Editing Roman Breviary (section)

===Early history===
The canonical hours of the Breviary owe their remote origin to the [[Old Covenant]] when God commanded the Aaronic priests to offer morning and evening sacrifices. Other inspiration may have come from David's words in the Psalms "Seven times a day I praise you" (Ps. 119:164), as well as, "the just man meditates on the law day and night" (Ps. 1:2). Regarding Daniel "Three times daily he was kneeling and offering prayers and thanks to his God" (Dan. 6:10).

In the early days of Christian worship the [[Bible|Sacred Scriptures]] furnished all that was thought necessary, containing as it did the books from which the lessons were read and the psalms that were recited. The first step in the evolution of the Breviary was the separation of the Psalter into a choir-book. At first the president of the local church (bishop) or the leader of the choir chose a particular psalm as he thought appropriate. From about the 4th century certain psalms began to be grouped together, a process that was furthered by the monastic practice of daily reciting the 150 psalms. This took so much time that the monks began to spread it over a week, dividing each day into hours, and allotting to each hour its portion of the Psalter. St Benedict in the 6th century drew up such an arrangement, probably, though not certainly, on the basis of an older Roman division which, though not so skilful, is the one in general use. Gradually there were added to these psalter choir-books additions in the form of antiphons, responses, collects or short prayers, for the use of those not skilful at improvisation and metrical compositions. [[Jean Beleth]], a 12th-century liturgical author, gives the following list of books necessary for the right conduct of the canonical office: the Antiphonarium, the Old and New Testaments, the ''Passionarius (liber)'' and the ''Legendarius'' (dealing respectively with martyrs and saints), the ''Homiliarius'' (homilies on the Gospels), the ''Sermologus'' (collection of sermons) and the works of the Fathers, besides  the ''Psalterium'' and the ''Collectarium''. To overcome the inconvenience of using such a library the Breviary came into existence and use. Already in the 9th century [[Prudentius, bishop of Troyes]], had in a ''Breviarium Psalterii'' made an abridgment of the Psalter for the laity, giving a few psalms for each day, and Alcuin had rendered a similar service by including a prayer for each day and some other prayers, but no lessons or homilies.<ref name=EB1911/>