NOCBRA
87
NOCTURNS
credible is the tradition of the martyrdom of SS. Felix,
Constance, and Felicissimus. The Bishops Felix, to
whom Pope Innocent addressed a letter in 402, and
Coelius Laurentius, the competitor of Pope Symma-
chus (498), were not Umbrian prelates, but bishops of
Nocera, near Naples (Savio, "Civ. Cattol.", 1907).
The first authentic Bishop was Liutardus (824) ; other
prelates were Blessed Rinaldo d'Antignano (1258) and
Blessed Filippo Oderisi (1285), monks of Fonte Avel-
lana; Blessed Alessandro Vincioli, O.M. (1363); An-
tonio Bolognini (1438) restored the cathedral; Varino
Favorino (1514), anotedhumanist; Gerolano Maunelli
(1545), founder of the seminary; Mario Battaglini
(1690), diocesan historian; Francesco Luigi Piervisani
(1800), exiled in 1809 because he refused the oath of
allegiance to Napoleon. It is immediately dependent
on Rome, with 82 parishes; 59,731 inhabitants; 7 re-
ligious houses of men and 9 of women.
Cappelletti, Le CAtese d'/faiio. VI. U. BenIGNI.
Nocera del Pagani (of the pagans), Diocese op (XrcEuix I'ah wonr.M), in Salerno, Italy, at the foot of .Mt. Alhinid. im the Sarno River; it is the Nuceria Alfaterna of the Xuvkrinum coins, captured by Fa- bius Maximus in the Samnite War (.307), and sacked by Hannibal (215). The appellation "of the pagans" dates probably from the ninth century, be- iau.se of a Saracen riilony established there with the con- n i V a n c e of the rXikes of Naples. In 1 132 King Roger nearly destroyed the town because it took part with In- nocent II, and in 1382 Charles of Du- ra zzo besieged there Urban VI Nocera is the birth- place of Hugo de Paganis (Payus), one of the founders of theTemplars;St. Ludovico, Bishop of Tolosa, a son of Charles II of An- jou; Tommaso de Acerno, historian of Urban VI; and the painter Francesco Solimena. St. Alphonsus Liguori founded his order there. At Nocera is the sanctuary of Mater Domini, which contains the tomb of Charles I of Anjou; the ancient church was rebuilt in the eleventh century, and given to some hermits; Urban VIII gave it to the Basihans, and when these were driven away in 1809 and 1829, it came into the hands of the Franciscans. Among its bishops were St. Priscus, the first bishop, not St. Priscus of Nola; and Ccelius Laurentius, competitor of Symmachus (498). In 1260 the assassination of the bishop caused the suppression of the diocese, but Urban VI restored it in 1386. Later bishops were Giovanni Cerretani (1498), a jurist; the historian Paul Jovius (1528), suc- ceeded by his nephew Julius and his great-nephew Paul, who rebuilt the episcopal palace; Simone Luna- doro (1602), diocesan historian. United to the See of Cava in 1818, it was re-established in 18.34. A suffragan of Salerno, it has 28 parishes; 60,350 inhab- itants; 4 religious houses of men, and 11 of women; a school for boys, and 5 for girls.
, Le Chiese d' Italia, XX. U. BeNIGNI.
Paolo Giovio. Bishop of Nocera
DEI Paoani (1528)
Painter Unlmown, UfEzi, Florence
Noctums (Noclurni or Nocturna), a very old term
applied to night Offices. Tertullian speaks of noc-
turnal gatherings (Ad. Uxor., II, iv); St. Cyprian, of
the nocturnal hours, "nulla sint horis nocturnis pre-
cum damna, nulla orationum pigra et ignava dispen-
dia" (De orat., vcJx). In the life of Melania the
Younger is found the expression "nocturne honis",
"nocturna tempora" (Anal. BoUand., VIII, 1889, jip.
49 sq.). In these passages the term signifies night
prayer in general, and seems synonymous with the
word vigilias. It is not accurate, then, to assume that
the present division of Matins into three Nocturns rep-
resents three distinct Offices recited during the night
in the early ages of the Church. Durandus of Mende
(Rationale, III,n. 17) and others who follow him assert
that the early Christians rose thrice in the night to
pray; hence the present division into three Nocturns
(cf. Beleth, Rupert, and other authors cited in the
bibliography). Some early Christian writers speak of
three vigils in the night, as Methodius or St. Jerome
(Methodius, "Symposion", V, ii, in P. G., XVIII,
100); but the first was evening prayer, or prayer at
nightfall, corresponding practically to our Vespers or
Complines; the second, midnight prayer, specifically
called Vigil; the third, a prayer at dawn, correspond-
ing to the Office of Lauds. As a matter of fact the
Office of the Vigils, and consequently of the Nocturns,
was a single Office, recited without interruption at
midnight. All the old texts alluding to this Office (see
Matins; Vigil) testify to this. Moreover, it does
not seem practical to assume that anyone, considering
the length of the Office in those days, could have risen
to pray at three difTerent times during the night, be-
sides joining in the two Offices of eventide and dawn.
If it is not yet possible to assign exactly the date of the origin of the three Nocturns, or to account for the significance of the division, some more or less probable conjectures may be made. In the earliest period there was as yet no question of a division in the Office. The oldest Vigils, in as far as they signify an Office, com- prised certain psalms, chanted or sung either as re- sponses or as antiphons, intermingled with prayers recited aloud, or interrupted by a few moments' medi- tation and readings from the Old or the New Testa- ment. On certain days the Vigil included the celebra- tion of Mass.
It was during the second period, probably in the fourth century, that to break the monotony of this long night prayer the custom of dividing it into three parts was introduced. Cassian in speaking of the sol- emn Vigils mentions three divisions of this Office (De coenob. instit.. Ill, viii, in P. L., XLIX, 144). We have here, we think, the origin of the Nocturns; or at least it is the earliest mention of them we possess. In the " Peregrinatio ad loca sancta", the Office of the Vigils, either for week-days or for Sundays, is an unin- terrupted one, and shows no evidence of any divi- sion (cf. Cabrol, "Etude surLa Peregrinatio Sylvia ", Paris, 1895, pp. 37 and 53). A little later St. Benedict speaks with greater detail of this division of the Vigils into two Nocturns for ordinary days, and tlirec for Sundays and feast-days with six [isalms and lessons for the first two Nocturns, three canticles and lessons for the third: this is exactly the structure of the Noc- turns in the Benedictine Office to-daj-, and practically in the Roman Office (Regula, ix, x, .\i). The very ex- pression " Nocturn", to signify the night Office, is used by him twice (xv, xvi). He also uses the term Noc- iiirna laiis in speaking of the Office of the Vigils. The proof which E. Warren tries to draw from the ".Xn- tiphonary of Bangor" to show that in the Celtic Church, according to a custom older than the Bene- dictino-Roman practice, there were three separate Nocturns or Vigils, is based on a confusion of the three Offices, " Initium noctis", "Nocturna", and "Matutina", which are not the three Nocturns, btit the Office of Eventide, of the Vigil, and of Lauds (cf. The Tablet, 16 Dec, 1893, p. 972; and Biiumer- Biron, infra, 1, 263, 264);
