at Bethlehem was only established during his stay there, A.D. 390-403.