MATINS (from the Italian nsattina, or the French wain, morning), strictly the first part In the daily service of the newish church. Matins or mattins however were divided into two parts, which were originally distinct offices and hours ; namely, the nocturn and made lauds. The mourns or vigils were derived from the earliest period of Christianity. We learn from Pliny the younger, as well as from Justin Martyr, Ter tulliau, and various writers of the first three centuries, that the Christians in those times of persecution held their assemblies in the night, iu order to avoid detection. On those occasions they celebrated the memory of Christ's death in the holy mysteries. When perseeu-, Gorr had intermitted and finally ceased, although the Christians were able to celebrate all their rites, and did administer the sacrament in the day-time, yet a custom which had commenced from necessity was retained from devotion and choice • and nocturnal assemblies for the worship of God in psalmody and refining still continued. The monastic orders, which, in the 4th century, arose under Pachomius, Anthony, Basil, and others in Egypt, Pontus, and Syria, tended to preserve this custom of nocturnal vigils ; and in the following centuries we find, from the testimony of Cassisnus, Augustine, and others, that the same custom remained in most parts of the East and West. In the 6th
century Benedict, the great founder of monastic societies in the West, prescribed the same in his Rule; and nocturnal assemblies were common about that time, especially in monasteries. The lauds, or more properly maths lauds, followed next after the nocturne, and were supposed to begin with day-break. We find allusions in the writings of Cyprian, and all the subsequent fathers, to the morning as an hour of prayer ; but whether there was in the 3rd century any assembly of the ;church for the purpose of public morning worship is uncer tain. However, about the end of the third or beginning of the 4th century there was public worship at this hour, as we learn from the Apostolical Constitutions,' where we have the order of the service.
(Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church., b. xiii.; Palmer's Origines Liturgy.)