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112-578: The name of the Midnight Office is sometimes translated as " Nocturns "; but this is misleading, as in the West "Nocturn" refers to a division within the completely different office of Matins . Originally, monks would rise in the middle of the night to sing praises to God. Saint Symeon the New Theologian mentions Psalm 118 , a significant component of the Midnight Office on weekdays, being said privately in

224-596: A catafalque in the center of the church. After the Opening and Psalm 50, the Canon of Great Saturday is chanted (repeated from the Matins service the night before) as a reflection upon the meaning of Christ’s death and His Harrowing of Hell . During the last Ode of the Canon, the priest and deacon carry the epitaphios into the sanctuary and lay it upon the Altar, where it will remain throughout

336-502: A feria or a vigil day, there is no division into nocturns and the 12 psalms and 3 readings are treated as a single nocturn. In comparison with the post-Vatican II revision, the readings are very brief. In 1911 Pope Pius X introduced a radical revision of the psalter of the Roman Breviary . He ended many of the previous repetitions of the same psalms day after day. For instance, Psalms 148–150, which previously were said every day at

448-623: A combined linguistic and historiographical approach, Hendel and Joosten date the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible (the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 and the Samson story of Judges 16 and 1 Samuel) to having been composed in the premonarchial early Iron Age ( c.  1200 BCE ). The Dead Sea Scrolls , discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1947, are copies that can be dated to between 250 BCE and 100 CE. They are

560-532: A day "on rising, at the lighting of the evening lamp, at bedtime, at midnight" and "the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day, being hours associated with Christ's Passion." With respect to midnight prayer and the ablutions preceding it, Hippolytus wrote: Around midnight rise and wash your hands with water and pray. If you are married, pray together. But if your spouse is not yet baptized, go into another room to pray, and then return to bed. Do not hesitate to pray, for one who has been joined in marital relations

672-407: A group: "Let there be no failure of prayers in the hours of night — no idle and reckless waste of the occasions of prayer"( nulla sint horis nocturnis precum damna, nulla orationum pigra et ignava dispendia ). The Apostolic Tradition speaks of prayer at midnight and again at cockcrow, but seemingly as private, not communal, prayer. Prayer at midnight and at cockcrow was associated with passages in

784-463: A place like Alexandria, Egypt. Moreover, in the early centuries of the church, some locales had better scribes than others. Modern scholars have come to recognize that the scribes in Alexandria – which was a major intellectual center in the ancient world – were particularly scrupulous, even in these early centuries, and that there, in Alexandria, a very pure form of the text of the early Christian writings

896-408: A profound influence both on Western culture and history and on cultures around the globe. The study of it through biblical criticism has indirectly impacted culture and history as well. The Bible is currently translated or is being translated into about half of the world's languages. Some view biblical texts to be morally problematic, historically inaccurate, or corrupted, although others find it

1008-602: A single group and followed by only three readings. It was planned to proceed also to a revision of the readings at matins in view of the excessive abbreviation of the scriptural readings and the inclusion of unhistorical content in the accounts of the saints. This revision was not in fact carried out until after the Second Vatican Council , but concrete work on it had already begun under Pope Pius XII . The 1960 Code of Rubrics of Pope John XXIII specified what celebrations had three nocturns: The Code of Rubrics removed

1120-463: A special two-column form emphasizing their internal parallelism, which was found early in the study of Hebrew poetry. "Stichs" are the lines that make up a verse "the parts of which lie parallel as to form and content". Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת, which is also the Hebrew for "truth"). Hebrew cantillation

1232-481: A useful historical source for certain people and events or a source of moral and ethical teachings. The Bible neither calls for nor condemns slavery outright, but there are verses that address dealing with it, and these verses have been used to support it, although the Bible has also been used to support abolitionism . Some have written that supersessionism begins in the book of Hebrews where others locate its beginnings in

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1344-549: A variety of disparate cultures and backgrounds. British biblical scholar John K. Riches wrote: [T]he biblical texts were produced over a period in which the living conditions of the writers – political, cultural, economic, and ecological – varied enormously. There are texts which reflect a nomadic existence, texts from people with an established monarchy and Temple cult, texts from exile, texts born out of fierce oppression by foreign rulers, courtly texts, texts from wandering charismatic preachers, texts from those who give themselves

1456-588: A variety of hypotheses regarding when and how the Torah was composed , but there is a general consensus that it took its final form during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE), or perhaps in the early Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE). The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books: The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of

1568-639: Is a collection of religious texts or scriptures which to a certain degree are held to be sacred in Christianity , Judaism , Samaritanism , Islam , the Baháʼí Faith , and other Abrahamic religions . The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally written in Hebrew , Aramaic , and Koine Greek . The texts include instructions, stories, poetry, prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of

