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For we have found that many in different countries, according to the
fancy of their mind (having, indeed, as the Apostle says, "a zeal, for God
but not according to Knowledge", have made for themselves different
rules and arrangements in this matter. For some have appointed that each
night twenty or thirty Psalms should be said, and that these should be
prolonged by the music of antiphonal singing, and by the addition of some
modulations as well. Others have even tried to go beyond this number. Some
use eighteen. And in this way we have found different rules appointed in
different places, and the system and regulations that we have seen are
almost as many in number as the monasteries and cells which we have
visited. There are some, too, to whom it has seemed good that in the day
offices of prayer, viz., Tierce, Sext, and Nones, the number of Psalms
and prayers should be made to correspond exactly to the number of the hours
at which the services are offered up to the Lord. Some have thought fit
that six Psalms should be assigned to each service of the day. And so I
think it best to set forth the most ancient system of the fathers which is
still observed by the servants of God throughout the whole of Egypt, so
that your new monastery in its untrained infancy in Christ may be
instructed in the most ancient institutions of the earliest fathers.
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