VESPERS (Vesperae, Agenda vespertina, Synaxis vespertina, Solemnitas vespertina, Gratia vespertina, Duodecima). — The canonical hour at sunset; perhaps the most ancient of the hours of prayer. In the Old Testament, it was the hour of the evening sacrifice.
For Christians in the first three centuries, it was an hour of private prayer, which became public in monasteries and churches. At times LUCERNA (v.). According to Callewaert (unlike Batiffol and others), Vespers were already recited privately in Rome in the 3rd century, and as a canonical hour in the 4th and 5th centuries. St. Benedict (Rule, ch. 41) established the hour so that it did not require a lamp, i.e., as an afternoon daytime hour. According to Fr. J.-M. Hanssens, the proper psalms of the lucernare were replaced in the Roman rite by the psalms of the psalter in current use (the psalmi vespertini, 109-47), a monastic usage. The parts added later to the primitive core of the five psalms with their respective antiphons have reduced the present Roman Vespers to a structure similar to that of Lauds.