1680-454: Is also known as the "Five Books of Moses " or the Pentateuch , meaning "five scroll-cases". Traditionally these books were considered to have been dictated to Moses by God himself. Since the 17th century, scholars have viewed the original sources as being the product of multiple anonymous authors while also allowing the possibility that Moses first assembled the separate sources. There are

1792-575: Is always read at Matins as kathisma, so here it is replaced by the Ninth Kathisma, comprising Psalms 64-69. The troparia in the First Part are different from those used on weekdays. Before the Second Part, a special Prayer of Saint Eustratius is read. On Sunday, Psalm 118 is often (though not always) read at Matins, so it is not read at the Midnight Office. The psalm is normally replaced by a Canon to

1904-416: Is any deviation between two texts. Textual critic Daniel B. Wallace explains that "Each deviation counts as one variant, regardless of how many MSS [manuscripts] attest to it." Hebrew scholar Emanuel Tov says the term is not evaluative; it is a recognition that the paths of development of different texts have separated. Medieval handwritten manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were considered extremely precise:

2016-513: Is celebrated on only this one night of the year. Holy Saturday is often the only time that the Midnight Office will be read in parishes. It is the last office found in the liturgical book that contains the services of Great Lent , the Lenten Triodion . The Office is read around the epitaphios , a shroud embroidered with the image of Christ prepared for burial in the Tomb , which has been placed on

2128-595: Is defined by what we love". Natural law is in the Wisdom literature, the Prophets, Romans 1, Acts 17, and the book of Amos (Amos 1:3–2:5), where nations other than Israel are held accountable for their ethical decisions even though they don't know the Hebrew god. Political theorist Michael Walzer finds politics in the Hebrew Bible in covenant, law, and prophecy, which constitute an early form of almost democratic political ethics. Key elements in biblical criminal justice begin with

2240-494: Is derived from Koinē Greek : τὰ βιβλία , romanized:  ta biblia , meaning "the books" (singular βιβλίον , biblion ). The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of " scroll " and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book". It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos , "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician seaport Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus

2352-511: Is no surprise that different localities developed different kinds of textual tradition. That is to say, the manuscripts in Rome had many of the same errors, because they were for the most part "in-house" documents, copied from one another; they were not influenced much by manuscripts being copied in Palestine; and those in Palestine took on their own characteristics, which were not the same as those found in

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2464-507: Is not impure. Those who have bathed have no need to wash again, for they are pure. By catching your breath in your hand and signing yourself with the moisture of your breath, your body is purified, even to the feet. For the gift of the Spirit and the outpouring of the baptism, proceeding from the heart of the believer as though from a fountain, purifies the one who has believed. Thus it is necessary to pray at this hour. For those elders who handed down

2576-641: Is not until the Babylonian Talmud ( c.  550 BCE ) that a listing of the contents of these three divisions of scripture are found. The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew , with some small portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28) written in Biblical Aramaic , a language which had become the lingua franca for much of the Semitic world. The Torah (תּוֹרָה)

2688-414: Is not yet baptized, go into another room to pray, and then return to bed. Do not hesitate to pray, for one who has been joined in marital relations is not impure. Those who have bathed have no need to wash again, for they are pure. By catching your breath in your hand and signing yourself with the moisture of your breath, your body is purified, even to the feet. For the gift of the Spirit and the outpouring of

2800-459: Is short for biblia sacra "holy book". It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun ( biblia , gen. bibliae ) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. The Bible is not a single book; it is a collection of books whose complex development is not completely understood. The oldest books began as songs and stories orally transmitted from generation to generation. Scholars of

2912-540: Is taken from the masoretic text (called the Leningrad Codex ) which dates from 1008. The Hebrew Bible can therefore sometimes be referred to as the Masoretic Text. The Hebrew Bible is also known by the name Tanakh ( Hebrew : תנ"ך ‎). This reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew scriptures, Torah ("Teaching"), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings") by using the first letters of each word. It

3024-514: Is the manner of chanting ritual readings as they are written and notated in the Masoretic Text of the Bible. Psalms, Job and Proverbs form a group with a "special system" of accenting used only in these three books. The five relatively short books of Song of Songs , Book of Ruth , the Book of Lamentations , Ecclesiastes , and Book of Esther are collectively known as the Hamesh Megillot . These are

3136-524: Is thought to have occurred before 68 during Nero's reign. Early Christians transported these writings around the Empire, translating them into Old Syriac , Coptic , Ethiopic , and Latin , and other languages. Bart Ehrman explains how these multiple texts later became grouped by scholars into categories: during the early centuries of the church, Christian texts were copied in whatever location they were written or taken to. Since texts were copied locally, it

