None (liturgy) - Origin of None

Origin of None

The remainder of this article uses the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917; it describes the office before the reforms of the Second Vatican Council; the numbering system of psalms is that of the Septuagint and they are said in Latin:

According to an Ancient Greek and Roman custom, the day was, like the night, divided into four parts, each consisting of three hours. As the last hour of each division gave its name to the respective quarter of the day, the third division (from noon to about 3) was called the None (Latin nonus, nona, ninth). This division of the day was in vogue also among the Jews, from whom the Church borrowed it. The following texts, moreover, favor this view: "Now Peter and John went up into the temple at the ninth hour of prayer" (Acts 3:1); "And Cornelius said: Four days ago, unto this hour, I was praying in my house, at the ninth hour, and behold a man stood before me" (Acts 10:30); "Peter went up to the higher parts of the house to pray, about the sixth hour" (Acts 10:9). The most ancient testimony refers to this custom of Terce, Sext, and None, for instance Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, the Canons of Hippolytus, and even the "Didache ("Teaching of the Apostles"). The last-mentioned prescribed prayer thrice each day, without, however, fixing the hours.

Saint Clement of Alexandria and likewise Tertullian, as early as the end of the 2nd century, expressly mention the Canonical Hours of Terce, Sext, and None, as specially set apart for prayer. Tertullian says explicitly that we must always pray, and that there is no time prescribed for prayer; he adds, nevertheless, these significant words: "As regards the time, there should be no lax observation of certain hours—I mean of those common hours which have long marked the divisions of the day, the third, the sixth, and the ninth, and which we may observe in Scripture to be more solemn than the rest."

Clement and Tertullian in these passages refer only to private prayer at these hours. The Canons of Hippolytus also speak of Terce, Sext, and None, as suitable hours for private prayer; however, on the two station days, Wednesday and Friday, when the faithful assembled in the church, and perhaps on Sundays, these hours were recited successively in public. St. Cyprian mentions the same hours as having been observed under the Old Law, and adduces reasons for the Christians observing them also. In the 4th century there is evidence to show that the practice had become obligatory, at least for the monks.

The prayer of Prime, at six o'clock in the morning, was not added until a later date, but Vespers goes back to the earliest days. The texts we have cited give no information as to what these prayers consisted of. Evidently they contained the same elements as all other prayers of that time—psalms recited or chanted, canticles or hymns, either privately composed or drawn from Holy Writ, and litanies or prayers properly so-called.