Lauds in The Early Christian Ages and Their Origin
Lauds, or the Morning Office or Office of Aurora, is one of the most ancient Offices and can be traced back to Apostolic times. In the 6th century St. Benedict gives a detailed description of them in his Rule: the Psalms (almost identical with those of the Roman Liturgy), the canticle, the last three Psalms, the capitulum, hymn, versicle, the canticle Benedictus, and the concluding part. St. Columbanus and the Irish documents give us only very vague information on the Office of Lauds. An effort has been made to reconstruct it in accordance with the Antiphonary of Bangor, but this document may not give the complete Office.
Gregory of Tours also makes several allusions to this Office, which he calls Matutini hymni. He gives as its constitutive parts: Psalm 50, the Benedicite, Psalms 148 - 150, and the versicles. Descriptions predating the fifth and fourth centuries appear in John Cassian, in Melania the Younger, in the Peregrinatio Ætheriae, St. John Chrysostom, St. Hilary, Eusebius.
Other forms of the Office are practiced in the different Christian provinces. The general features, however, remain the same: it remains the Office of the dawn (Aurora), the Office of sunrise, the morning Office, the morning praises, the Office of cock-crow (Gallicinium, ad galli cantus), the Office of the Resurrection of Christ. The author calls it hymni matutinales; it is considered the principal office of the day. In Jerusalem the liturgy displays all its pomp: the bishop was present with all his clergy, the office being celebrated around the Grotto of the Holy Sepulchre itself; after the psalms and canticles had been sung, the litanies were chanted, and the bishop then blessed the people. The earliest evidence of Lauds appears in the second and third centuries in the Canons of Hippolytus, in St. Cyprian, and in the Apostolic Fathers, so much so that Bäumer does not hesitate to assert that Lauds together with Vespers are the most ancient office, and owe their origin to the Apostles.
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