On Prayer

Grace makes the impossible possible§1

Why Ambrose and Tatiana asked for a treatise on prayer§2

2But it is likely, most God-fearing and industrious Ambrose, and most modest and courageous Tatiana — from whom, I pray, womanly frailty has already departed, as it had departed from Sarah — that you wonder why, when our treatise concerns prayer, these opening remarks have been about things impossible for men but made possible by God's grace. What I am persuaded of is this: that to expound the whole subject of prayer exactly and worthily of God — both how one must pray, and what to say to God in prayer, and which times are fitter than other times for prayer — is, given our weakness, one of those impossibilities. [The text is damaged here.]

The one of these, then — I mean the 'what' — is the words of prayer; the 'how' is the disposition of the one who prays. For example, of the 'what': Ask for the great things, and the small shall be added to you; and ask for the heavenly things, and the earthly shall be added to you; and pray for those who persecute you; and beg the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest; and pray that you may not enter into temptation. Of the 'how': pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath; and in praying, do not babble; and whatever resembles these. Of the 'how' again: I desire then that men pray in every place, lifting holy hands without anger and doubting; and likewise that women adorn themselves in modest dress, with shame and self-control, not with braids or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but — as befits women professing godliness — with good works. Instructive of the 'how' is also this: if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go first be reconciled to your brother, and then come offer your gift. For what greater gift can be sent up to God from a rational being than the fragrant word of prayer, offered from a conscience bearing no stench of sin? Further of the 'how': do not deprive one another, except by agreement for a time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again, lest Satan test you for your lack of self-control. For the 'how' is hindered by these things, unless even the act of the marriage mysteries — things fit to be passed over in silence — becomes more solemn and slower and more passionless, when the harmony named here dissolves passion's dissonance and consumes intemperance and checks Satan's malicious gloating. Besides, instructive of the 'how' is this: whenever you stand praying, forgive whatever you hold against anyone. And Paul's word: every man praying or prophesying with his head covered dishonors his head; but every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonors her own head. You illustrate the 'how.'

But Paul knew all these things, and many times more from the Law and the prophets and the fullness of the Gospel, which he could set forth with varied exposition of each — and he speaks from a disposition not merely moderate but truthful. Yet seeing, beyond all this, how far short we fall of knowing what to pray as we ought — but what to pray as we ought, we do not know — he adds to his treatise the source from which the lack is filled: for the one who does not know, yet has made himself worthy to have the lack filled in him. For he says that the Spirit itself intercedes with unutterable groanings; and he who searches hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, for he intercedes for saints according to God. And the Spirit crying Abba, Father in the hearts of the blessed, which knows well the groans in the tent — groans [obscure clause, see note] the fallen and transgressors — intercedes with God with unutterable groanings, taking up our groans in great love for man and sympathy. And seeing in its wisdom our soul humbled to dust and confined in the body of humiliation, it intercedes with God not with just any groans but with certain unutterable ones, akin to the unspeakable words which no man may utter. This Spirit, then, not content with that for which it intercedes with God, straining its intercession on our behalf — concerning, I think, the more-than-conquerors, like the one who says, In all these things we are more than conquerors. And it is likely that it intercedes only for those not so great as to be more than conquerors, nor again such as to be conquered, but for conquerors.

Next, attached to 'but what to pray as we ought, we do not know, but the Spirit intercedes with unutterable groanings' (Romans 8:26) is 'I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also.' (1 Corinthians 14:15) For our mind cannot pray unless the Spirit first prays, as in accompaniment of it — just as it cannot sing and hymn the Father in Christ rhythmically, melodiously, metrically, harmoniously, unless the Spirit who searches all things, even the depths of God, first praises and hymns him whose depths it has searched and, as far as it could, grasped.

But I think some one of Jesus' disciples, sensing human weakness — falling short of how one ought to pray — and realizing this especially when he heard learned and great discourses uttered by the Savior in his prayer to the Father, said to the Lord when he stopped praying: Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. The whole sequence of the saying runs thus: And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him: Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples to pray. For would a man reared on the Law's catechism, hearing the prophetic readings, never missing the synagogues, not have known how to pray at all until he saw the Lord praying in a certain place? To say so is absurd. He prayed according to Jewish custom, of course — but he saw that he needed a greater knowledge for prayer's ground. And what did John teach his disciples about prayer — they who came to be baptized by him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the countryside — if he did not see something more than a prophet concerning prayer, which [The text is damaged here.] it is likely he delivered not to all the baptized but in secret to those being discipled toward baptism? Such prayers, truly spiritual — the Spirit praying in the saints' hearts — were written down, full of secret and marvelous doctrines. In First Kingdoms, Hannah's prayer is partly recorded — for the whole of it, when she multiplied praying before the Lord, speaking in her heart, was not written down — and among the Psalms the sixteenth is entitled A prayer of David, and the eighty-ninth A prayer of Moses, the man of God, and the hundred and first A prayer of the afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his petition before the Lord. These prayers, since they truly were prayers, spoken in the Spirit and full of the doctrines of God's wisdom — one might say of the promises in them: Who is wise and will understand these things? And discerning, and will know them?

Since, then, expounding prayer is so great a task that we need the Father who also illuminates for this, and the firstborn Word himself teaching, and the Spirit empowering, to conceive and speak worthily of so great a proposal — having prayed as a man (for I hardly grant myself to contain prayer), I ask to obtain, before the treatise, the Spirit's prayer: that a most full and spiritual discourse may be granted us, and the prayers recorded in the Gospels clarified. We must now begin the treatise on prayer (Luke 12:31) (Luke 6:28) (Matthew 9:38) (Luke 22:40) (Matthew 24:20) (Matthew 6:7) (1 Timothy 2:8–10) (Matthew 5:23–24) (1 Corinthians 7:5) (Mark 11:25) (1 Corinthians 11:4–5) (Romans 8:26) (Romans 8:27) (Romans 8:15) (Romans 8:37) (2 Corinthians 12:4) (1 Corinthians 14:14–15) (1 Corinthians 2:10) (Luke 11:1) (1 Samuel 1:12–13) (Hosea 14:9) (Colossians 1:15) (Hebrews 1:6) (Romans 8:26–27).

The name “vow” (εὐχή) in Scripture§3

3First, the name 'vow' — as far as my observation finds it placed — when Jacob, fleeing his brother Esau's wrath, went to Mesopotamia at Isaac and Rebekah's charges. The wording runs thus: And Jacob vowed a vow, saying: If the Lord God is with me, and keeps me in this way I go, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to put on, and brings me back safely to my father's house — then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone I set up as a pillar shall be God's house, and of all You give me I will tithe to You.

Next, note that the name εὐχή is taken — though in many places different from προσευχή — for one who promises with a vow to do certain things, if he obtains certain things from God. It is also classed among the terms of our customary speech, as we found in Exodus: after the frog plague, second in order of the ten: Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said to them: Pray for me to the Lord, and let him take the frogs from me and my people; and I will send the people, and they shall sacrifice to the Lord. If anyone distrusts because 'pray' is Pharaoh's voice, noting that by 'prayer' is signified besides the former also... [The text is damaged here.].

We have observed that at the gnats, the third plague, neither does Pharaoh ask that prayer be made nor does Moses pray. And at the dog-fly, the fourth, he says: Pray therefore for me to the Lord — at which Moses said: I will go out from you and pray to God, and the dog-fly shall depart from Pharaoh and his servants and his people tomorrow. And a little later: And Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to God. Again, at the fifth and sixth plagues, with neither Pharaoh asking that prayer be made nor Moses praying, at the seventh Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said to them: I have sinned now; the Lord is righteous, but I and my people are godless. Pray therefore to the Lord, and let there cease to be voices of God and hail and fire. And a little later: And Moses went out from Pharaoh, outside the city, and spread out his hands to the Lord, and the voices ceased. Why it is not said 'and he prayed,' as with the former, but 'he spread out his hands to the Lord,' (Exodus 9:33) must be examined more opportunely elsewhere. And at the eighth plague Pharaoh says: Pray then to the Lord your God, and let him take this death from me. And Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to God.