3248-455: Is used for Morning Prayers for laymen, while a modified form of Small Compline is used for evening prayers . In Oriental Orthodox Christianity and Oriental Protestant Christianity , the office is prayed at 12 am, being known as Lilio in the Syriac and Indian traditions; it is prayed by all members in these denominations, both clergy and laity, being one of the seven fixed prayer times . From

3360-487: The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark . On the basis of the Gospel of Luke too, prayer at any time of the night was also seen as having eschatological significance. The quotation above from Tertullian refers to the all-night vigil service held at Easter. A similar service came to be held in the night that led to any Sunday. It corresponded in a way to the later early-night vespers , midnight vigil and dawn lauds and

3472-786: The Hebrew Bible : the Septuagint , the Masoretic Text , and the Samaritan Pentateuch (which contains only the first five books). They are related but do not share the same paths of development. The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and some related texts, into Koine Greek, and is believed to have been carried out by approximately seventy or seventy-two scribes and elders who were Hellenic Jews , begun in Alexandria in

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3584-630: The Holy Trinity , composed by St. Theophanes , according to the tone of the week in the Octoechos . Since the Sunday services, which celebrate the Resurrection of Christ , are normally longer than the weekday services, the Midnight Office is shortened. The Nicene Creed, Troparia and prayers from the First Part, as well as the entire Second Part of the service are omitted. Instead, after the canon, special hymns to

3696-570: The Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in "the L ORD God" ( Yahweh ) and believers in foreign gods, and the criticism of unethical and unjust behaviour of Israelite elites and rulers; in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Neo-Assyrian Empire , followed by

3808-734: The Mar Thoma Syrian Church (an Oriental Protestant denomination), Nocturns is known as Lilio and is prayed at 12 am using the Shehimo breviary. It contains three watches in which the Quamo prayer is devoutly recited. In the Coptic Orthodox Church , an Oriental Orthodox denomination, the Midnight Praise is prayed at 12 am using the Agpeya breviary. Bible The Bible

3920-413: The Mar Thoma Syrian Church (an Oriental Protestant denomination), the Midnight Office is known as Lilio and is prayed at 12 am using the Shehimo breviary. In the Coptic Orthodox Church , an Oriental Orthodox denomination, the Midnight Praise is prayed at 12 am using the Agpeya breviary. Nocturns Nocturns ( Latin : nocturni or nocturna ) is a Christian canonical hour said in

4032-597: The Mediterranean (fourth century to the founding of the Principate , 27  BCE ), the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), and the extension of Roman rule to parts of Scotland (84 CE). The books of the Bible were initially written and copied by hand on papyrus scrolls. No originals have survived. The age of the original composition of the texts is therefore difficult to determine and heavily debated. Using

4144-656: The Nevi'im ("prophets"), was canonized in the third century BCE. A third collection called the Ketuvim ("writings"), containing psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories, was canonized sometime between the second century BCE and the second century CE. These three collections were written mostly in Biblical Hebrew , with some parts in Aramaic , which together form the Hebrew Bible or "TaNaKh" (an abbreviation of "Torah", "Nevi'im", and "Ketuvim"). There are three major historical versions of

4256-584: The New Testament and a reading by the abbot from the Gospels. Within the Carolingian Empire (800–888), a form of the liturgy of the hours , described by Amalarius , was imposed that can be called the "Roman-Benedictine Office". In this form, the first nocturn of the Sunday vigil or matins had twelve psalms sung in three groups of four psalms, each group treated as a single psalm with a single doxology at

4368-658: The Office of Readings and to it were assigned two substantial readings, one from Scripture, the second from the Fathers of the Church or other writers, and only three psalms or portions of psalms. This contrasted strongly with the arrangement to which the Rule of Saint Benedict gave witness: twelve complete psalms, to which on Sundays three canticles were added. In the Benedictine system, the psalms and

4480-589: The Roman Curia the texts and rubrics of the various books used for the celebration of the liturgy of the hours were combined at the beginning of the thirteenth century into the Breviarium secundum usum Romanae Curiae . A revision of this under Pope Honorius III was adopted by the Franciscans and by them popularized throughout Europe. It introduced many hymns but also led to celebration being spoken rather than sung. It

4592-411: The creation (or ordering) of the world and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the biblical patriarchs Abraham , Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel ) and Jacob's children, the " Children of Israel ", especially Joseph . It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in

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4704-561: The 17th century; its oldest existing copies date to c. 1100 CE. Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon. They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh. A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon the Tanakh's Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle. In

4816-463: The Bible "often juxtaposes contradictory ideas, without explanation or apology". The Hebrew Bible contains assumptions about the nature of knowledge, belief, truth, interpretation, understanding and cognitive processes. Ethicist Michael V. Fox writes that the primary axiom of the book of Proverbs is that "the exercise of the human mind is the necessary and sufficient condition of right and successful behavior in all reaches of life". The Bible teaches

