Why the Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours Are Kept

And so in the monasteries of Palestine and Mesopotamia and all the East, the services of the hours we have named are completed each day with three Psalms apiece. In this way constant prayers are offered to God at the appointed times, and yet, since the spiritual duties are completed with due moderation, the necessary tasks of work are not hindered in any way. For we know that Daniel the prophet too poured out his prayers to God at these three times, day after day, in his room with the windows open. [a]

Nor is it without good reason that these times in particular are set apart for religious offices, since at them were fulfilled the things that completed the promises and summed up our salvation. For we can show that at the third hour the Holy Spirit, who had been promised long before by the prophets, first came down on the apostles gathered together for prayer. The unbelieving Jewish crowd, astonished at the speaking in tongues that came from them through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on them, mocked and said that they were full of new wine. Then Peter stood up among them and said: “Men of Israel, and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to my words. These men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘And it will come to pass in the last days, says the Lord, that I will pour out from my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. And indeed on my servants and my maidservants in those days I will pour out from my Spirit, and they will prophesy.’” All of this was fulfilled at the third hour, when the Holy Spirit, announced beforehand by the prophets, came at that hour and rested on the apostles.

But at the sixth hour the spotless Sacrifice, our Lord and Savior, was offered to the Father. Mounting the cross for the salvation of the whole world, he made atonement for the sins of humankind; stripping the principalities and powers, he led them away openly; and all of us who were liable to death and bound by the debt of the handwritten bond that could not be paid, he set free, by taking it out of the way and nailing it to his cross as a trophy. At the same hour, too, both the calling of the Gentiles and the cleansing of all the living creatures contained in the vessel were revealed by God to Peter in an ecstasy of mind, by the letting down of the Gospel vessel from heaven, when a voice came to him and said, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” This vessel, let down from heaven by its four corners, is plainly seen to mean nothing other than the Gospel. For although, divided as it is by the fourfold account of the evangelists, it seems to have “four corners,” or beginnings, yet the body of the Gospel is one, since it takes in both the birth of one and the same Christ and his being God, both his miracles and his suffering. It is well put, too, that it says not “of linen” but “as if of linen.” For linen signifies death. Since, then, our Lord’s death and suffering were not undergone by the law of human nature but of his own free will, it says “as if of linen.” For when he was dead according to the flesh, he was not dead according to the spirit, because “his soul was not left in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption.” And again he says: “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” And so into this vessel of the Gospels let down from heaven, that is, written by the Holy Spirit, all the nations that were once outside the observance of the law and counted unclean now flow together through belief in the faith. They are turned, to their salvation, from the worship of idols, to be fit for health-giving food, and they are brought to Peter and cleansed by the voice of the Lord.

But at the ninth hour he went down into hell. There, by the brightness of his splendor, he put out the indescribable darkness of hell. Bursting its bronze gates and breaking its iron bars, he carried away with him to the heavens the captive band of saints who had been shut up and held in the darkness of relentless hell. And taking away the fiery sword, he restored paradise to its original inhabitants by his devout confession. At the same hour, too, Cornelius the centurion, continuing in his prayers with his usual devotion, learns through the angel’s speaking with him that his prayers and alms are remembered before the Lord. And at the ninth hour the mystery of the calling of the Gentiles is plainly shown to him, which had been revealed to Peter in his ecstasy of mind at the sixth hour. In another passage of the Acts of the Apostles, too, we are told this about the same hour: “Peter and John went up into the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.”

These notices prove clearly that these hours were not without good reason consecrated with religious services by holy and apostolic men, and that we ought to keep them in the same way. For unless we are compelled, as it were, by some rule to discharge these devout offices at least at fixed times, we spend the whole day without engaging in prayer, through laziness or forgetfulness, or because we are absorbed in business.

But what is to be said of the evening sacrifices, since even in the Old Testament the law of Moses orders them to be offered continually? For we can show that the morning whole burnt offerings and the evening sacrifices were offered every day continually in the temple, though with figurative offerings, from what David sings: “Let my prayer be set forth in your sight as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.” In this place we can understand it in a still higher sense: of that true evening sacrifice which was given by the Lord our Savior in the evening to the apostles at the Supper, when he instituted the holy mysteries of the church; and of that evening sacrifice which he himself, on the following day, at the end of the ages, offered to the Father by the lifting up of his hands for the salvation of the whole world. That spreading out of his hands on the cross is quite rightly called a “lifting up.” For when we were all lying in hell, he raised us to heaven, according to the word of his own promise when he says: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.”

As for the morning office, what is customarily sung at it every day teaches us this too: “O God, my God, I watch for you at break of day,” and “I will meditate on you in the morning,” and “I rose before the dawn and cried out,” and again, “My eyes have gone before the morning toward you, that I might meditate on your words.” At these hours, too, the master of the household in the Gospel hired laborers into his vineyard. For he is described as hiring them early in the morning, which time stands for the morning office; then at the third hour; then at the sixth; after this at the ninth; and last of all at the eleventh, by which the hour of the lamps is meant.