Sources of Western liturgy in the 300s-400s?

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Praedicare

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Hi friends,

One thing that has always struck me as an archivist for a Christian education institution is how minimal are the texts I’ve found for Western patristic liturgy: especially outside the Eucharist.

How did our Latin Fathers order the prayers of their days in terms of hymns, litanies, and other such extra-Mass services? Did such a concept as the “Divine Mercy” chaplet, or the Rosary, or a Litany of the Saints, even exist outside Mass and the Divine Office?

For example, when St. Ambrose was holed up in Milan Cathedral with faithful Catholics as Arian troops surrounded it, the saint got everyone to sing hymns all night. Would this have been a real service, or just a round of hymns?

Exactly what did St. Honoratus do at Lérins or Martin at Tours, when they weren’t praying Mass or the Divine Office? Even as to the Office: did Westerners just pray the 12 morning and 12 evening psalms, as in the Desert? When did the order of Divine Office really develop as a strict liturgy?

Thanks…
 
Praedicare said:
How did our Latin Fathers order the prayers of their days in terms of hymns, litanies, and other such extra-Mass services? Did such a concept as the “Divine Mercy” chaplet, or the Rosary, or a Litany of the Saints, even exist outside Mass and the Divine Office?
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newadvent.org/cathen/07596a.htm
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For example, when St. Ambrose was holed up in Milan Cathedral with faithful Catholics as Arian troops surrounded it, the saint got everyone to sing hymns all night. Would this have been a real service, or just a round of hymns?

Exactly what did St. Honoratus do at Lérins or Martin at Tours, when they weren’t praying Mass or the Divine Office? Even as to the Office: did Westerners just pray the 12 morning and 12 evening psalms, as in the Desert? When did the order of Divine Office really develop as a strict liturgy?
Click to expand...
Re:
 
Of course, a lot of texts were lost during the persecutions, because the Roman government and the mobs specifically targeted any Christian written materials.

But much as Jews sang a selection of the psalms every day as part of their family life, so did Christians. Tertullian, that crusty lawyer, talks with real feeling about the joys of singing psalms antiphonally with his beloved wife, and how this was one of the major family activities among early Christians. I think the big times for family psalmsinging and prayers were when you got up in the morning, in the evening at the time of the lighting of the lamps, and at bedtime. Maybe noon, too.

Anyway, here’s Tertullian from towards the end of his early-in-marriage treatise: “To His Wife.”

"What kind of yoke is that of two believers of one hope, one desire, one discipline, one and the same service? Both brethren [in Christ], both fellow servants, no difference of spirit or of flesh; nay, (they are) truly “two in one flesh.”

"Where the flesh is one, one is the spirit too. Together they pray, together prostrate themselves, together perform their fasts; mutually teaching, mutually exhorting, mutually sustaining. Both equally in the Church of God; equal at the banquet of God; equal in troubles, in persecutions, in refreshments. Neither hides from the other; neither shuns the other; neither is troublesome to the other.

"The sick are visited, the indigent relieved, with freedom. Alms without tension [caused by an unbelieving spouse]; sacrifices without scruple; daily diligence without impediment: no stealthy signing [to other Christians], no trembling greeting, no mute benediction.

“Between the two echo psalms and hymns; and they mutually challenge each other which shall better chant to their Lord. When Christ sees and hears such things, He joys. To these He sends His own peace. Where two are, there withal is He Himself. Where He is, there the Evil One is not.”
 
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