4928-404: The Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon . Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration , but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies. The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of

5040-502: The Bible, called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning five books ) in Greek. The second-oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi'im ). The third collection (the Ketuvim ) contains psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories. " Tanakh " is an alternate term for the Hebrew Bible composed of the first letters of those three parts of the Hebrew scriptures:

5152-757: The Bible. A number of biblical canons have since evolved. Christian biblical canons range from the 73 books of the Catholic Church canon, and the 66-book canon of most Protestant denominations, to the 81 books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon, among others. Judaism has long accepted a single authoritative text, whereas Christianity has never had an official version, instead having many different manuscript traditions. All biblical texts were treated with reverence and care by those that copied them, yet there are transmission errors, called variants, in all biblical manuscripts. A variant

5264-654: The First Part of the office. The troparia chanted in the First Part are the Troparia of the Bridegroom: "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh at midnight...", recalling the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. The first of these troparia is also solemnly chanted at Matins during Holy Week , from which the Matins service on these days derives its name of "Bridegroom Prayer." On Saturday, Psalm 118

5376-670: The Former Prophets ( Nevi'im Rishonim נביאים ראשונים , the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and the Latter Prophets ( Nevi'im Aharonim נביאים אחרונים , the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets ). The Nevi'im tell a story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah , focusing on conflicts between

5488-606: The Galilean cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, and in Babylonia (modern Iraq). Those living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee ( c.  750 –950), made scribal copies of the Hebrew Bible texts without a standard text, such as the Babylonian tradition had, to work from. The canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (called Tiberian Hebrew) that they developed, and many of

5600-429: The Hebrew Bible was produced. During the rise of Christianity in the first century CE, new scriptures were written in Koine Greek. Christians eventually called these new scriptures the "New Testament" and began referring to the Septuagint as the "Old Testament". The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work. Most early Christian copyists were not trained scribes. Many copies of

5712-489: The Hebrew Bible was written with spaces between words to aid in reading. By the eighth century CE, the Masoretes added vowel signs. Levites or scribes maintained the texts, and some texts were always treated as more authoritative than others. Scribes preserved and changed the texts by changing the script and updating archaic forms while also making corrections. These Hebrew texts were copied with great care. Considered to be scriptures ( sacred , authoritative religious texts),

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5824-406: The Latin-Church Liturgy of the Hours, involving among other things distribution of the psalms over a period of four weeks instead of the previous arrangement whereby they were said within a single week. In line with the decision of the Second Vatican Council that matins, while retaining its character of nocturnal praise should become a prayer for any hour of the day, that canonical hour was renamed

5936-416: The Liturgy of the Hours. It fell to Pope Pius V to put into effect the Council's desire. In the Roman Breviary as arranged by Pope Pius V in 1568, Sunday matins has three nocturns, the first with 12 independent psalms, the second and third with 3 psalms each, and each nocturn has 3 readings. Feasts of double or semidouble rank have 3 nocturns, each with 3 psalms and 3 readings. On a feast of simple rank,

6048-407: The Midnight Office and Compline are usually omitted. In some places the Midnight Office is read on Sunday morning before the Little Hours and Divine Liturgy . The Greeks do not normally celebrate an All-Night Vigil on Sunday, so they read the Midnight Office in its usual place before Matins on Sunday morning. On Great and Holy Saturday , the Midnight Office takes a very particular form in which it

6160-457: The Midnight Office is not read in church from Thursday in Holy Week until after Thomas Sunday (The Sunday after Easter), except for the Paschal Vigil. If the Office is chanted during this time, it is done so privately. If one reads the Midnight Office privately during Bright Week the format used is that of the Paschal Hours . In the Syriac Orthodox Church and Indian Orthodox Church (both of which are Oriental Orthodox Churches ), as well as

6272-437: The Paschal season as a reminder of the burial cloth left in the Empty Tomb ( John 20:5 ). Then a brief litany is read and the priest says the dismissal. All lights in the church are extinguished, and everyone waits in silence and darkness for the stroke of midnight, when the Resurrection of Christ is to be proclaimed. Then the Pentecostarion will begin. Due to the all-importance of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ ,

6384-405: The Septuagint as the basis of the Old Testament . The early Church continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what it saw as inspired, authoritative religious books. The gospels , Pauline epistles , and other texts quickly coalesced into the New Testament . With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, the Bible is the best-selling publication of all time. It has had