In many places, we have said, the name εὐχή is placed not in the customary way as with Jacob. In Leviticus too: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: A man or woman who vows a great vow to purify purity to the Lord shall purify himself from wine and strong drink — and what follows about the one who wishes to be a Nazirite; then a little later: And he shall sanctify his head in that day, on which he was sanctified to the Lord for the days of the vow. And again a little later: This is the law of the one who vowed: on whatever day he fulfills a day of his vow; and again a little on: And after this the vowed one shall drink wine. This is the law of the one who vowed, who vows to the Lord his gift concerning the vow, besides what his hand finds, according to the power of his vow, which he vowed according to the law of purity. And toward the end of Numbers: And Moses spoke to the rulers of the tribes of the children of Israel, saying: This is the word the Lord commanded: A man who vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath with a definition, or defines concerning his soul, shall not profane his word; all that comes out of his mouth he shall do. But if a woman vows a vow to the Lord or defines a definition in her father's house in her youth, and her father hears her vows and her definitions which she defined against her soul, and her father keeps silence — all her vows shall stand, and all the definitions which she defined against her soul shall remain for her — and in sequence with these he lays down certain laws about such. According to this signification it is written in Proverbs: [The text is damaged here; 'a snare' is certain, two further sayings conjectured.] A snare to a man to consecrate hastily anything of his own; for after vowing comes repenting. And in Ecclesiastes: It is good not to vow than to vow and not pay. And in the Acts of the Apostles: There are four men with us, having a vow of themselves (Genesis 28:20-22) (Exodus 8:8–9) (Exodus 8:16–19) (Exodus 8:25–30) (Exodus 9:27–28) (Exodus 9:33) (Exodus 10:16–18) (Leviticus 27:1–8) (Numbers 6:2–3) (Numbers 6:11–13) (Numbers 6:20–21) (Numbers 30:2–6) (Proverbs 20:25) (Ecclesiastes 5:3–4) (Acts 21:23) (Exodus 8:8–10:18) (Numbers 6:2–21).

Two senses of εὐχή and προσευχή§4

4It seemed to me not unreasonable first to distinguish what is signified in Scripture, since εὐχή signifies two things — and likewise προσευχή. For this name, besides its common and customary use in many places, is also placed for what we customarily mean by εὐχή, as in the Hannah passages in First Kingdoms: And Eli the priest sat on a throne at the doorposts of the temple of the Lord. And she, bitter in soul, prayed to the Lord and wept weeping. And she vowed a vow and said: O Lord of hosts, if in oversight You look upon Your servant's humiliation and remember me and do not forget Your servant, and give Your servant a male seed — I will give him to the Lord as a gift all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head.

One might not unreasonably say here, attending to 'she prayed to the Lord' (1 Samuel 1:10) and 'she vowed a vow': if she did both — that is, she prayed to the Lord and she vowed a vow — perhaps 'she prayed' is placed for what we customarily call prayer, while 'she vowed a vow' is placed for what is signified as ordered in Leviticus and Numbers. For 'I will give him to the Lord as a gift all the days of his life, and no razor shall come upon his head' (1 Samuel 1:9–11) is not strictly prayer but that vow — like Jephthah's in these words: And Jephthah vowed a vow to the Lord and said: If You deliver the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of my house's doors to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's, and I will offer him as a burnt offering (Judges 11:30–31).

Objections that prayer accomplishes nothing§5

Prayer, providence, and how things are moved§6

6Of things moved, some have their mover from outside — like lifeless things held together by mere habit, and things moved by nature and soul: not as such ever moved thus, but like things held by habit alone. For stones and wood, cut from the mine or having lost the growing, held by habit alone, have their mover from outside; and animals' bodies too, and portable plants, when shifted by something — not as animals and plants, but like stones and wood that lost growing. And though even these move, since all wasting bodies are in flux, their movement in wasting is consequential. Second beyond these are things moved by indwelling nature or soul — which are said to be moved from themselves by those who use names strictly. Third is the movement in animals, called movement from themselves. And the movement of rationals, I think, is movement through themselves. Remove self-movement from an animal and it can no longer be conceived as still an animal, but will be like a plant moved by nature alone or a stone carried from outside. And if something follows upon its own movement — since we named this 'being moved from itself' — it must be rational.

Those who want nothing to be up to us will necessarily admit most absurd things: first, that we are not animals; second, that we are not even rational — but as though moved by an outside mover, ourselves in no way moving, we are said by it to do what we are thought to do. Besides, let anyone attend to his own affections and see whether he will shamelessly say: it is not I who will, not I who eat, not I who walk, not I who assent and accept whatever doctrines, not I who nod toward others away from false ones. As it is impossible for a man to be disposed toward certain doctrines, though he invent myriad times with plausible arguments, so it is impossible to be disposed about human affairs as if the 'up to us' were in no way preserved. For who is disposed that nothing is graspable, or so lives as suspending judgment on everything whatsoever? Who does not rebuke his servant, having taken an impression of the servant's fault? Who does not accuse a son who fails his duty to parents, or blame and censure one who did shameful things, or the adulterous wife? For truth forces and compels, even though one invent myriad times, to rouse(?) and praise and blame — with the 'up to us' preserved, and what depends on us becoming praiseworthy or blameworthy.

If then the 'up to us' is preserved — having countless turnings toward virtue or vice, and again toward duty or against duty — necessarily this too, with the rest, before it happens, is known to God from creation and the world's foundation, of what sort it shall be. And in all things God predetermines, following what he has seen concerning each work of the 'up to us,' predetermining worthily for each 'up to us' movement what shall meet it from providence — and further, what shall come to pass in the sequence of future things. God's foreknowledge does not become the cause of all future things, even those to be effected from the 'up to us' according to our impulse. For even if, hypothetically, God did not know the future, we would not for that reason lose acting these things and willing those; rather, from foreknowledge comes this: that each one's 'up to us' takes order into the whole's administration, needful for the world's constitution.

If then each 'up to us' is known to him, and for this reason, as foreseen by him, providence dispenses worthily to each — it is reasonable also that what one prays, and with what disposition so-and-so believing thus and wanting this to happen to him, is grasped beforehand. And with this grasped, something like this will fittingly be ordered in the dispensation: 'This one praying wisely I shall hear — the very prayer he will pray; but this one I shall not hear, either because he is unworthy to be heard or because he prayed for things neither profitable for the pray-er to receive nor fitting for me to grant.' (1 Kings 13:2) 'And for this prayer, say, of so-and-so, I shall not hear him; but for that one I shall hear him.' (2 Kings 23:4–25) If anyone is troubled that God, foreknowing the future, cannot lie — as if things were necessitated — tell him that this very thing is known to God unchangeably: that this one wills the better irrevocably and firmly, or will will the worse so as to admit no change toward the profitable. And again: 'Certain things I shall do for this one praying — for it befits me, since he prays to me not blameworthily nor carelessly conducting himself about prayer. But for this one praying in measure I shall give beyond what he asks or conceives(?) certain things — for it befits me to outdo him in benefactions and supply more than he had room to ask. And to this one, who will be such, I shall send this angel as minister, from this time beginning to co-work his salvation until this time; but to this one, say, one worthier than this one, since he will be better. But from this one, after giving himself to excellent words then slipping and running back to the more material, I shall withdraw this better co-worker. And with him gone, accordingly a worse power, finding opportunity, shall mount his laziness, set upon certain sins — since he gave himself ready to sin — and provoke him.' (Psalm 109:1)

Thus then already, as it were, shall he who predetermines all things say: 'Amos shall beget Josiah, who shall not emulate his father's faults but, meeting this road urging to virtue through these companions, shall be noble and good; who shall demolish Jeroboam's ill-built altar.' And I know Judas: with my Son visiting mankind, good and noble at first, later to turn aside and fall into human sins — whom it shall be reasonable to suffer certain things for these. This foreknowledge is perhaps concerning all, but certainly concerning Judas and other mysteries, and comes in the Son of God, who saw by comprehension of the unrolling(?) of future things Judas and the sins to be sinned by him — so that after seizing(?) him, and before Judas came to be, through David he said: O God, do not pass over my praise in silence — and what follows. Knowing the future, and what tension Paul shall have toward godliness — I, before founding the world, laying down the beginning of world-making, shall choose him, and with these powers co-working human salvation set him beside them as soon as born, setting him apart from his mother's womb, permitting at first in youth with ignorant zeal, on pretext of godliness, to persecute those who believed in my Christ and to guard the garments of those stoning my servant and witness Stephen — so that later, taking occasion and changing to the better, he may not boast before me but say: I am not fit to be called apostle, because I persecuted God's church; and sensing my future benefaction to him after youthful godly-pretext faults, he may say: By God's grace I am what I am; and, checked by conscience for what in youth befell him against Christ, he may not be lifted up by the exceeding greatness of the revelations to be manifested to him for benefaction (Acts 7:58) (1 Corinthians 15:9) (1 Corinthians 15:10) (2 Corinthians 12:7) (1 Corinthians 15:9–10).

Sun, moon, and creation’s praise§7

Why prayer is still required§8

8Still, it is not unreasonable to employ such an example too, to urge toward praying and deter from neglecting prayer. As there is no begetting children without a wife and the activity taken up for childbearing, so one would not obtain certain things without having so prayed — obscure clause with such disposition, believing thus, not having so lived before prayer. One must not babble, then, nor ask small things, nor pray about earthly things, nor come to prayer with anger and troubled reasonings; nor without purity can one conceive leisure arising for prayer; nor can the pray-er obtain forgiveness of sins without heartily forgiving the brother who wronged him and asks pardon.

