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| Of Stations, and of the Hours of Prayer.
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Chapter X.—Of Stations, and of the Hours of
Prayer.
In like manner they censure on the count of
novelty our Stations as being enjoined; some, moreover, (censure
them) too as being prolonged habitually too late, saying that this duty
also ought to be observed of free choice, and not continued beyond the
ninth hour,—(deriving their rule), of course, from their own
practice. Well: as to that which pertains to the question
of injunction, I will once for all give a reply to suit all
causes. Now, (turning) to the point which is proper to this
particular cause—concerning the limit of time, I mean—I
must first demand from themselves whence they derive this prescriptive
law for concluding Stations at the ninth hour. If it is from the
fact that we read that Peter and he who was with him entered the temple
“at the ninth (hour), the hour of prayer,” who will prove
to me that they had that day been performing a Station, so as to
interpret the ninth hour as the hour for the conclusion and discharge
of the Station? Nay, but you would more easily find that Peter at
the sixth hour had, for the sake of taking food, gone up first
on the roof to pray;1077
so that the
sixth hour of the day may the rather be made the limit to this
duty, which (in Peter’s case) was apparently to finish that duty,
after prayer. Further: since in the self-same commentary of
Luke the third hour is demonstrated as an hour of prayer, about
which hour it was that they who had received the initiatory gift of the
Holy Spirit were held for drunkards;1078
| 1078 Acts ii. 1–4, 13, 15. | and the
sixth, at which Peter went up on the roof; and the ninth,
at which they entered the temple: why should we not understand
that, with absolutely perfect indifference, we must pray1079
| 1079 The reference is to
Eph. vi. 18; Col. iv. 2; 1
Thess. v. 17; Luke xviii. 1. | always, and everywhere, and at every time;
yet still that these three hours, as being more marked in things
human—(hours) which divide the day, which distinguish businesses,
which re-echo in the public ear—have likewise ever been of
special solemnity in divine prayers? A persuasion which is
sanctioned also by the corroborative fact of Daniel praying thrice in
the day;1080
of course, through
exception of certain stated hours, no other, moreover, than the more
marked and subsequently apostolic (hours)—the third, the sixth,
the ninth. And hence, accordingly, I shall affirm that Peter too
had been led rather by
ancient usage to the observance of the ninth hour, praying at the third
specific interval, (the interval) of final prayer.
These (arguments), moreover, (we have advanced)
for their sakes who think that they are acting in conformity with
Peter’s model, (a model) of which they are ignorant: not as
if we slighted the ninth hour, (an hour) which, on the fourth and sixth
days of the week, we most highly honour; but because, of those things
which are observed on the ground of tradition, we are bound to adduce
so much the more worthy reason, that they lack the authority of
Scripture, until by some signal celestial gift they be either confirmed
or else corrected. “And if,” says (the apostle),
“there are matters which ye are ignorant about, the Lord will
reveal to you.”1081
Accordingly,
setting out of the question the confirmer of all such things, the
Paraclete, the guide of universal truth,1082
inquire whether there be not a worthier reason adduced among us
for the observing of the ninth hour; so that this reason (of ours) must
be attributed even to Peter if he observed a Station at the time in
question. For (the practice) comes from the death of the Lord;
which death albeit it behoves to be commemorated always, without
difference of hours; yet are we at that time more impressively
commended to its commemoration, according to the actual (meaning of
the) name of Station. For even soldiers, though never unmindful
of their military oath, yet pay a greater deference to Stations.
And so the “pressure” must be maintained up to that hour in
which the orb—involved from the sixth hour in a general
darkness—performed for its dead Lord a sorrowful act of duty; so
that we too may then return to enjoyment when the universe regained its
sunshine.1083
| 1083 See Matt. xxvii. 45–54; Mark xvi.
33–39; Luke xxiii. 44–47. | If this
savours more of the spirit of Christian religion, while it celebrates
more the glory of Christ, I am equally able, from the self-same order
of events, to fix the condition of late protraction of the
Station; (namely), that we are to fast till a late hour, awaiting
the time of the Lord’s sepulture, when Joseph took down and
entombed the body which he had requested. Thence (it follows)
that it is even irreligious for the flesh of the servants to take
refreshment before their Lord did.
But let it suffice to have thus far joined issue
on the argumentative challenge; rebutting, as I have done,
conjectures by conjectures, and yet (as I think) by conjectures more
worthy of a believer. Let us see whether any such (principle)
drawn from the ancient times takes us under its patronage.
In Exodus, was not that position of Moses,
battling against Amalek by prayers, maintained as it was perseveringly
even till “sunset,” a “late Station?”1084
Think we that Joshua the son of Nun,
when warring down the Amorites, had breakfasted on that day on which he
ordered the very elements to keep a Station?1085
The sun “stood” in Gibeon,
and the moon in Ajalon; the sun and the moon “stood in station
until the People was avenged of his enemies, and the sun stood in the
mid heaven.” When, moreover, (the sun) did draw toward his
setting and the end of the one day, there was no such day beforetime
and in the latest time (of course, (no day) so long),
“that God,” says (the writer), “should hear a
man”—(a man,) to be sure, the sun’s peer, so long
persistent in his duty—a Station longer even than
late.
At all events, Saul himself, when engaged in
battle, manifestly enjoined this duty: “Cursed (be)
the man who shall have eaten bread until evening, until I avenge me on
mine enemy;” and his whole people tasted not (food), and (yet)
the whole earth was breakfasting! So solemn a sanction, moreover,
did God confer on the edict which enjoined that Station, that Jonathan
the son of Saul, although it had been in ignorance of the fast having
been appointed till a late hour that he had allowed himself a taste of
honey, was both presently convicted, by lot, of sin, and with
difficulty exempted from punishment through the prayer of the
People:1086
for he had
been convicted of gluttony, although of a simple kind. But withal
Daniel, in the first year of King Darius, when, fasting in sackcloth
and ashes, he was doing exomologesis to God, said: “And
while I was still speaking in prayer, behold, the man whom I had seen
in dreams at the beginning, swiftly flying, approached me, as it were,
at the hour of the evening sacrifice.”1087
| 1087 See Dan. ix. 1, 3, 4, 20, 21" id="iii.ix.x-p17.1" parsed="|Dan|9|1|0|0;|Dan|9|3|0|0;|Dan|9|4|0|0;|Dan|9|20|0|0;|Dan|9|21|0|0" osisRef="Bible:Dan.9.1 Bible:Dan.9.3 Bible:Dan.9.4 Bible:Dan.9.20 Bible:Dan.9.21">Dan. ix. 1, 3, 4, 20, 21. | This will be a “late”
Station which, fasting until the evening, sacrifices a fatter
(victim of) prayer to God!1088
| 1088 Comp. δε Ορ., c. xxviii. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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