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Prime

Devotional Practices

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Origin from 375

Prime was the office of the first hour of the day, prayed at about six in the morning as the working day began: a short service of psalms, hymn and prayers asking blessing on the day's labour. It is the one canonical hour with a recorded birthplace, a monastery at Bethlehem in the late fourth century, according to John Cassian, and the one hour the modern Roman reform abolished: the Second Vatican Council suppressed Prime in 1963, judging it a duplication of Lauds. It survives in the Byzantine cycle as the First Hour, in some monastic uses, and in communities that keep the older Roman office.

Facts
Practice
Category of Practice
Devotional 2
Who Performs It
Clergy or ordained officiants 2
Frequency
Daily 1Tradition: Christianity
Cadence Detail
Daily at the first hour, about six in the morning, where the older offices are kept 1Tradition: Christianity
Solitary or Communal
Performed alone or together 2
Liturgical and Scriptural Role
A short morning hour which in monastic use carried the business of the day, the reading of the martyrology and the assignment of work. 2
Origins
Origin Period
from 375 1
375 falls within the late fourth century, when its own text says the office was first recorded, at a monastery at Bethlehem, according to John Cassian.
Origin Period
Bethlehem monastery, late 4th century, per John Cassian; suppressed in the Roman rite by Sacrosanctum Concilium 89, 1963 1
Place of Origin
Bethlehem 1
The one canonical hour with a recorded birthplace, a monastery at Bethlehem in the late fourth century, according to John Cassian.
Meaning
Literal Meaning
The first hour, counted from sunrise, so roughly six in the morning. 2
Attributions
Tradition
Prime survives today mainly in traditional or extraordinary form Catholic monastic communities, since its suppression from the ordinary Roman rite in the twentieth century reform of the office. 2
Status
Current Status
Suppressed in the Roman rite by the Second Vatican Council and absent from the Liturgy of the Hours. It is still said where the older Roman or monastic books are kept. 2
Status Today
Historical; not practised continuously 2
Learn More
The Hour Invented Against Sleep

Prime is the rare liturgical institution whose founding anecdote survives. John Cassian, writing in the 420s for the monasteries of Gaul about the customs of the East, reports that in the monastery at Bethlehem the brothers, having finished the night office and Lauds, would return to bed until the third hour, and that some abused the interval into serious sleep; to close the loophole a new morning service was instituted at the first hour, and, he says, the custom spread. Liturgical historians accept the substance: Prime is a monastic invention of the late fourth century, younger than the hours around it and born of discipline rather than symbolism. Its content stayed suitably practical.

The hour's psalms were brief; its collect, memorably rendered in the Anglican tradition as the prayer that we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger, asked simply for a safe day; and in the medieval West a second section followed in the chapter house: the reading of the martyrology announcing the saints of the coming day, the necrology remembering the dead, the assignment of the day's work, and the abbot's blessing. Prime was thus the join between prayer and labour, the office that dispatched the community into its duties, and its rhythm shaped institutional life far beyond the cloister, giving cathedral schools and colleges their morning order. Its practicality was also its vulnerability: an hour instituted for monks with a gap in their morning made less sense for clergy whose Lauds already met the sunrise.

The Suppressed Hour

Prime holds a unique distinction in liturgical history: it is the only canonical hour ever formally abolished by an ecumenical council. The Second Vatican Council's constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium of 1963, reviewing an office it wished to restore to truthfulness of time, ordered in its eighty-ninth article that the hour of Prime is to be suppressed, and the 1971 Liturgy of the Hours carried out the sentence: the Roman books contain no Prime, and its useful residue, the martyrology reading, was left to be kept where desired.

The council's logic was straightforward. Prime duplicated Lauds, two morning offices within an hour of each other, and its origin as a monastic disciplinary measure gave it no claim on clergy and laity for whom the duplication was mere burden. The suppression, however, was Roman, not universal. The Byzantine cycle's First Hour, the equivalent office, continues wherever the Horologion is used, usually appended to orthros in parish practice. Monastic communities following older customaries, and communities using the 1962 Roman books under the successive permissions for the older form, still pray Prime daily.

The Anglican and Lutheran offices had absorbed its material centuries earlier. So the hour lives on around the edges of the communion that created it, a small case study in how liturgies die: not by forgetting, but by an explicit judgment that a form's founding purpose had lapsed, recorded in the acts of a council, with the hour's own history cited as the grounds.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Christianity, Religions
Church of Cyprus, Denominations

Kept in the Church of Cyprus, autocephalous since the Council of Ephesus in 431. The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Church of Greece, Denominations

Kept in the Church of Greece. The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Eastern Orthodoxy, Denominations

The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, Denominations

Kept in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the see of first honour among the Orthodox churches. The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Georgian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has used its own language and script in worship since the fifth century. The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Greek Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Greek Orthodox churches. The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Roman Catholicism, Denominations
Romanian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Romanian Orthodox Church, the one Orthodox church of the Byzantine tradition whose language is Romance. The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Russian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Slavonic recension of the Byzantine books. The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Serbian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Serbian Orthodox Church. The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Kept in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The First Hour is prayed daily from the Horologion, appended to Matins, and was never suppressed here as Prime was in the Roman rite.

Critiqued By

Anglican Communion, Denominations

Kept across the provinces of the Anglican Communion. Prime was not carried into the Prayer Book. The Preface Concerning the Service of the Church says plainly that the ancient orders had become so altered and broken that they were put aside for one book with two daily services.

Anglicanism, Denominations

Prime was not carried into the Prayer Book. The Preface Concerning the Service of the Church says plainly that the ancient orders had become so altered and broken that they were put aside for one book with two daily services.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Church of England, Denominations

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Prime was not carried into the Prayer Book. The Preface Concerning the Service of the Church says plainly that the ancient orders had become so altered and broken that they were put aside for one book with two daily services.

Church of Ireland, Denominations

Kept in the Church of Ireland. Prime was not carried into the Prayer Book. The Preface Concerning the Service of the Church says plainly that the ancient orders had become so altered and broken that they were put aside for one book with two daily services.

The Episcopal Church, Denominations

Kept in the Episcopal Church, whose own Prayer Book descends from the Scottish rather than the English line. Prime was not carried into the Prayer Book. The Preface Concerning the Service of the Church says plainly that the ancient orders had become so altered and broken that they were put aside for one book with two daily services.

Sources
1. The Catholic Encyclopedia
Charles George Herbermann et al. (eds.), Robert Appleton Company, 1913View the Source
2. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
The Book of Common Prayer
Church of England; ed. Brian Cummings, Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2011View the Source
Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church
Isabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator), Houghton Mifflin, 1906View the Source
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