6496-470: The Torah ("Teaching"), the Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("Writings"). The Masoretic Text is the medieval version of the Tanakh, in Hebrew and Aramaic, that is considered the authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible by modern Rabbinic Judaism . The Septuagint is a Koine Greek translation of the Tanakh from the third and second centuries BC; it largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible. Christianity began as an outgrowth of Second Temple Judaism , using

6608-418: The Trinity by Saint Gregory of Sinai are chanted, followed by the Trisagion, the Lord’s Prayer and resurrectional hymn called the Ypakoë in the tone of the week. The Prayer to the Most Holy Trinity by Mark the Monk is read and then the mutual asking of forgiveness, Litany and dismissal. In the Russian tradition, an All-Night Vigil is celebrated every Sunday (commencing in the evening on Saturday), and so

6720-427: The airs of sophisticated Hellenistic writers. It is a time-span which encompasses the compositions of Homer , Plato , Aristotle , Thucydides , Sophocles , Caesar , Cicero , and Catullus . It is a period which sees the rise and fall of the Assyrian empire (twelfth to seventh century) and of the Persian empire (sixth to fourth century), Alexander 's campaigns (336–326), the rise of Rome and its domination of

6832-406: The baptism, proceeding from the heart of the believer as though from a fountain, purifies the one who has believed. Thus it is necessary to pray at this hour. For those elders who handed down the tradition to us taught us that in this hour every creature hushes for a brief moment to praise the Lord. Stars and trees and waters stand still for an instant. All the host of angels serving him, together with

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6944-456: The belief in God as the source of justice and the judge of all, including those administering justice on earth. Carmy and Schatz say the Bible "depicts the character of God, presents an account of creation, posits a metaphysics of divine providence and divine intervention, suggests a basis for morality, discusses many features of human nature, and frequently poses the notorious conundrum of how God can allow evil." The authoritative Hebrew Bible

7056-421: The books were compiled by different religious communities into various biblical canons (official collections of scriptures). The earliest compilation, containing the first five books of the Bible and called the Torah (meaning "law", "instruction", or "teaching") or Pentateuch ("five books"), was accepted as Jewish canon by the fifth century BCE. A second collection of narrative histories and prophesies, called

7168-485: The bridegroom is coming! Arise to meet him!'" And he adds, saying, "Watch, therefore, for you do not know when the hour is coming." The early-Christian custom of praying at night is mentioned by Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240), who speaks of their "nocturnal convocations" and their "absence all the night long at the paschal solemnities" ( nocturnae convocationes , sollemnibus Paschae abnoctantes ) Cyprian (c. 200 – 258) also speaks of praying at night, but not of doing so as

7280-420: The cells before Matins. Today, in most places where the Daily Cycle is observed, the Midnight Office is combined with Matins and the First Hour into one of the three daily aggregates called for in the Typikon . Concerning the Midnight Office, Saint Mark of Ephesus says: "The beginning of all the hymns and prayers to God is the time ( kairos ) of the midnight prayer. For, rising from sleep for it, we signify

7392-414: The city of Ur , eventually to settle in the land of Canaan , and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt. The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses , who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. He leads the Children of Israel from slavery in ancient Egypt to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation

7504-423: The conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the neo-Babylonian Empire and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem . The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. They contain narratives that begin immediately after the death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land , and end with the release from imprisonment of

7616-429: The culture of the fourth century Roman empire. The Bible has been used to support the death penalty , patriarchy , sexual intolerance , the violence of total war , and colonialism ; it has also been used to support charity , culture, healthcare and education . The term "Bible" can refer to the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible, which contains both the Old and New Testaments . The English word Bible

7728-420: The early Christian church translated its canon into Vulgar Latin (the common Latin spoken by ordinary people), a translation known as the Vulgate . Since then, Catholic Christians have held ecumenical councils to standardize their biblical canon. The Council of Trent (1545–63), held by the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation , authorized the Vulgate as its official Latin translation of

7840-488: The end of lauds and which may have given that hour the name of "lauds", were each said only once in the week and no longer together. The longer psalms were divided into portions, which in many cases were assigned to different hours and days. In his completely new arrangement, matins always had nine psalms or portions of psalms, whether distributed in groups of three among three nocturns, each nocturn of which had three readings, or, on liturgically less important days, recited as

7952-410: The end of the Talmudic period ( c.  300 – c.  500 CE ), but the actual date is difficult to determine. In the sixth and seventh centuries, three Jewish communities contributed systems for writing the precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas'sora (from which we derive the term "masoretic"). These early Masoretic scholars were based primarily in

8064-399: The end. This was followed by three readings, each with a responsory. In each of the other two nocturns the readings and responsories were also three, but each nocturn had only three individual psalms instead of three groups of four. The ferial vigil had only one nocturn, composed of six groups of two psalms, followed by three readings with their responsories. On the basis of the practice of

