COMPETENTES
187
COMPOSTELA
proper support. By the privilege of competency, the
goods of a cleric, burdened with debt, cannot be at-
tached or sold without leaving him sufficient means
of support (Cap. 3, x., Ill, 23). A cleric loses this
privilege, however, if he fraudulently contracts un-
necessary debts, in abuse of the privilege. The civil
law in some countries recognizes this right of com-
petency. In Austria, while the property of a benefice
carmot be attached, the revenues can, but only to such
an extent that at least 300 or 210 florins, according to
the rank of the benefice, must remain intact. In Ger-
many, whatever is necessary for exercising the min-
istry is free from attachment. The civil laws of the
United States and Great Britain make no exception
for clerics. (2) The term competency is also used for
the sura total of the rights belonging to any ecclesi-
astical dignitar}', as of the pope, bishops, etc. Ob-
jectively, such competency is determined by the vari-
ous functions to which it extends, such as ordination,
matrimony, and so forth.
AlCHNF.R, Compcnd. Jiir. Eed. (Brixen, 1895): Ferraris, Bibliolh. Prompla Canon. (Rome, 1886), II; Laurentius, Inslit. Jut. EccI. (Freiburg, 1903).
William H. W. F.\nning.
Competentes. See Catechumen.
Complin. — The term Complin is derived from the Latin complclnrium, complement, and iias been given to this particular Hour because Complin is, as it were, the completion of all the Hours of the day: the close of the day. The word was first used in this sense about the beginning of the sixth century by St. Bene- dict in his Rule (cc. xvi, x\di, xviii, and xlii), and he even uses the verb complere to signify Complin: "Om- nes ergo in unum positi compleant"; "et exeuntes a completorio" (xlii). The Hour of Complin, such as it now appears in the Roman Bre^^ary, may be di- vided into several parts, viz.: the beginning or intro- duction, the psalmody, with its usual accompaniment of anthems, the hymn, the capitulum, the response, the evangelical canticle, the i:>rayer, and the benedic- tion.
The origin of Complin has recently given rise to considerable discussion among liturgists. General opinion, which is also that of Baumer and Batiffol, ascribes the origin of this Hour to St. Benedict, in the beginning of the sixth century. It was St. Benedict who first gave it this name ; he decided also that this Hour should consist of three psalms (iv, xc, and cxxxiii) to be said without anthems, the hymn, the lesson, the versicle Kyrie eleison, the benediction, and the dismissal (ch. x\-ii and xvnii). But Father Par- goire and, later still, A. Vandepitte oppose this opin- ion and seek a more ancient origin for this Hour. A text in Callinicus (between 447 and 450), first intro- duced in Father Pargoire's argument, informs us that between Vespers and the night Office there was cele- brated in the East a canonical Hour called in this text Tpuffurvia, because it preceded the first sleep, be- ing nothing but what the Greeks of to-day call apodeipnort, on account of the meal it follows. How- ever, in the thirty-seventh question of his rules, St. Basil, also, sjieaks of an intermediate Hour between Vespers and the night Office. Father Pargoire there- fore disputes the assertion that St. Benedict was the originator of Complin, being rather disposed to trace its source to St. Basil. In the article mentioned Father Vandepitte confirms the.se conclusions; nev- ertheless he states, in the clearest terms, that it was not in CiEsarea in 375, but in his retreat in Pontus. (358-3G2) that Basil established Complin, which Hour did not exist prior to his time, that is, until shortly after the middle of the fourth century. Doni Plainc also traced the source of Complin back to the fourth century, finding mention of it in a passage in Kuse- bius and in another in St. Ambrose, and also in Cassian. These passages have been critically ex- amined, and Fathers Pargoire and Vandepitte have
proved that before St. Basil's time the custom of
reciting Complin was unknown. At any rate, even
if these texts do not express all that Dom Plaine
says they do, at least they bear witness to the private
custom of saying a prayer before retiring to rest. If
this was not the canonical Hour of Complin, it was
certainly a preliminary steji towards it. The same
writers reject the opinion of Ladeuze and Dom Besse,
both of whom believe that Complin had a place in the
Rule of St. Pachomius, which would mean that it
originated still earlier in the fourth century. It is
not necessary to enter into this discussion, but it
might be possible to conciliate these different senti-
ments by stating that, if it be an established fact that
St. Basil instituted and organized the Hour of Com-
plin for the East, as St. Benedict did for the West,
there existed as early as the days of St. Cyprian and
Clement of Alexantlria the custom of reciting a prayer
before sleep, in which practice we find the most re-
mote origin of our Complin. But let the result of
this discussion be what it may, it cannot be denied
that St. Benedict invested the Hour of Complin with
its liturgical character and arrangement, which were
preserved in the Benedictine Order and almost com-
pletely adopted by the Roman Church; it is hardly
to be believed, as Dom Plaine maintains, that the
Hour of Complin, at least such as it now exists in the
Roman Breviary, antedated the Benedictine Office.
