_Origin_. The night office of vigils dates from the very earliest days
of Christianity. It derived its name from the vigils or night watches of
the soldiers, who divided the night, from six o'clock in the evening to
six o'clock in the morning, into four watches of three hours each. The
nightly meetings of the Christians came to be called by the name
_vigils_, but the meetings were not begun at the stated hours of
military vigil and did not finish with them. Why these meetings of
Christians were held at night, and in what their religious exercises
consisted in, both in matter and form, is an unsolved problem. But it is
certain that they resembled the services of the Jewish synagogue in the
readings from Scripture, psalm-singing and prayers, and differed from
those services by having readings from the Gospels, the Epistles, and
from non-canonical books, such as the Epistle of St. Clement. The
Eucharistic service always formed part of them. Indeed, the very name,
Synagogue was given to these assemblies of Christians, as we see from
the Pastor of Hermes. In their common prayer, they faced towards the
East, as the Jews did towards Jerusalem. They had precentors and
janitors as in the Jewish rites. Their services consisted of the
readings from the Mosaic law, from Gospels and Epistles, exposition of
Scripture, a set sermon, long and fervent "blessings" or thanksgiving
and psalms. Before there were any written gospels to read, we gather
that the reading of the Old Law, of the Prophets and the Psalms, was
followed by a set sermon on the life and death of Christ (Bickel, _Messe
und Pascha,_ p, 91). From St. Basil (fourth century) it is concluded
that two choirs sang the Psalms. Cassian writes that the monks of the
fifth century celebrated the Night Office with twelve psalms and
readings from the Old and the New Testaments. Hence, "we find the same
elements repeated, the psalms generally chanted in the form of
responses, that is to say, by one or more cantors, the choir repeating