8176-572: The first century BCE. Fragments of the Septuagint were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls; portions of its text are also found on existing papyrus from Egypt dating to the second and first centuries BCE and to the first century CE. The Masoretes began developing what would become the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Judaism near

8288-415: The first nocturn were replaced by an Old Testament passage recited by heart. On Sundays, the monks rose earlier. The first nocturn had four readings instead of three, and the second nocturn also had four readings instead of recitation by heart of a passage of Saint Paul. Then followed a third nocturn, which instead of six psalms had three Old Testament canticles . These were followed by four readings from

8400-534: The gospels and Paul's letters were made by individual Christians over a relatively short period of time very soon after the originals were written. There is evidence in the Synoptic Gospels, in the writings of the early church fathers , from Marcion , and in the Didache that Christian documents were in circulation before the end of the first century. Paul's letters were circulated during his lifetime, and his death

8512-653: The last king of Judah . Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover: The Latter Prophets are Isaiah , Jeremiah , Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets , counted as a single book. Ketuvim (in Biblical Hebrew : כְּתוּבִים , romanized:  Kəṯūḇīm "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the inspiration of Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy . In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in

8624-461: The late third century BCE and completed by 132 BCE. Probably commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus , King of Egypt, it addressed the need of the primarily Greek-speaking Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora. Existing complete copies of the Septuagint date from the third to the fifth centuries CE, with fragments dating back to the second century BCE. Revision of its text began as far back as

8736-526: The latest books collected and designated as authoritative in the Jewish canon even though they were not complete until the second century CE. The books of Esther , Daniel , Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles share a distinctive style that no other Hebrew literary text, biblical or extra-biblical, shares. They were not written in the normal style of Hebrew of the post-exilic period. The authors of these books must have chosen to write in their own distinctive style for unknown reasons. The following list presents

8848-452: The most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts. Even so, David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts still contain some variants. The majority of all variants are accidental, such as spelling errors, but some changes were intentional. In the Hebrew text, "memory variants" are generally accidental differences evidenced by such things as the shift in word order found in 1 Chronicles 17:24 and 2 Samuel 10:9 and 13. Variants also include

8960-439: The multiplicity of nocturns from matins of Sundays, apart from those that were I class feasts (Easter and Pentecost). This required a reduction in the number of readings. The three former scriptural readings were combined into two, and the first part of the homily in the previous third nocturn became the new third reading. With his apostolic constitution Laudis canticum of 1 November 1970, Pope Paul VI announced his revision of

9072-525: The nature of authority and the sharing of power, animals, trees and nature, money and economics, work, relationships, sorrow and despair and the nature of joy, among others. Philosopher and ethicist Jaco Gericke adds: "The meaning of good and evil, the nature of right and wrong, criteria for moral discernment, valid sources of morality, the origin and acquisition of moral beliefs, the ontological status of moral norms, moral authority, cultural pluralism, [as well as] axiological and aesthetic assumptions about

9184-443: The nature of valid arguments, the nature and power of language, and its relation to reality. According to Mittleman, the Bible provides patterns of moral reasoning that focus on conduct and character. In the biblical metaphysic, humans have free will, but it is a relative and restricted freedom. Beach says that Christian voluntarism points to the will as the core of the self, and that within human nature, "the core of who we are

9296-404: The nature of value and beauty. These are all implicit in the texts." However, discerning the themes of some biblical texts can be problematic. Much of the Bible is in narrative form and in general, biblical narrative refrains from any kind of direct instruction, and in some texts the author's intent is not easy to decipher. It is left to the reader to determine good and bad, right and wrong, and

9408-488: The night") and ending in winter well before dawn (leaving an interval in which the monks were to devote themselves to study or meditation) but having to be curtailed in summer in order to celebrate lauds at daybreak. In the writings of John Cassian (c. 360–435) is found the earliest mention of dividing the vigil service into three parts, thus breaking the monotony of the long night prayer. The Peregrinatio ad loca sancta of about 380 still gave no evidence of any division of

9520-399: The night), nocturna tempora (nocturnal times), which are not necessarily connected with religion and are unrelated to the subject of this article. The phrase hora nocturna (night hour) may refer to the canonical hour of vigils or matins, but not to the individual nocturns into which vigils or matins may be divided. In Oriental Orthodox Christianity and Oriental Protestant Christianity ,

9632-536: The nighttime. In the liturgy of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church , nocturns refer to the sections into which the canonical hour of matins was divided from the fourth or fifth century until after the Second Vatican Council . A nocturn consisted of psalms accompanied by antiphons and followed by readings, which were taken either from Scripture or from the Church Fathers or similar writings. Matins