In default of other proof, it may be noted that the
Benedictine Office gives evidence of a less advanced
liturgical condition, as we have seen that it consists
of a few very simple elements. The Roman Office of
Com])lin is richer and more complicated. To the
simple Benedictine psalmody — modified, however, by
the insertion of a fourth psalm (xxx), "In te Domine
speravi " — it adds the solemn introduction of a bene-
diction with a reading [perhajis the spiritual reading
which, in St. Benedict, precedes Complin (ch. xlii of
the Rule)], and the confession and absolution of
faults. But what endows the Roman Complin with
a distinctive character and greater solemnity is, to
say nothing of the ending, the addition of the beau-
tiful resjjonse, In manus tuas. Domine, with the evan-
gelical canticle Nunc Dimittis and its anthem, which
is very characteristic. It is really difficult to under-
stand why St. Benedict, whose liturgical taste fa-
voured solemnity in the Office, should have sacrificed
these elements, especially the evangelical canticle.
By way of liturgical variety the service of initium
noctis may also be studied in the Celtic Liturgy (see
Celtic Rite), such as it is read in the Bangor Antiph-
onary, its ]ilan being set forth by Warren and by
Bishop. Under the title of Apodeipnon (after meals),
the Greeks have an Hour that corresponds to our
Latin Comi'lin; it is very long and complicated, and
its description may be seen in Father Petrid6s' article,
cited l)elow. This Aijodeipnon, or Grand Apodeip-
non, appears in an abridged form, or Small Apo-
deipnon.
Pargoire. Prime et complies in Rev. d'hist. et dc litter, relig. (18981, III, 281-288, 456-467; Vandepitte, Saint Basils et Vorigine de complies in Rev. Auaystiniennc (1903), II, 258-264; Pargoire and Petridics in Did. d'arch. et de liixtrgie, s. v. Apodeipnon, I, 2579-2589; Dom Plaine, La Genese his- lonquc des Ilrurcs in Rev. Anglo-romaine, I, 593; Idem, De otftni ■cu curstj.i Romani originc in Studien u. Mittheilungen (1S99), X, ;j64-397; Baumer, Histoire du Brcviaire. tr. BiRON, I, 135, 147-149 and passim; Batiffol, Histoire du brcviaire romain, 35; Ladeuze, Etude sur le cenabitisme pakho- mien pendant le IV* siicle et la premise moitie du V^ (Lou vain, 1898), 288; Besse, Les Moines d'Orient antcrieurs au roncile de Chalecdoine (Paris, 1900). 333; Bishop, .4 Service Book uf the Seventh Century in The Church Quarterly Review (.Janiiarv, 1894), XXXVII. 347; C.\BROL, Le Livre dc la Priere ani i.r'<,'22-l.
Fernand Cabrol.
Compluto, Diocese of. See Madrid.
Compostela, a famous city of Spain, situated on an eminence between the Sar (the Sars of Pomponius Mela') and the Sarela. At a very remote period this
