BREVIARY, a daily office or book of divine service in the Roman church. It is composed of matins, lauds, vespers, and the compline or post communio.
The breviary of Rome is general, and may be used in
Breviary all places; but on the model of this various others have been formed, appropriated to each diocese, and each order of religious persons.
The breviary of the Greeks is the same in almost all churches and monasteries which follow the Greek rites; and they divide the psalter into twenty parts. In general, the Greek breviary consists of two parts; the one containing the office for the evening; the other that of the morning, divided into matins, lauds, first, third, sixth, and ninth vespers, and the compline, that is, of seven different hours, on account of the saying of David, Septies in die laudem dixi tibi.
The institution of the breviary is not very ancient, and there have been inserted in it the lives of the saints, full of stories more remarkable for their strangeness than their authenticity. This gave occasion to several reformation by different councils, especially those of Trent and Cologne; by several popes, particularly Pius V. Clement VIII. and Urban VIII.; and also by several cardinals and bishops, each lopping off some extravagance, and bringing it nearer to the simplicity of the primitive offices. Originally, all were obliged to recite the breviary every day; but by degrees the obligation was restricted to the clergy only, who are enjoined, under penalty of mortal sin and ecclesiastical censures, to recite it at home when they cannot attend in public. In the fourteenth century a particular reservation was granted in favour of bishops, who were allowed, on extraordinary occasions, to pass three days without rehearsing the breviary.
This office was originally called curtus, and afterwards breviarium, which imports that the old office was abridged, or rather, that this collection is a kind of abridgment of all the prayers. The breviaries now in use are innum-
able; the difference between them consists principally in the number and order of the psalms, hymns, paternosters, Ave-Marias, creeds, magnificates, cantemuses, benedictuses, canticamuses, nunc dimittises, misereres, hallelujahs, gloria-patris, and so on.