I hold that benefit comes in many ways to one who prays as one ought, or hastens toward it as he can. First, in any case, he who set his mind toward praying is benefited: by the very condition in praying he presents himself to God, and forms himself to speak to him as present — as overseeing and present. For as such impressions and reminders of certain things defile, concerning the things of which they are reminders, the reasonings born in those impressions — so we must be persuaded it is profitable to remember the believed God who observes the movements in the soul's sanctuary, with remembrance ordering itself to please him as present and overseeing, who reaches before every mind, who examines hearts and searches kidneys. For even if, hypothetically, no further benefit came to one who set his reasoning to pray beyond this one, no small thing must be conceived gained by one who thus reverently ordered himself in prayer's hour. What sins this oft-done thing keeps off, and to what right deeds it bears — those know by experience who gave themselves more constantly to praying. For if reminding and recalling a sensible man profited in wisdom provokes us to zeal for him and often blocks impulses to the worse — how much more does reminding of God, the Father of all, with prayer to him, profit those who persuaded themselves that they stand by and speak to a present and hearing God (Matthew 6:7) (Matthew 6:12) (Psalm 7:9)?

Conditions of true prayer from Scripture§9

Already gaining the how of prayer§10

Christ, angels, and the saints pray with us§11

11Not only the High Priest co-prays with the genuine prayers, but also the angels rejoicing in heaven — over one sinner repenting or over ninety-nine righteous needing no repentance — and the souls of the departed saints. This is shown when Raphael offers rational worship to God for Tobit and Sarah (for after both prayed: 'Heard,' says Scripture, 'was the prayer of both before the glory of the great Raphael, and he was sent to heal the two.' (Tobit 3:16) And Raphael himself, revealing his angelic commission to both by God's command, says: 'And now, when you prayed, you and Sarah your bride, I brought the memorial of your prayer before the Holy One.' (Tobit 12:12) And a little later: 'I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who bring up the prayers of the saints and enter before the glory of the Holy One' (Tobit 12:8)). At any rate Raphael's word: 'Prayer with fasting and alms and righteousness is good.' (Tobit 12:12) And Jeremiah — appearing in Maccabees, eminent in gray hair and glory, so that his eminence was something marvelous and most magnificent, holding out his right hand and giving Judas a golden sword — another departed saint bore witness, saying: 'This is he who prays much for the people and the holy city, Jeremiah, God's prophet.'

It would be absurd — with knowledge now manifest to the worthy through a mirror, in an enigma, but then revealed face to face — not to conceive the analogy for the remaining virtues, perfected then properly in those prepared in this life. One chiefest virtue by the divine word is love of neighbor — which we must conceive present far more in departed saints toward life's strugglers than among those in human weakness co-struggling with inferiors: not only here, where 'if one member suffers, all members suffer with it; if one member is glorified, all members rejoice with it' (Tobit 12:15) holds among brother-lovers. Fitting too for love beyond this life to say: 'The care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is stumbled, and I do not burn?' (2 Maccabees 15:12–16) And this, with Christ confessing that like each ailing saint he likewise ails, is in prison, goes naked and abroad, hungers and thirsts. Who reading the Gospel does not know Christ reckoning what befalls believers, by reference to himself, as his own sufferings?

If God's angels came to Jesus and ministered to him — and it is not fitting to conceive the angels' ministry to Jesus as lasting a short time of his bodily sojourn among men, with him still amid believers not as reclining but as ministering — how many angels, likely, minister to Jesus, who wants to gather Jerusalem's children one by one(?) and collect the diaspora, saving God-fearers and callers, co-working the church's growth and multitude more than the apostles: as some angels presiding over churches are named by John in Revelation? For not in vain do God's angels ascend and descend upon the Son of Man, seen by eyes lit with gnosis's light.

At prayer-time itself, then, reminded by the pray-er of what he needs, they do what they can, having received it as universal command. Use some such image for this discourse, to admit what we conceived: suppose a physician of righteousness, caring for a sick pray-er about health, knowing how one must heal the disease so-and-so's prayer reports. Evidently he will be moved to heal the pray-er — supposing, not idly, that this very thing came into God's mind, who heard the prayer of one who prayed for release from disease. Or one of the rich in life's needs in excess, [sharing?]... interceding with God — evidently he too will fulfill prayer's [petitions?] to the asker. [Rough tail.] As servant becoming of the father's counsel who brought together at prayer-time the giver with the pray-er — since rightness(?) of choice cannot overlook the asker of these things.

As these must not be thought to happen by chance, when they happen — with the counter of all the saints' head-hairs harmoniously bringing together at prayer-time the future servant-benefactor, hearing, to the faithful asker — so we must suppose angels overseeing and ministering to God sometimes gather in presence to some pray-er, to breathe with what he asked. And each one's angel — even of the church's little ones(?) — ever beholding the face of the Father in heaven and beholding our Creator's divinity, co-prays with us and co-works, where possible, in what we pray (1 Corinthians 13:12) (1 Corinthians 12:26) (2 Corinthians 11:28–29) (Matthew 25:35–36) (Matthew 23:37) (John 1:51) (Matthew 10:30) (Matthew 18:10) (Luke 15:7,10) (Tobit 12:8,12,15).

Power in the prayers of the saints§12

12Besides, I hold the words of the saints' prayer full of power — especially when praying they pray in spirit and with the mind: like light dawning from the pray-er's thought and proceeding from his mouth, by God's power dissolving the intelligible poison shot by opposing powers at the ruling part of those neglecting to pray and not keeping Paul's 'pray unceasingly,' spoken after Jesus' exhortations. For like an arrow from the pray-er's soul, with knowledge and word or faith, it goes forth from the holy one, wounding unto destruction the spirits hostile to God, who want to cast us into sin's bonds.

One prays unceasingly when works of virtue, or commandments performed, are taken up as part of prayer — joining prayer to needful works and befitting deeds to prayer. Only thus can we receive 'pray unceasingly' as possibly spoken: if we call the saint's whole life one continuous great prayer, of which the customarily-named prayer is part, owed no less than thrice daily — clear from Daniel, praying thrice a day with such danger hanging over him. And Peter going up to the roof to pray at the sixth hour, when he saw the vessel coming down from heaven let down by four corners, exhibits the middle of the three prayers: with before it the one spoken by David, 'In the morning You shall hear my prayer; in the morning I shall present myself to You and watch' (Psalm 5:3); and the last shown by 'The lifting of my hands, an evening sacrifice.' Nor should we duly pass the night season without this prayer — with David saying, 'At midnight I rose to confess to You for Your righteous judgments,' (Psalm 119:62) and Paul, as Acts says, at midnight with Silas in Philippi praying and hymning God, so that even the prisoners overheard them (Psalm 5:3) (Psalm 141:2) (Psalm 119:62) (Acts 16:25) (Acts 10:9–11) (Psalm 5:3; 141:2; 119:62).

Jesus himself prayed — and was heard§13

13If Jesus prays, and prays not in vain — obtaining what he asks through praying, which perhaps he would not have received without prayer — who of us neglects praying? Mark says: 'Rising very early in the night he went out and departed to a desert place, and there prayed.' (Mark 1:35) Luke: 'And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place' (Luke 11:1) — and elsewhere: 'And he spent the night in the prayer of God.' (Luke 6:12) John records his prayer, saying: 'These things Jesus spoke, and lifting his eyes to heaven he said: Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You.' (John 17:1) And 'I knew that You always hear me,' (John 11:42) recorded by him as spoken by the Lord, shows that always praying he is always heard.

Why list those benefited by God for praying in the 'what' manner, heard obtaining what they prayed? Hannah, believing though barren to pray — whereby she was wholly deemed worthy to bear Samuel the prophet, numbered after Moses. And Hezekiah, childless, learning from Isaiah he would die, achieving by prayer to be numbered among my Savior's forefathers. The Mordecai and Esther matters — heard through prayer and fasting, Jews feast the feast of salvation to this day on Mordecai's joyful narratives, a Mordecai-day beside Moses'. The Judith matters — achieving with God by holy prayer against Holofernes, one Hebrew woman shamed Nebuchadnezzar the Assyrian king's house. The Ananias, Azarias, Misael matters — praying, a fine breeze of dew breathing on the furnace flame, deeming them worthy not to smell fire. The Daniel matters — the lions muzzled for Daniel's prayers. And Jonah too, not despairing of being heard from the swallower's belly, coming out of the fish's belly fills the lack of the Ninevites prophecy.

What things each of us has — if thankfully mindful of benefits passed over him he confesses — now to bless the Lord, to glorify His name! That our barren and sterile souls, through prayer's continuance bearing saving words, got children from them? That enemies dissolved — though myriads of hostile power often camped against us, wanting to wipe us from divine faith? Did not, as David said, 'these in chariots and these in horses, but we shall be magnified in the Lord our God's name? They were hamstrung and fell, but we rose and stood upright?' And again, as written: 'A horse is false for salvation, nor shall he be saved by his power's multitude?' And the opposing commander with his plausible deceiving word cut down through the God hymned and glorified in us — and Judith herself, that is, confession (for Judith means confession), awaiting growth and fruits through God's wonder-worthy virtue? And that in trials fire touched us not, nor was fire's smell in us? And the lions' mouths muzzled, unable to make Christ's members food? And fleeing death through repentance we were saved, not despairing of being heard even in death's very belly? For death having prevailed swallowed, and again God wiped every tear from every face.

