Chapter 19
above.
At Compline, however, the same (three) psalms shall be re peated each day, namely, the fourth, the 90th, and the 133rd.
After the number and order of the psalms for the day-time psalmody have been arranged, let the remaining psalms be distributed equally over the seven night offices, in such wise that the longer ones can be cut in half; and let twelve psalms be al lotted permanently to each night office.
Should this distribution of the psalms perhaps be displeasing to anyone, let him make another arrangement if he thinks that is a better one. However, we call everyone's attention to this: he should by all means see to it that the whole psalter to the number of 150 psalms is chanted in their entirety every week and always starts from the beginning again at the nightwatches on Sunday. For monks who chant less than the entire psalter with its customary canticles (from the prophets) in a week show themselves all too slothful in fidelity to their service of bondage, whereas we read that our fathers (the old monks) resolutely performed in one day what we lukewarm ones should fulfill in at least seven days.1
NINETEENTH CHAPTER
Proper Decorum while chanting the Divine Office2 We believe that God is present everywhere "and the eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and the wicked" (cf.
1 "A certain anchorite betook himself to the cell of a neighboring hermit, who welcomed him with gladness . . . They arranged with each other according to their custom, to say their prayers first and finsh their psalmody before they sat down to eat. With that intention they chanted and finished the entire psalter . . . Thus the whole of that day went by and in the same way the night." Afterwards the visiting anchorite went back to his own cell. They had completely forgotten to take any nourishment (Vitae Patrum III, vi; cf. also V, iv, 57). The praying of the psalter was the "Work of God."
2 It is quite possible that chapters viii to xviii at one time stood by themselves as a separate section, a sort of "Treatise on Divine Service," and were only in corporated later into the body of the Rule by St. Benedict. For the 19th chapter again takes up the theme begun in the seventh chapter (on humility) and applies its fruits to the subject of prayer.