Etymology.  The word Matins is derived from Matuta, the Latin name for the Greek goddess of morning.  The word used in the Roman Breviary is matutinum (i.e., tempus).  It is the old name for Lauds, Laudes matutinae.  The word was also used to denote the office of Vigils.  Hence, the word was used in three senses, to denote the nocturns and lauds, to denote Lauds only and to denote the vigil office.  In liturgical study the word was confusing, and sometimes it is the context only which gives the author’s meaning.  This, the principal Hour of the Church’s public prayer, was, in the early days of Christianity, said at night, and was called Nocturnum and Vigiliae.

Origin.  The night office of vigils dates from the very earliest days of Christianity.  It derived its name from the vigils or night watches of the soldiers, who divided the night, from six o’clock in the evening to six o’clock in the morning, into four watches of three hours each.  The nightly meetings of the Christians came to be called by the name vigils, but the meetings were not begun at the stated hours of military vigil and did not finish with them.  Why these meetings of Christians were held at night, and in what their religious exercises consisted in, both in matter and form, is an unsolved problem.  But it is certain that they resembled the services of the Jewish synagogue in the readings from Scripture, psalm-singing and prayers, and differed from those services by having readings from the Gospels, the Epistles, and from non-canonical books, such as the Epistle of St. Clement.  The Eucharistic service always formed part of them.  Indeed, the very name, Synagogue was given to these assemblies of Christians, as we see from the Pastor of Hermes.  In their common prayer, they faced towards the East, as the Jews did towards Jerusalem.  They had precentors and janitors as in the Jewish rites.  Their services consisted of the readings from the Mosaic law, from Gospels and Epistles, exposition of Scripture, a set sermon, long and fervent “blessings” or thanksgiving and psalms.  Before there were any written gospels to read, we gather that the reading of the Old Law, of the Prophets and the Psalms, was followed by a set sermon on the life and death of Christ (Bickel, Messe und Pascha, p, 91).  From St. Basil (fourth century) it is concluded that two choirs sang the Psalms.  Cassian writes that the monks of the fifth century celebrated the Night Office with twelve psalms and readings from the Old and the New Testaments.  Hence, “we find the same elements repeated, the psalms generally chanted in the form of responses, that is to say, by one or more cantors, the choir repeating one verse which served as a response, alternately with the verses of the psalms, which were sung by the cantors, readings taken from the Old and the New Testaments and, later on, from the works of the Fathers and Doctors; litanies, supplications, prayers for divers members of the Church, clergy, faithful, neophytes and catechumens; for emperors, travellers; the sick; and generally for all the necessities of the Church, and even for Jews and for heretics.  It is quite easy to find these essentials in our modern Matins” (Dom Cabrol, Cath.  Encyclopedia, art.  “Matins").