These seem to me most necessary, after the catalogue of prayer's beneficiaries, for spiritual-life lovers: that in the present season we pray not about small earthly things, but are led up to mystic things, using these expounded ones as types. Willing to follow anagoge with the letter rather than bare history, to train ourselves not barren nor sterile of words, hearing spiritual law with spiritual ears — to be heard as Hannah and Hezekiah; to be saved from intelligible enemies as Mordecai, Esther, Judith; with Egypt the iron furnace, the earthly place (a symbol, then, being fired in Egypt [?]), no less to thank, escaping it, than those tested in furnace fire kept unwet(?) safe; 'deliver not to beasts a soul confessing to You' (Psalm 74:19) to be heard; kept unharmed of asp and basilisk, to hymn and thank our Rescuer from them.

Nor shall Jonah's type be idle for the willing examiner — who, reading the fish-belly records and hearing Job say 'cursed be that day,' will tame the great sea-beast — himself beginning no more to resist but obediently to obey rough: repenting in the fish's belly, coming out to persist in obedience and prophesy salvation to perishing Ninevites, neither begrudging God's kindness nor demanding severity to penitents. Nor is Samuel's greatest work through prayer's spirit spiritually possible for each genuinely God-devoted now worthy to be heard: 'Stand and see this great word the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call the Lord, and he will give voices and rain.' (1 Samuel 12:16-18) And Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord gave voices and rain that day. Every saint genuinely discipled by Jesus hears: 'Lift your eyes and see the fields, white to harvest already; the reaper receives wage and gathers fruit to eternal life.' (John 4:35-36) For in harvest season the Lord does a great word before prophets' hearers: when the Spirit-adorned calls to the Lord, God gives voices and soul-watering rain — that the formerly evil, fearing the Lord and God's benefaction's minister, reverend and venerable toward penitents as manifested. And Elijah, after heaven shut to the godless three years and six months, opens it later by divine word — which is achieved by everyone receiving soul-rain through prayer, previously deprived of it (Judith 13:8) (Daniel 3:27) (Daniel 6:22) (Jonah 2:1–10) (Psalm 20:7) (Psalm 33:17) (Isaiah 25:8) (Deuteronomy 4:20) (Psalm 74:19) (Psalm 91:13) (Job 3:3) (1 Samuel 12:16–18) (John 4:35–36) (James 5:17) (Mark 1:35; Luke 11:1; 6:12; John 17:1; 11:42) (Psalm 20:7; 33:17; Isaiah 25:8) (Psalm 74:19; 91:13) (1 Samuel 12:16–18; John 4:35–36; James 5:17).

Ask for the great and heavenly things§14

14With these benefits to holy men through prayers expounded as we could, let us examine, from the Gospel record 'Ask for the great things, and the small shall be added to you; and ask for the heavenly things, and the earthly shall be added to you,' (Matthew 6:33) what asking great heavenly things is, and small earthly things. For that all visibles are symbols and types, since intelligibles are true — a worthy argument will persuade one hastening from visibles and phenomena alone to know intelligibles and invisibles, saying how the invisible God is seen through his works rough. And as dwelling among the notable advances taking on some character, so converse with saints through prayer is always useful toward imitating them — always both having prayed and been heard — and truly asking the same things they typically(?) asked: heavenly and great, shown through small earthly matters — that whoever wants to be spiritual, asking through prayers for heavenly great things, may inherit heaven's kingdom as heavenly and enjoy great goods as great — with earthly small things supplied to him by need's measure for bodily needs, since the Father knows what we need before we ask him.

Since with the apostle four names seem said for four things — 'I exhort then first of all that petitions, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all men' (1 Timothy 2:1) — it is very useful for us to expound each separately as we can, what each signifies. Petition, then, we take to be some asking of a needy one for things he lacks. Prayer, a nobler asking with doxology for greater things. Intercession, a bolder asking to God from one having more frankness. Thanksgiving, confession with prayer for benefits received — or for the magnitude of benefits, appearing great to the benefited.

Take examples of the first: 'Fear not, Zechariah,' (Luke 1:13) says Gabriel, 'for your petition was heard; Elizabeth your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.' (Luke 1:13) And Moses making petition for the calf-sinners: 'Why rage with anger, Lord, against Your people?' (Exodus 32:11) [rough bridge: since forgiving this sin was grave, with fasts and after them reporting petition for them to God from himself at once: 'forty days and forty nights bread was not eaten nor water drunk.' (Deuteronomy 9:18)] And Mordecai saying: 'And now, remembering all the works...' (Esther 4:17) and made petition with fasting and strong cry to the Lord, saying: 'Lord, Lord, King Almighty...' (Matthew 11:25) And Esther herself says: 'And now... of the Lord God of Israel' (Esther 14:3) and said: 'Lord, our King —' fragments.

Of the second take such examples: Azariah standing and praying these words amid fire, saying: 'Blessed are You, Lord God of our fathers; praised and glorified Your name forever; we were not shamed...' (Tobit 3:1–2) And Tobit in weeping remembering God: 'I prayed with pain and said: Righteous are You, Lord, and all Your works and all Your ways mercy and truth; You judge true and righteous judgment forever...' (Tobit 3:1-2) How and in what way Daniel prayed we do not know, since Daniel's Song was obelized from the Hebrew — this at least we know by their view: by the circumcision-party Tobit and Judith are not at all received, as not even written in the covenant(?) rough. Hence we shall have Habakkuk's and Hannah's examples, with no other such words anywhere in their prayers: 'A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet with song: Lord, I heard Your hearing and feared; I considered Your works and was amazed. Amid two lives You shall be known; as years draw near You shall be recognized; when the season comes You shall be shown.' (Habakkuk 3:1-2) And Jonah's: 'Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish's belly and said: I cried in my affliction to the Lord my God, and he heard me; from Hades' belly You heard my cry's voice. You cast me into sea-heart depths' — and what follows.

Of the third we shall have examples — intercession: with prayer being for us, and the Spirit making intercession. It is something better and bolder than the one for whom it intercedes: 'What to pray as we ought we know not, but the Spirit itself intercedes with unutterable groanings.' (Romans 8:26–27) For the Spirit intercedes and entreats(?), while we pray. And Joshua son of Nun — he said to the Lord in the day the Lord delivered the Amorite before Israel, when he crushed them at Gibeon and pursued them, and said: 'Let the sun stand over Gibeon and the moon over Aijalon valley.' (Joshua 10:12–13) Even if Scripture, not saying 'intercession' but saying 'he said,' hearing such is intercession — if we hear names more strictly. And Samson saying, 'Let my soul die with the foreigners,' (Judges 16:30) makes intercession; for he died with the house falling on him and the foreigners.

Petition, intercession, thanksgiving must be made not only to God but also to holy men: Paul and Peter, to benefit us and make us worthy of their forgiveness of sins; and to one not happening to be a saint, but against whom wrongdoers seek pardon, one must petition and intercede. Much more both thank and intercede to Christ: Stephen says, 'Lord, lay not this sin to them.' (Acts 7:60; Exodus 32:11; Deuteronomy 9:18; Esther) The epileptic's father: 'I beg, Lord, have mercy' (Matthew 17:15; Tobit 3:1–2; Habakkuk 3:1–2; Matthew 17:15) — the son, or myself, or whomsoever. And the Lord's own voice we shall use as example, saying: 'I confess to You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth' (Matthew 11:25) — with 'I confess' signifying 'I thank.' (Romans 8:26–27; Joshua 10:12–13; Judges 16:30) (Acts 7:60; Matthew 17:15; 11:25)

Pray to the Father, not to any creature§15

15If we hear what prayer is, perhaps no generated being at all is to be prayed to — not even Christ himself — but only the God of all and Father, to whom our Savior himself prayed, as we set out above, and teaches us to pray. For when he heard 'Teach us to pray,' he does not teach to pray to himself, but to the Father, saying 'Our Father who art in the heavens,' and what follows. For if the Son is other than the Father, as is shown elsewhere, in essence and in substrate — then either the Son is to be prayed to and not the Father, or both, or the Father alone. That the Son be prayed to and not the Father, anyone at all will agree is most absurd, said in the face of the plain evidence. But if both, then clearly we would address plural demands through our prayers, saying 'Grant, and do good, and supply, and save,' and anything like these — which is self-evidently unseemly, and no one can show it lying anywhere in the Scriptures, said by anyone. It remains, then, to pray to the God and Father of all alone — but not apart from the High Priest, who was established by the Father with an oath, according to 'He swore, and will not repent: thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.' (Hebrews 7:21)

So when the saints give thanks in their prayers, they confess their thanks to God through Christ Jesus. And as the one who is exact about praying must not pray to the one who prays, but to him whom our Lord Jesus taught us to call Father over our prayers — so no prayer at all is to be offered to the Father apart from him, as he himself shows this plainly, saying: 'Amen, amen, I say to you: whatever you ask my Father, he will give you in my name. Until now you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.' (John 16:23–24) For he did not say 'Ask me,' nor simply 'Ask the Father,' but: 'If you ask the Father, he will give you in my name.' For until Jesus taught these things, no one had asked the Father in the name of the Son — and true was the saying, spoken by Jesus, 'Until now you have asked nothing in my name,' and true also is 'Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.'

