Chapter II.

Of the difference of the number of Psalms appointed to be sung in all the provinces.

For we have found that many in different countries, according to the fancy of their mind (having, indeed, as the Apostle says, “a zeal, for God but not according to knowledge”38 The hood, or cowl (cuculla), was anciently worn by children and peasants, and thus was said to symbolize humility. Compare the account of the Egyptian monks given by Sozomen, Hist. III. xiv.: “They wore a covering on their heads called a cowl to show that they ought to live with the same innocence and purity as infants who are nourished with milk and wear a covering of the same form.” Rom. x. 2. According to S. Jerome, Hilarion was the first to introduce the monastic life into Palestine (Vita Hilar.). His work was carried on by his companion and pupil Hesycas and Epiphanius, afterwards Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus. In Asia Minor S. Basil was the greater organizer of monasticism, though, as he tells us, there were already many monks, not only in Egypt but also in Palestine, Cœlosyria, and Mesopotamia (Ep. ccxxiii.). See also on the early monks of Palestine and the East, Sozomen, H. E., Book VI., cc. xxxii.–xxxv.), have made for themselves different rules and arrangements in this matter. For some have appointed that each night twenty or thirty Psalms should be said, and that these should be prolonged by the music of antiphonal singing39 Ps. cxxx. (cxxxi.) 1, 2. Antiphona. In this passage the word appears to mean the actual Psalms sung antiphonally, rather than what is generally meant in later writings by the term. Cf. the Rule of Aurelian, “Dicite matutinarios, i.e., primo canticum in antiphona, deinde directaneum, judica me Deus…in antiphona dicite hymnum, splendor patudæ gloriæ.” And see the use of the word later on by Cassian himself, c. vii., and by the addition of some modulations as well. Others have even tried to go beyond this number. Some use eighteen. And in this way we have found different rules appointed in different places, and the system and regulations that we have seen are almost as many in number as the monasteries and cells which we have visited. There are some, too, to whom it has seemed good that in the day offices of prayer, viz., Tierce, Sext, and Nones,40 The third, sixth, and ninth hours were observed as hours of prayer from the earliest days. Cf. Tertullian De Oratione, c. 25; Clem. Alex. Stromata, VII., c. 7, § 40. the number of Psalms and prayers should be made to correspond exactly to the number of the hours at which the services are offered up to the Lord.41 I.e., that at Tierce there should be three Psalms, at Sext six, and at Nones nine. Some have thought fit that six Psalms should be assigned to each service of the day. And so I think it best to set forth the most ancient system of the fathers which is still observed by the servants of God throughout the whole of Egypt, so that your new monastery in its untrained infancy in Christ42 Castor had founded a monastery about the year 420. may be instructed in the most ancient institutions of the earliest fathers.