Folia Theologica et Canonica 4. 26/18 (2015)
IUS CANONICUM - Szabolcs Anzelm Szuromi, O.Praem., The systematic development of the Liturgy of Hours during the first centuries - based on the Jewish and Christian tradition
THE SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE LITURGY OF HOURS... 161 of every single hour of prayer had been already formed before the so called “golden age” of its evolution.51 The zeal of the Divine Office was - and still is - the same what we can recognize in the Jewish tradition too: to consecrate the entire day by prayers in arranged and structuralized form. This is the guarantee for the continuous prayerful life of the faithful. There were among these early elements of the single prayer the Psalms; oratio (prayers) and hymns composed by anonym or known ecclesiastical writers, which was supplemented with some Biblical texts and antiphon (cantus antiphonicus).52 Between the A"' and 10lh centuries the developing process of the Divine Office had speeded up, and in this evolution the most significant period was the 5lh to the 6lh century. During these marked two centuries many structural, doctrinal, and disciplinary questions had resolved, thanks in particular to Pope St. Gregory the Great (|604).53 This period is the one when the already crystallized Divine Office has become common in the new territories where the Christianity has appeared. Epilogue Consecrating every part of the day by prayers: it kept together more than three thousand two-hundred years ago the pre-Israelite people at the Middle-Palestine highland; it gave a common basis for the Jewish people on the day to day life, attaching their prayerful activity to the cult of the Temple of Jerusalem; it helped for Israel to remain together in faith at the Babylonian captivity and return as a faithful community to rebuild the Temple. However, it was that tradition which has continues in the life of the Christians who recognized themselves as “New Testamental Nation”. The crystallization of the Divine Office kept together the developing Christian community and has become that institutionalized prayer which continuously expresses the laudation and fidelity toward God. As the General Instruction of the current Liturgy of Hours emphasizes: “In the course of time other hours came to be sanctified by common prayer. These were seen by the Fathers as foreshadowed in the Acts of the Apostles. There we read of the disciples gathered together at the third hour (...) This kind of common prayer gradually took shape in the form of an ordered round of Hours. This Liturgy of the Hours or Divine Office, enriched by readings, is principally a prayer of praise and petition (...).”54 51 Oury, G-M., Office Divin - I. En Occident, 693-694. 52 Radó, P., Enchiridion liturgiáim, I. 414, 416. 53 Plöchl, W. M„ Geschichte des Kirchenrechts, I: Das Recht des ersten christlichen Jahrtausends. Von der Urkirche bis zum großen Schisma, Wien-München I960.2 121-123. 54 General Instruction, in The Liturgy of Hours, I. 21-22.