But if someone, supposing that Christ himself must be prayed to, confuses the issue and brings against us, from what worship signifies, the 'Let all the angels of God worship him' (Hebrews 1:6) — spoken of Christ, as all agree, in Deuteronomy — we must say to him that Jerusalem too, the church, named by the prophet, is said to be worshiped by kings and rulers, who become her nurses and nourishers, in these words: 'Behold, I lift my hand to the nations, and to the islands I will raise my signal, and they shall bring thy sons in the bosom, and carry thy daughters on shoulders; and kings shall be thy nurses, and their princesses thy nourishers; they shall worship thee on the face of the earth, and lick the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, and shalt not be ashamed.' (Isaiah 49:23)

And how is it not in keeping with the one who said, 'Why callest thou me good? None is good but one, God, the Father,' (Mark 10:18) to say: 'Why pray to me? To the Father alone must you pray — to whom I too pray'? Which you learn through the holy Scriptures. For you must not pray to the High Priest established for you by the Father, who has received from the Father to be a Paraclete — but through the High Priest and Paraclete, who can sympathize with your weaknesses, having been tempted in all things as you are, yet, by the gift of the Father to me, tempted apart from sin. Learn, then, what a gift you have received from my Father, having received by the new birth in me the spirit of adoption, that you may be called sons of God, and my brothers. For you have read the voice spoken through David by me concerning you to the Father: 'I will declare thy name to my brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing to thee.' But for those counted worthy of one Father with them to pray to a brother is not reasonable; to the Father alone, with me and through me, must prayer be sent up by you.

One prayer to God through Christ§16

16When we hear Jesus saying these things, then, let us pray to God through him, all saying the same thing, not even split over the manner of prayer. Or are we not split, if some of us pray to the Father and others to the Son — erring a layman's error, held with great integrity but untested and unexamined, when those who pray to the Son, whether with the Father or apart from the Father, go wrong? Let us pray to God; let us address with entreaty as to a Father; let us make petition as of a Lord; let us give thanks as to God and Father and Lord — to one who is not Lord of a slave without qualification. For 'Father' may reasonably be taken as Lord both of the Son and, through him, of the sons who have become sons; and as there is no God of the dead but of the living, so there is no Lord of unborn slaves, but of those who at first are nobly nurtured by fear, because of infancy, and afterwards serve the more blessed service in love rather than the service in fear. For there are also in the soul, to him alone who sees the heart, manifest characters of God's slaves and of his sons.

Everyone, then, who asks earthly and small things of God disobeys the one who commanded to ask heavenly and great things of the God who knows how to grant nothing earthly or small. But if someone brings up against this the things granted to the saints in answer to prayer concerning the body — and even the voice of the Gospel, which teaches that earthly and small things are also added to us — we must answer him that, just as, when someone grants us a body of some sort, we must not say that so-and-so granted us the shadow of the body (for he did not give the body with the purpose of granting two things, body and shadow; the purpose of the giver is to give a body, and receiving its shadow follows upon the gift of the body) — so, if with our mind grown nobler we were to contemplate the gifts principally given us by God, we shall most fittingly call the bodily things concomitants of the great and heavenly spiritual graces, given to each of the saints for his profit, whether according to the analogy of faith or as the giver wills — and he wills wisely, even if we cannot state for each gift a cause and a reason worthy of the giver. [At this point the margin of the chief manuscript is damaged for about five lines; the editors leave the gap unfilled.]

The soul of Hannah, then, changed from a kind of barrenness, had borne fruit more than her body, which conceived Samuel; and Hezekiah had more divinely begotten children of mind than of body, though they were born of his bodily seed. [Here the chief manuscript is corrupt, with a marginal note that the text has failed; the sense concerns Esther and Mordecai and the people profiting more from intelligible deliverance than from Haman and his fellow-conspirators, who wished to destroy them.] Or who was mocked(?) — even that Holofernes? But the invisible lions were muzzled to the prophet Daniel, unable to act against his soul, rather than the visible ones — concerning whom all who meet with Scripture itself have learned. And what of the bodily dew, which overcame the flame of Nebuchadnezzar — did it come to be more than the spiritual dew? And who so escaped the belly of the sea-monster, tamed under Jesus our Savior, which swallows every fugitive from God, as Jonah, becoming capable of the holy things of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 22:32) (1 Corinthians 12:7) (Romans 12:6) (1 Corinthians 12:11)?

Different measures of spiritual gifts§17

17It is no wonder that, just as not the same shadow is given to all who receive, so to speak, the bodies that make such shadows — to some no shadow at all, to others the same shadow — so too with the prior gifts. For this is plainly seen to hold for bodies as well by those who study gnomonic problems and the ratio of shadows to the illuminating body: for gnomons are shadowless at certain seasons, and others have, so to speak, short shadows, and others longer shadows than others. It is no great thing, then, if — since the purpose of the giver who grants the prior gifts fits them by certain ineffable and mystical analogies to the receivers and to the times when the prior gifts are given — at one time no shadows at all follow the receivers, at another not all but few, at another lesser ones by comparison, with greater ones following others. As, then, one who seeks the sun's rays is neither gladdened nor grieved by the presence or absence of the bodies' shadow, having the most necessary thing — whether enlightened or deprived of the shadow, or having more or less of the shadow — so, if the spiritual gifts are with us and we are enlightened by God toward the complete possession of the true goods, we shall not fuss over a cheap matter of shadow. For all material and bodily things, whatever they may be, have the worth of a faint and feeble shadow, wholly unable to be compared with the saving and holy gifts of the God of all. For what comparison is there of bodily wealth with the wealth 'in all speech' and 'all' wisdom?

And who but a madman would compare health of flesh and bones with a healthy and vigorous soul and well-measured reasonings? All of which, ordered by the word of God, make bodily sufferings some cheap scratch — even if we count the scratch briefer than it is. But he who has contemplated what the beauty of the bride is, whose 'songs' the word of God loves — a soul in bloom with supercelestial and supermundane beauty — will be ashamed to honor with the same name of beauty the bodily beauty of woman or boy or... Flesh is as grass, and its 'glory,' which appears in what is called the beauty of women and children, has been likened by the prophetic word to a flower, saying: 'All flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass. The grass is withered, and the flower fallen; but the word of the Lord abides forever.' (1 Peter 1:25) But who will properly call nobility the trite thing called so among men, who has conceived the nobility of sons of God? And the mind that has contemplated Christ's 'unshakable' kingdom — how will it not despise as worth nothing 'all the kingdom upon earth' (Matthew 4:8)? And having seen, as far as a human mind still bound in body can hold, and grasped as far as possible, the army of angels and archistrategi — among them powers of the Lord, archangels and thrones and dominions and principalities and authorities, supercelestial — how will it not, even if feebler than a shadow, despise as dimmest, comparing them, even these things admired among the senseless as worth no account, even if all these are given — and overlook them all, for the sake of not missing the true principalities and the more divine authorities? We must pray, then, pray concerning the prior and truly great and heavenly things, and leave the matters of the shadows that follow the prior things to God, who knows 'what need' we have, through the mortal body, 'before' we ask him (Hebrews 12:28) (Colossians 1:16 (thrones) (Matthew 6:8) (Colossians 1:16).

Enough said — toward the Lord’s Prayer§18

18Now in these matters, sufficiently — according to the grace given, as far as we have been enabled — by God through his Christ (would that it were also in the Holy Spirit; whether this is so, judge as you meet with what we have said in Scripture, examining the problem concerning the soul), we shall now come to the next contest also, wishing to contemplate with what power the prayer outlined by the Lord is filled.

And first of all it must be observed that Matthew and Luke might seem to most to have recorded the same prayer outlined for how we must pray. But the words of Matthew run in this way: 'Our Father who art in the heavens, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, as in heaven, also upon earth; give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors; and bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' (Matthew 6:9–13) And those of Luke: 'Father, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; our daily bread give us day by day; and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone indebted to us; and bring us not into temptation.' (Luke 11:2–4)

But we must say to those who suppose so, first, that the phrases, though neighboring one another in some things, are plainly seen to differ in others, as we shall show when we examine them; and second, that it is impossible for the same prayer to have been spoken both on the mountain — where, seeing the crowds, he went up, and when he had sat down his disciples came to him, and opening his mouth he taught (for it stands recorded with Matthew in the sequence of the announcement concerning the beatitudes and the commandments that follow) — and 'when he was in a certain place' (Luke 11:1) praying, 'when he ceased,' spoken to one of the disciples who asked to be taught — presumably not present then, when he spoke the words in Matthew, or not retaining what had long ago been said. Or perhaps it is better to consider the prayers different, having some parts in common. And though we searched Mark as well, lest any equivalent recorded prayer escape us, we found not even a trace of a prayer lying there (Luke 11:1).