9744-517: The notes they made, therefore differed from the Babylonian. These differences were resolved into a standard text called the Masoretic text in the ninth century. The oldest complete copy still in existence is the Leningrad Codex dating to c. 1000 CE. The Samaritan Pentateuch is a version of the Torah maintained by the Samaritan community since antiquity, which was rediscovered by European scholars in

9856-498: The office is prayed at 12 am, being known as Lilio in the Syriac and Indian traditions; it is prayed facing the eastward direction of prayer by all members in these denominations, both clergy and laity, being one of the seven fixed prayer times . From the time of the early Church , the practice of seven fixed prayer times have been taught; in Apostolic Tradition , Hippolytus instructed Christians to pray seven times

9968-616: The office of vigils whether on Sundays or on weekdays. Saint Benedict of Nursia (480 – c. 543 or 547) gives a detailed description of the division of vigils into two parts (for which he does not use the name "nocturns") on ordinary days, and three on Sundays and feast-days. The term nocturnus (nocturnal) appears nine times in his Rule . As an adjective four times (chapters 9, 10, 16 and 43) qualifying vigiliae (vigils), once (chapter 9) qualifying psalmi (psalms), once (chapter 10) qualifying laus (praise), and once (chapter 42) qualifying hora (hour). It appears twice (chapters 15 and 17) in

10080-407: The oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible of any length that are not fragments. The earliest manuscripts were probably written in paleo-Hebrew , a kind of cuneiform pictograph similar to other pictographs of the same period. The exile to Babylon most likely prompted the shift to square script (Aramaic) in the fifth to third centuries BCE. From the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls,

10192-427: The path to understanding and practice is rarely straightforward. God is sometimes portrayed as having a role in the plot, but more often there is little about God's reaction to events, and no mention at all of approval or disapproval of what the characters have done or failed to do. The writer makes no comment, and the reader is left to infer what they will. Jewish philosophers Shalom Carmy and David Schatz explain that

10304-418: The plural form, nocturni , with no express mention of a qualified noun, and thus practically as itself a noun equivalent to vigiliae . Psalmi (psalms) may be the masculine plural noun that it was originally understood as qualifying. In chapter 17, the phrase used is nocturni vel matutini , mentioned in relation to the psalms of the two hours that were later called matins and lauds, as a prelude to speaking of

10416-565: The present time, the Midnight Office will take one of four forms, depending upon the particular day: (a) Weekdays, (b) Saturday, (c) Sunday, and (d) a unique form which is observed only on Holy Saturday as part of the Paschal Vigil. The distinguishing feature of the Midnight Office on weekdays is the reading of the Seventeenth Kathisma comprising Psalm 118, the longest Psalm in the Bible , in

10528-567: The psalms in the six other canonical hours. Leonard J. Doyle's English version of the Rule of St Benedict translates horis nocturnis in chapter 42 as "the hours of the night", but elsewhere uses "the Night Office" to represent the entirety of each phrase in the Rule consisting of one of the nouns vigiliae , laus , hora , qualified by nocturnus ; to render an isolated nocturnus in chapters 15 and 17; and to translate vigiliae wherever it appears unaccompanied by nocturnus . Nowhere does it use

10640-458: The publication in 1535, and the widespread printing of the drastically modified breviary of Cardinal Francisco de Quiñones , which restored generally the weekly recitation of the whole psalter and the reading of the major part of the Bible in a year, but which provoked a reaction that led to the determination of the Council of Trent to restore a somewhat purified form of the previously existing form of

10752-472: The reading of the Morning Prayers in common, which otherwise would be said privately by the brethren in their cells. At the conclusion of the Midnight Office, just as at the end of Compline, it is traditional in many places for everyone present to venerate the icons and relics of the saints that are present in the temple (church building). In Greek Prayer Books , a modified form of the Midnight Office

10864-550: The readings were distributed among two or three nocturns. Between Benedict and Paul VI the two-nocturns arrangement had been done away with, and on days when matins was not divided into three nocturns it was spoken of as being of a single "nocturn". With the reform of Paul VI, the term "nocturns", whether in the singular or the plural form, ceased to be used. In the Syriac Orthodox Church and Indian Orthodox Church (both of which are Oriental Orthodox Churches ), as well as

10976-419: The seventh century, the first codex form of the Hebrew Bible was produced. The codex is the forerunner of the modern book. Popularized by early Christians, it was made by folding a single sheet of papyrus in half, forming "pages". Assembling multiples of these folded pages together created a "book" that was more easily accessible and more portable than scrolls. In 1488, the first complete printed press version of

