The answer is that the churches in East and West put their major emphasis upon a Morning Service, around dawn, and an Evening Service, around sunset. These were called, “Morning and Evening Hymns” and their creation made into public services a discipline of morning and evening prayer that had long been practiced privately by members of the Church.

In the new peace that Constantine the Great brought to the Empire, Christians and Catechumens were encouraged by their pastors to make attendance at one or both of these daily services a part of their daily Christian vocation and routine. (Also of course all Christians were urged to pray without ceasing and to call upon the Name of the Lord, at dawn, at the third, sixth & ninth hours and at sunset wherever they were and if possible with their brethren and sisters in the Lord.)

At the “Morning and Evening Hymns” the local bishop, presbyters and deacons, were always present (when in town) and they were joined by young men in training for the ordained ministry, monks and nuns as well as many church members. Although we may call these services Mattins and Evensong, they were different in structure and content to the services we know by these names from “The Book of Common Prayer” or from the Breviary.

The basic content was three fold --- selected Psalms, Canticles and Litanies (ordered prayer). At this early stage of the development of the Daily Offices there were no readings from the Bible as Lessons (yet of course there was much Bible reading and teaching at other times in the week for church members and catechumens).

The Psalms and Canticles were sung heartily and the responses in the Litany were also made vigorously. And different parts of the service were sung or recited in different parts of the church building with the participants processing from one part to the other led by the clergy.

Special attention was also paid to the lighting of the oil lamps in the Evening with thanksgiving being offered to the Lord for light.

The Bishop blessed separately the Catechumens (in preparation for church
membership) and the faithful (the baptized and confirmed members).

The Morning and Evening Services were joyful and celebratory with rich use of music, ceremony, visual effect and congregational participation. Yet the celebration was not in the sense of elevating humanity but rather of praising the Lord. Since Psalm 51 was one of the set psalms for each day there was no diminishing of the reality of sin!

At this stage the Celebration of a daily Eucharist was rare and if there
was a daily receiving of Holy Communion it was often from the reserved
Sacrament. Certainly there was always the Eucharist on the Lord’s Day and
on special Feast Days but in this period (unlike the Middle Ages in the
West) it had not become a daily rite.

Later on, as Monasticism became a major component in Christianity, what we may call the People’s Daily Services of “Hymns” at the city and town churches began to change as they were adapted to the Daily Offices of the Monks and Religious. Later these services disappeared in most places as they were replaced by the more austere and demanding Daily Offices of monasticism.

At the Reformation when Archbishop Cranmer sought to simplify the Daily Offices for the use of clergy and laity and make them into two rather than seven or more services, what he simplified was not the original People’s Services from the Early Church (of which he had very little information and
detail) but the medieval services/offices of the monks and religious. Thus the Anglican pattern of Daily Morning and Evening Prayer in the classic “Book of Common Prayer” belongs much more to the disciplined, meditatory and western monastic development of the Early Church Daily Services than to the celebratory style of Daily Worship in terms of Morning and Evening Hymns of the fourth century.

It is difficult to find any form of daily worship in the West today that appears to be similar to that common in the Early Church in the age of Constantine the Great. Neither Taize nor the best charismatic services seem to fit. I am told that in parts of Africa Christian congregations, whilst they wait for the arrival of their bishop, engage for long periods of time in hymns and praying in a ordered yet also spontaneous way. Maybe this practice is like unto the Morning and Evening Hymns of antiquity.

Application:

I, for one, see possibilities in the reviving of the patristic “Morning and Evening Hymns” which would minister well, I think, to many modern western Christians and potential Christians who find the more disciplined and cerebral emphases of the traditional Daily Offices difficult to enter into to. I can see the central service at a church or cathedral being available by digital & video means in homes and offices for those who cannot be present at the central sanctuary.

Let’s face it we need a form of worship which attracts modern persons who believe/want to be believe, which engages their feelings and emotions, and which helps them move from a state of indifference or not quite sure about faith to one of attending unto God, his name and his salvation. They need easily digestible but wholesome food for mind and heart and they want it in a celebratory kind of way.

On the other hand, we need, for a minority, a form of worship which presupposes a measure of commitment and consecration with the ability to be attentive and thoughtful. Worship for those who are mature and wish to be mature and constant in their relation with God. And the BCP supplies this.

Maybe – or even certainly -- we need both types of daily worship in order to revive Anglicanism in the West in this new millennium. We need to find ways to revive the fourth century pattern and we ought to hold on to the classical Anglican pattern. And maybe some people will graduate from the one to the other as they mature in the Faith. That which was common in the fourth century would be easiest to revive in Cathedrals and Large City Churches where there are sufficient clergy who could gladly be involved daily. And these holy places are big enough to make space for the offering of the regular Anglican Daily Offices as well in an adjoining chapel.

Certainly there is a real need for daily services where a quorum (not necessarily the same people daily) prays on behalf of the whole people, and from where, through modern digital means, others can share in the offering of the sacrifice of prayer and praise at the central sanctuary.