How one must be disposed before praying§19

19Since, as we said in what went before, the one who prays must first be established — how disposed and in what condition — and only then pray, let us see, before the prayer that lies in Matthew, the words spoken about it by our Savior, which run thus: 'When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Amen, I say to you: they have received their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and shut thy door, and pray to thy Father who is in secret; and thy Father who sees in secret shall repay thee. And when you pray, do not babble as the heathen do; for they think that in their much speaking they shall be heard. Be not like them, then; for your Father knows what need you have before you ask him. Pray, then, like this.' (Matthew 6:5–9)

In many places, then, our Savior is seen pressing against ambition as a passion that destroys; which he has done here also, turning men away from performing a hypocrite's work at the season of prayer. For it is a hypocrite's work to want to preen oneself before men for piety or for fellowship. But we must remember the 'How can you believe, who receive glory from men, and seek not the glory that comes from the only God?' (John 5:44) — and despise all glory from men, even if it is thought to come of the good — and seek the sovereign and true glory, the glory from the only God, who becomingly glorifies, beyond the worth of the glorified, the one worthy of glory. Even what was thought good and praiseworthy is polluted when deemed to be done — when we do it 'that we may be glorified by men' or 'that we may be seen by men.' That is why no recompense from God follows upon it. For every word of Jesus is unlying — and, if one must force the saying, becomes more unlying still when spoken with his customary oath. He says of those who do good for show to win human glory, or who pray 'in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets' (Matthew 6:5) 'that they may be seen by men,' the same thing: 'Amen, I say to you: they have received their reward.' (Matthew 6:5) For as the rich man in Luke 'received his good things' in his human 'life' — and, having drawn them off, has no more room to receive them after this present life — so he who draws off 'his reward' for himself, whether in giving to someone or in prayers, as one who sowed 'not to the Spirit' but 'to the flesh,' shall 'reap corruption' indeed, but shall not 'reap eternal life.' He sows 'to the flesh' who, 'in the synagogues and in the streets, that' (Matthew 6:2) he may be glorified 'by men,' gives 'alms' with a trumpet 'before' himself, or who, loving 'to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that,' (Matthew 6:5) having been seen 'by men,' he may be reputed by the onlookers to be some pious and holy man.

But everyone who walks the broad and roomy way that leads away 'to destruction' — which has nothing straight or direct, but is all crooked and cornered (for it is rent by 'corners,' in which 'men' who, dying because they have fallen from divinity, 'glorify and bless' those reputed among them to be impious in the streets) — and many there always are who appear in prayer to be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, getting drunk on prayer in the midst of banquets and beside wine, truly 'standing on the corners of the streets' and praying. For everyone who lives for pleasure, loving the roomy way, has fallen out of the narrow and straitened way of Jesus Christ, which has not even a chance bend, and is nowhere at all cornered.

Church and synagogue§20

20But there is a difference between church and synagogue: the church, properly speaking, 'has no spot or wrinkle or any such thing,' (Ephesians 5:27) but is holy and blameless — into which neither one 'born of a harlot' enters, nor the 'crushed' or 'cut off,' nor an Egyptian or Idumaean, unless, with sons born to them, they can barely be fitted to the church by the third generation, nor a Moabite or Ammonite, unless a tenth generation be fulfilled and an age completed; while the synagogue is built by a centurion — he did this in the times before the sojourn of Jesus, when faith had not yet been witnessed, such 'as not even in Israel' (Luke 7:9) did the Son of God find. He, then, who loves 'to pray' 'in the synagogues' is not far from the corners 'of the streets.' But the saint is not like that: for he does not love 'to pray' but loves it, and not 'in synagogues' but in churches, and not 'on corners of streets' (Matthew 6:5) but in the straightness of the narrow and straitened way — and not 'that he may be seen by men' but that he may be seen 'before the Lord God.' For it is a male thing to know 'the acceptable year of the Lord' and to keep the commandment that says: 'Three times in the year shall every male appear before the Lord God.' (Exodus 34:23)

But the 'that they may be seen' must be heard exactly: nothing seen is good — as if it were by seeming, and did not truly stamp the impression, misleading it instead of impressing it exactly and truly. As the actors of certain dramas in the theaters are not what they say, nor, in respect of the mask they wear, are they what they are seen to be — so all who mold the impression of the good by seeming are not righteous but hypocrites of righteousness, acting their hypocrisy in their own theater, 'in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets.' (Matthew 6:5) But he who is no hypocrite, stripping off everything foreign, and furnishing himself to please, in a theater incomparably greater than all the theater aforesaid — enters into his own 'closet,' shutting upon the stored wealth the treasure 'of wisdom and knowledge' for himself; and nodding nowhere outward, gaping after nothing outward, shutting every 'door' of the senses, lest he be dragged by the senses and their impression steal in upon his mind — prays to the Father who neither flees nor forsakes such secrecy but dwells in it, with the Only-begotten present with him. For 'I,' he says, 'and the Father will come to him and make our abode with him.' (John 14:23) And it is plain that the righteous, if we so pray, shall address not God only but a Father — as sons not left behind, with him present in our 'secret,' watching it and doing more things in the storehouse, if we shut 'its door.'

Do not babble — speak of God§21

21When praying, then, let us not babble but theologize. We babble when, without blaming ourselves or the words of prayer we send up, we speak corrupt works or words or thoughts — lowly and blameworthy things, foreign to the Lord's incorruption. The babbler in his praying is already in a worse and harsher synagogue-condition than those named before — in a way worse than the corners in the streets — preserving not even a trace of the hypocrisy of the good. For, according to the word of the Gospel, only 'the heathen babble,' who have not even an impression of great or heavenly petitions, sending up every prayer about bodily and outward things. The one who asks lowly things of the Lord who dwells in heaven and above the heights of the heavens is likened to a babbling heathen.

And the wordy seems to babble, and the babbler to be wordy. For nothing of matter and bodies is one: each thing deemed one is split and hewn apart and divided into many, having lost unity. For the good is one, but base things are many; and truth is one, but falsehoods are many; and true righteousness is one, but many are the conditions that play the hypocrite toward it; and the wisdom of God is one, but many are the wisdoms 'of this age' and 'of the rulers of this age' (1 Corinthians 2:6) that are being brought to nought; and the Word of God is one, but many are the words foreign to God. That is why no one shall escape 'sin' 'from wordiness,' and no one who thinks to be heard 'from wordiness' can be heard. So our prayers must not be likened to heathen who babble or are wordy or do whatever they do 'after the likeness of the serpent.' (Psalm 58:4) For the God of the saints 'knows' 'before' what things his sons 'have need of,' since they are worthy of the Father's knowledge. But if anyone does not know God, he does not know the things of God either — and he does not know 'what need' he has: for the things he thinks he needs are wide of the mark. But he who has contemplated what better and more divine things he lacks, known by God, shall obtain what he contemplated, known to the Father even before the asking. So much, then, for what is said before the prayer in Matthew; now let us contemplate also what is declared by the prayer (Proverbs 10:19) (Matthew 6:8).

“Our Father who art in the heavens”§22

22'Our Father who art in the heavens.' (Matthew 6:9) It is worth watching more exactly whether the old covenant, as it is called, has anywhere in it a prayer of someone calling God Father. For at present, examining as we can, we have not found one. We do not say this — that God has not been called Father, or that those deemed to have believed God have not been named sons of God — but that in prayer we have not yet found the frankness announced by the Savior concerning naming God Father. That God has been called Father, and that those who have come to the word of God are sons, can be seen in many places — as in Deuteronomy: 'Thou hast forsaken God who begot thee, and forgotten God who nourishes thee' (Deuteronomy 32:6,18,20); and again: 'Is not this thy Father who bought thee and made thee and created thee?' (Isaiah 1:2); and again: 'Sons, in whom there is no faith'; and in Isaiah: 'Sons I begot and raised, but they rejected me' (Isaiah 1:2); and in Malachi: 'A son shall glorify his father, and a servant his master. And if I am a Father, where is my glory? And if I am a Master, where is my fear?' (Malachi 1:6)

If, then, God is called Father, and those begotten by the word of faith in him are sons, yet the firm and unfallen character of sonship is not to be seen among the ancients. At any rate the very passages we set out show those called sons to be blameworthy — since, according to the Apostle, 'while the heir is a child, he differs nothing from a slave, though lord of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the term appointed by the father.' (Galatians 4:1) But 'the fullness of time' lies in the sojourn of our Lord Jesus Christ, when those who will receive the adoption — as Paul teaches in these words: 'For you received not a spirit of slavery unto fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, wherein we cry: Abba, Father.' (Romans 8:15) And in John: 'But as many as received him, he gave them authority to become children of God — to those who believe in his name.' (John 1:12) And that is why, concerning those born of God, we have learned through the 'spirit of adoption' in John's catholic epistle that 'everyone born of God does no sin, for his seed abides in him' (1 John 3:9) — and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.