11088-460: The souls of the righteous, praise God. This is why it is important that all those who believe make certain to pray at that hour. Testifying to this, the Lord says thus, "Behold, a cry was made at midnight, saying, 'Behold the bridegroom is coming! Arise to meet him!'" And he adds, saying, "Watch, therefore, for you do not know when the hour is coming." The Midnight Office can be divided into four parts: At

11200-528: The substitution of lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, and larger scale shifts in order, with some major revisions of the Masoretic texts that must have been intentional. Intentional changes in New Testament texts were made to improve grammar, eliminate discrepancies, harmonize parallel passages, combine and simplify multiple variant readings into one, and for theological reasons. Bruce K. Waltke observes that one variant for every ten words

11312-554: The time of the early Church , the practice of seven fixed prayer times have been taught; in Apostolic Tradition , Hippolytus instructed Christians to pray seven times a day "on rising, at the lighting of the evening lamp, at bedtime, at midnight" and "the third, sixth and ninth hours of the day, being hours associated with Christ's Passion." With respect to midnight prayer and the ablutions preceding it, Hippolytus wrote: Around midnight rise and wash your hands with water and pray. If you are married, pray together. But if your spouse

11424-436: The tradition to us taught us that in this hour every creature hushes for a brief moment to praise the Lord. Stars and trees and waters stand still for an instant. All the host of angels serving him, together with the souls of the righteous, praise God. This is why it is important that all those who believe make certain to pray at that hour. Testifying to this, the Lord says thus, "Behold, a cry was made at midnight, saying, 'Behold

11536-475: The transportation from the life of the deceit of darkness to the life which is, according to Christ, free and bright, with which we begin to worship God. For it is written, The people who sat in darkness saw a great light " ( Isaiah 9:2 and Matthew 4:16 ). The general tone of the office is one of penitence, tempered by an attitude of hopeful expectation. In the Russian tradition the Midnight Office often begins with

11648-418: The twenty-first century are only in the beginning stages of exploring "the interface between writing, performance, memorization, and the aural dimension" of the texts. Current indications are that writing and orality were not separate so much as ancient writing was learned in a context of communal oral performance. The Bible was written and compiled by many people , who many scholars say are mostly unknown, from

11760-420: The word "nocturns". The Rule of St Benedict laid down that on ordinary days, after the introductory psalms, there were two nocturns. The first consisted of six psalms followed by three reading, each of which was accompanied by a sung responsory . The second nocturn had another six psalms followed by a passage from Saint Paul recited by heart and by some prayers. In the shorter summer months the three readings of

11872-467: Was composed of one to three nocturns. Originating in a prayer service celebrated by early Christians at night, the liturgical office of matins was originally in Latin called vigilia (vigil, watch). The plural form, vigiliae (vigils, watches), also came into use. The Latin adjective nocturnus corresponds to English "nocturnal" and is attached to many different nouns, such as nocturnae horae (the hours of

11984-594: Was exported to Greece. The Greek ta biblia ("the books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books". The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that John Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew , delivered between 386 and 388 CE) to use the Greek phrase ta biblia ("the books") to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ( tà biblía tà hágia , "the holy books"). Medieval Latin biblia

12096-665: Was noted in the recent critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, leaving 90% of the Hebrew text without variation. The fourth edition of the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament notes variants affecting about 500 out of 6900 words, or about 7% of the text. The narratives, laws, wisdom sayings, parables, and unique genres of the Bible provide opportunity for discussion on most topics of concern to human beings: The role of women, sex, children, marriage, neighbours, friends,

12208-533: Was preserved, decade after decade, by dedicated and relatively skilled Christian scribes. These differing histories produced what modern scholars refer to as recognizable "text types". The four most commonly recognized are Alexandrian , Western , Caesarean , and Byzantine . The list of books included in the Catholic Bible was established as canon by the Council of Rome in 382, followed by those of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397. Between 385 and 405 CE,

12320-412: Was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses. The commandments in the Torah provide the basis for Jewish religious law . Tradition states that there are 613 commandments ( taryag mitzvot ). Nevi'im ( Hebrew : נְבִיאִים , romanized :  Nəḇī'īm , "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains two sub-groups,

12432-400: Was sometimes referred to as three vigils or watches ( vigiliae ), as by Methodius of Olympus and Jerome . By the fourth century this Sunday vigil had become a daily observance, but no longer lasted throughout the night. What had been an all-night vigil became a service only from cockcrow to before dawn. Saint Benedict wrote about it as beginning at about 2 in the morning ("the eighth hour of

12544-586: Was the main basis of Pope Pius V 's Roman Breviary of 1568, the contents of which became much more the private prayer of the clergy than the communal prayer of the Christian people, and the canonical hours became disassociated from particular times of the day. This tendency of viewing the Liturgy of the Hours as edification and spiritual nourishment of individual clergy rather than a form of worship had been strengthened by

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