Name
The word "Prime" comes from Latin and refers to the first hour of daylight (i.e., dawn). Originally, in the West, Prime was called matitutina (hora), "morning hour". Later, in order to distinguish it from the nocturnal offices of Matins and Lauds, and to include it among hours of the day, it was called prima. The name is first met with in the Rule of St. Benedict. In the Antiphonary of Bangor it is called secunda.
In the Eastern liturgies, the names for this office in the various languages also mean "first (hour)", based upon the traditional methods of calculating the hour of the day. In Ancient Rome, the period of daylight was divided into 12 hours, but the length of each hour would change depending upon the season of the year. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, in some monasteries the times of the services are still calculated by the shadow of the sun to this day.
Read more about this topic: Prime (liturgy)
Famous quotes containing the word name:
“What is it? a learned man
Could give it a clumsy name.
Let him name it who can,
The beauty would be the same.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“Name any name and then remember everybody you ever knew who bore than name. Are they all alike. I think so.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)