But if we consider what 'When you pray, say: Father' — as written with Luke — is, we shall hesitate, unless we have become genuine sons, to bring this voice to him — lest, besides our other sins, we become liable to a charge of impiety as well. What I say is like this. Paul says in First Corinthians: 'No one can say: Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit; and no one speaking in the Spirit of God says: Anathema Jesus' (1 Corinthians 12:3) — naming the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God as the same. But what saying 'in the Holy Spirit' 'Lord Jesus' is, is not at all plain — when myriads of hypocrites and still more heterodox utter the voice, and at times even demons, overcome by the power in the name. No one will dare to declare that any of these says 'Lord Jesus' 'in the Holy Spirit.' So they would not even be shown to say 'Lord Jesus' — only those who say it from their disposition, serving the word of God and proclaiming no other Lord in whatever they do: that is 'Lord Jesus.' And if such are those who say 'Lord Jesus,' then perhaps everyone who sins, outlawing the divine Word by transgression, cries out by his works: 'Anathema Jesus.' As, then, the one so disposed says 'Lord Jesus,' and the one oppositely disposed says 'Anathema Jesus' — so everyone 'born of God' 'and doing no sin,' by sharing God's seed, which turns him from all sin — by what he does he says 'Our Father who art in the heavens,' with his own spirit bearing witness with their spirit 'that they are children of God' — and his heirs, 'joint-heirs with Christ,' since suffering together they reasonably hope to be glorified together. And lest such say 'Our Father' only by halves, with their works their heart too — the fountain and source of good works — 'believes unto righteousness,' with which the mouth in agreement confesses 'unto salvation.'

Every work of theirs, then, and word and thought, formed by the Only-begotten Word after himself, has imitated the 'image of the invisible God' and become 'after the image of him who created' — who makes 'his sun rise' 'on evil and good' and sends rain 'on righteous and unrighteous' — so that 'the image of the heavenly' is in them, since he is the image of God. Being 'images,' then, of the Image — the Image being Son — the saints wipe off(?) sonship(?) — not only by becoming conformed in body to the body of Christ's glory, but also while being in 'the body.' And they become conformed to the One in the 'body of glory' by being 'transformed by the renewal of the mind.' (Colossians 1:15) But if such say 'Our Father who art in the heavens' in all things, then plainly 'he who does sin' — as John says in the catholic epistle — 'is of the devil, for the devil sins from the beginning.' (1 John 3:8) And as God's 'seed,' abiding in the one 'born of God,' causes the inability to sin in the one formed after the Only-begotten Word — so in everyone who 'does sin' there is the devil's 'seed,' so far as it is present in the soul, not permitting its possessor to succeed. But since 'for this the Son of God was manifested, that he might loose the works of the devil,' (1 John 3:8) it is possible, by the visitation of God's Word upon our soul — the 'devil's' works being loosed — for the evil 'seed' implanted in us to be wiped away, and for us to become 'children of God.'

Let us not suppose, then, that we are taught to say phrases at some appointed season of praying. If we understood what was examined before about praying 'without ceasing,' our whole life — as of those who pray 'without ceasing' — should say 'Our Father who art in the heavens,' having our 'citizenship' in no way on earth but in every way 'in the heavens,' since we are thrones of God, because God's kingdom is founded in all who bear 'the image of the heavenly' and have therefore become heavenly.

The Father “in the heavens”§23

23But when the Father of the saints is said to be 'in the heavens,' we must not suppose him circumscribed by a bodily figure, dwelling 'in the heavens' — for God would then be found smaller than the heavens, contained by the heavens that contain him. We must be persuaded that all things are contained and held together by him, through the unspeakable power of his divinity. And generally the words, taken at the letter, which seem to the simpler to say that God is in a place, must be transferred becomingly to the great and spiritual conceptions concerning God — such as these in John: 'Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them unto the end' (John 13:1,3; 14:23,28; 16:5); and after a little: 'knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he came from God and goes to God' (John 13:3); and after other things: 'You have heard that I said to you: I go, and come to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice that I go to the Father' (John 14:28); and again after other things: 'But now I go to him who sent me, and none of you asks me: Whither goest thou?' (John 16:5) For if these are to be taken locally, then plainly so is 'Jesus answered and said to them: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.' (John 14:23)

But these things do not happen with a local passage concerning the Father and the Son toward the one who loves Jesus' word — nor, therefore, are they to be taken locally. The Word of God, condescending to us — humbled, as befits his own worth, when he is among men — is said to pass 'from this world to the Father,' that we too may contemplate him perfected there, returning from the emptiness with us, which 'he emptied himself' of, to his own fullness. There we too, using him as guide, shall be filled and delivered from all emptiness. Let the Word of God, then, depart 'to him who sent' him, leaving the world, and journey 'to the Father.' And the word at the end of John's Gospel, 'Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father,' (John 20:17) let us seek to understand more mystically — of the Son's ascent 'to the Father,' conceived by us with holy clarity in a manner worthier of God: an ascent which mind ascends rather than body.

This, I take it, I have examined together with 'Our Father who art in the heavens' — to remove the low conception of God from those who think he is locally 'in the heavens,' and not to let anyone say God is in a bodily place (for it follows from this that he is also a body) — which draws after it the most impious doctrines, supposing him divisible and material and corruptible. For every body is divisible and material and corruptible. Or let them tell us — not idly fanciful but claiming to grasp things plainly — how there can be another nature besides the material. And since, even before Christ's bodily sojourn, many writings seem to say God is in a bodily place, it seems to me not out of place to set out a few of those as well, to remove all entanglement from those who, through boorishness, enclose the God over all in a small and narrow place, so far as they can. And first in Genesis: Adam and Eve, he says, 'heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the evening; and Adam and his wife hid from the face of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.' (Genesis 3:8) We shall say to those who will not come to the treasuries of the letter, nor even knock at first on its 'door,' whether they can present the Lord God — who fills 'heaven and earth,' who, as they suppose, uses the more bodily 'heaven' as throne and 'the earth' as 'footstool of his feet' — as contained by a place so small by comparison with the whole heaven and earth that the paradise they suppose bodily is not filled by God, but is greater than him in size, so as to hold him walking, with a 'voice' heard from the base of his feet. Still more absurd, on their view, is Adam and Eve hiding, for shame at God over the transgression, 'from the face of God among the trees of the garden.' (Genesis 3:8) For it is not said that they merely wished to hide so — but that they really 'hid.' And how, on their view, does God inquire of Adam, saying: 'Where art thou?'

We have discussed these things at greater length, examining Genesis; but now, not to pass over so great a problem in utter silence, let us sufficiently recall the 'I will dwell in them and walk in them,' (Leviticus 26:12) said by God in Deuteronomy. For whatever his walk among the saints is, such too is the walk in Paradise — with God hiding, and everyone who sins fleeing his oversight and falling from frankness. For so too 'Cain went out from the face of God and dwelt in the land of Nod over against Eden.' (Wisdom of Solomon 7:25) As, then, he dwells in the saints, so also in heaven — that is, in every saint and in Christ, in whom are all the saved as 'luminaries' and stars of heaven — or even because of the saints in heaven he dwells there, according to the saying 'To thee I lifted my eyes, who dwellest in heaven.' And the saying in Ecclesiastes, 'Hasten not to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven above, and thou upon earth below,' means to declare the distance from those in the body — of lowliness — to those lifted by profit and the word, the angels and holy powers, and Christ himself. For it is not absurd that he himself should properly be the throne of the Father — allegorically called heaven — and his church, called earth, should be 'the footstool of his feet.'

We have added, then, a few sayings even from the old covenant, deemed to present God in a place — to persuade the reader on every side, with the power given us, to hear divine Scripture more loftily and more spiritually whenever it seems to teach that God is in a place. And these things had to be examined together with 'Our Father who art in the heavens' — as withdrawing, so to speak, God's essence from all generated things. For the things with which God's essence does not commune(?) receive a certain glory and power of God — and, if I may so speak, an effluence of divinity comes to be in them.

“Hallowed be thy name”§24

24'Hallowed be thy name.' When prayer sets forth something as not yet come to be, concerning which one prays — or, having obtained this, asks that it remain and be kept — it is plain, on the face of the words here, that we are commanded to say, in Matthew and in Luke, 'Hallowed be thy name,' as though the Father's name were not yet hallowed. And how, one might say, does a man deem it worthy that God's 'name' be hallowed, as though unhallowed? What the Father's 'name' is, and what hallowing it is, let us consider.

A 'name,' then, is a summary appellation, indicative of the proper quality of the named — as, say, some proper quality of Paul the apostle: one of his soul, whereby it is of such a sort; another of his mind, whereby he is contemplative; another of his body, whereby it is of such a sort. What is peculiar in these qualities, then, and unconfused toward another — for there is no other in being exactly unvarying from Paul — is declared by the appellation 'Paul.' But in men, whose proper qualities change, as it were, the names too are soundly changed according to Scripture: for when the quality of 'Abram' changed, he was called 'Abraham'; and when Simon's did, he was named 'Peter'; and the persecutor of Jesus, 'Saul,' was addressed as 'Paul.' But with God — who is himself unchangeable and unalterable, ever the same — there is ever one, as it were, name upon him too: the 'I am' spoken in Exodus, if we may so speak. Since, then, we all suppose something concerning God, conceiving whatever notions about him — but all do not grasp what he is (for rare, and, if one must say so, rarer than the rare, are those who grasp his holiness in all things) — we are fittingly taught that our inner conception of God become holy, that we may see his holiness: creating and providing and judging and choosing and forsaking, accepting and rejecting, counting worthy of honor and chastising each according to worth.

For in these and like things, if I may so speak, is characteristically stamped God's proper quality — which I take to be called God's 'name' in the Scriptures: in Exodus, 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain' (Exodus 20:7); in Deuteronomy, 'Let my utterance wait as rain; let my words come down as dew, as shower upon grass and as snowfall upon herb: for I have called the name of the Lord' (Deuteronomy 32:2); in the Psalms, 'They shall remember thy name in every generation and generation.' (Psalm 45:17) For he who misfits his conception of God takes 'the name of the Lord God' 'in vain'; and he who can utter rain that co-works with his hearers for the fruit-bearing of their souls, and bring forth words like dew — comforting words — and by the rush of well-built speeches bring upon his hearers most profitable rain or most useful snowfall — can do these things for this reason. Having conceived this, he calls upon himself the one who begs God, who perfects, the true giver of the things aforesaid. And everyone who makes plain the things concerning God reminds rather than teaches — even if he seems to hear from someone or thinks he finds the mysteries of godliness.

As, then, the pray-er must here understand to ask that God's 'name' be hallowed, so in the Psalms 'Let us exalt his name together' is said — with the prophet commanding, in all harmony, in the same mind and the same judgment, to arrive beforehand at the true and lofty knowledge of God's proper quality. For this is exalting God's 'name' 'together': when one, having received of divinity's effluence by conceiving from God and getting mastery over his enemies, gladdened at a fall they cannot effect, exalts the very power of God of which he has shared. Which is declared in the twenty-ninth Psalm through 'I will exalt thee, O Lord, for thou hast upheld me, and hast not gladdened my enemies over me.' (Psalm 30:1) And one exalts God by consecrating him a house in oneself — since even the psalm's title runs thus: 'A Psalm of a song, for the dedication of the house, of David.' (Psalm 44:18 (LXX))

Further, concerning the 'Hallowed be thy name' and its sequels, spoken in the imperative character, we must say that the translators continually used imperatives for optatives — as in the Psalms, 'Let lying lips be made dumb, that speak iniquity against the righteous,' (Psalm 33:4 (LXX)) for 'may they be made dumb'; and 'Let the moneylender search out all his goods; let him have no helper' (Psalm 29:1 (LXX)) — in the hundred-and-eighth, concerning Judas. For the whole psalm is a petition concerning Judas, that such things befall him. But Tatian, not observing that the 'let it be' does not always signify the optative but sometimes the imperative too, most impiously supposed concerning the God who said 'Let there be light' — that he prayed rather than commanded the light to come to be. Since, as that man impiously conceives, 'God was in darkness.' To him we must say: how will he take the 'Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass,' (Genesis 1:11 title (LXX)) and 'Let the water below heaven be gathered,' (Genesis 1:3,9,11,20,24) and 'Let the waters bring forth creeping things of living souls,' (Genesis 1:20) and 'Let the earth bring forth the living soul' (Genesis 1:24)? Does he pray, for the sake of standing firmly, that 'the water below heaven be gathered into one gathering' (Genesis 1:9)? Or does he pray, to share in what sprouts from earth, the 'Let the earth bring forth'? And what like need have the water creatures and winged and land creatures as the need of light, that he should pray concerning them too? And if, on his own showing, praying about these things — spoken with imperative appellations — is absurd, why not say the like concerning the 'Let there be light': that it was spoken not optatively but imperatively? I deemed it necessary, since a prayer spoken in imperative voices has come up, to recall his misreadings — for the sake of those deceived who have received his impious teaching, of whom we ourselves once had experience.

“Thy kingdom come”§25

25'Thy kingdom come.' The 'kingdom of God,' according to the word of our Lord and Savior, 'comes not with observation,' 'nor shall they say: Lo here, or lo there' (Luke 17:20–21) — but 'the kingdom of God is within' us ('for the word is very nigh, in our mouth and in our heart' (Deuteronomy 30:14)). So it is plain that the one who prays for God's kingdom to come rightly prays concerning God's kingdom in himself — that it rise and bear fruit and be perfected. For every saint is ruled by God and obeys God's spiritual laws, dwelling in himself as in a well-ordered city — with the Father present to him, and Christ co-reigning with the Father in the perfected soul, according to the saying I recalled not long ago: 'We will come to him and make our abode with him.' (John 14:23) And I suppose God's kingdom is recognized as the blessed state of the ruling faculty and the ordered rank of wise reasonings, and Christ's kingdom as the progressive words, saving to their hearers, and the works of righteousness performed, and of the other virtues — for the Son of God is Word and Righteousness. But every sinner is tyrannized by the 'ruler of this age,' since every sinner is owned by the present evil age, not offering himself to him who 'gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from the present evil age' (Galatians 1:4) — and he 'delivers' 'according to the will of our God and Father,' (Galatians 1:4) according to what is said in Galatians. And he who is tyrannized by this ruler of the age is ruled by sin by the voluntariness of his sinning. That is why Paul orders us no longer to submit when sin wills to rule us, commanding through these words: 'Let not sin, then, reign in your mortal body, to obey its lusts.' (Romans 6:12; 13:9–12)

But someone will say, to both — both the 'Hallowed be thy name' and the 'Thy kingdom come' — that if the pray-er prays to be heard, and is heard at some point, then plainly at some point God's 'name' shall be hallowed for someone, as aforesaid, and God's 'kingdom' shall stand in him. And if these things shall be his, how will he still becomingly pray concerning things present as though not present, saying 'Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come' (Matthew 6:9-10)? And if so, will there ever be a time when it is not becoming to say 'Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come' (1 Corinthians 15:24–28, 50–55)? We must say to this that, as one who prays to obtain a 'word of knowledge' and a 'word of wisdom' becomingly prays concerning these things always — always receiving, as he is heard, more contemplations of 'wisdom' and 'knowledge,' yet knowing 'in part' whatever at present he can hold, with the perfect, which annuls 'the partial,' 'then' to be revealed, when mind without sense assails the realities 'face to face' — so the perfect, both of hallowing God's 'name' in each of us and of his kingdom standing in him, cannot be unless the perfect 'come' also concerning 'knowledge' and 'wisdom' — and perhaps concerning the other virtues too. We journey toward perfection if we 'press toward the things before, forgetting the things behind.' (Philippians 3:13) To God's kingdom in us, then, the summit shall stand as we advance without ceasing — when what the Apostle said is fulfilled: that Christ, when all enemies are subjected to him, 'shall deliver the kingdom to God the Father, that God may be all in all.' (1 Corinthians 15:24) That is why, praying 'without ceasing,' with a disposition made godlike by the Word, we say to our Father in the heavens: 'Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come.' (Galatians 5:22)

But concerning God's kingdom this too must be examined: that as there is no 'partnership of righteousness with lawlessness,' (2 Corinthians 6:14) nor 'fellowship of light with darkness,' nor 'concord of Christ with Beliar' — so the kingdom of sin cannot co-exist with God's kingdom. If, then, we wish to be ruled by God, let 'sin in no way reign in our mortal body,' (Romans 6:12) nor let us obey its commands, when it calls our soul to 'the works of the flesh' and things foreign to God. But 'mortifying our members on earth,' let us bear the fruits 'of the Spirit,' that as in a spiritual 'paradise' the Lord may walk in us, ruling us alone with his Christ — seated 'at his right hand' in us, from whom we pray to receive spiritual 'power' — and seated, 'until' all his enemies in us become 'the footstool of his feet,' and every principality and authority and power be annulled from us. For these things can come to be in each of us, and the last enemy be annulled — death — so that in us too it be said by Christ: 'O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?' (1 Corinthians 15:55) Now, then, let our 'corruptible put on' holiness in continence and all purity, and 'incorruption' — and our 'mortal' be clothed, death being annulled, with the Father's 'incorruption' — so that, ruled by God, we may already be in the goods of regeneration and resurrection.

“Thy will be done”§26

26'Thy will be done, as in heaven, also upon earth.' (Matthew 6:10) Luke, after the 'Thy kingdom come,' passed over these words in silence and goes on: 'Our daily bread give us day by day.' (Luke 11:3) So let us examine the words we set first, as lying in Matthew alone, in sequence with what went before. Still being 'on earth,' those who pray conceive that God's 'will' has come to be 'in heaven' among all the dwellers in heaven; and we pray that God's 'will' may come to be in us, who are 'still on earth,' in all things as with them. Which shall happen when we do nothing against his 'will.' And when God's 'will' — 'as in heaven' — is accomplished in us who are 'on earth,' we who are likened to those in the heavens, having borne, like them, 'the image of the heavenly,' (1 Corinthians 15:48–49) shall inherit the 'kingdom of the heavens' (Job 40:19 (LXX)) — we who pray on earth that we, having become 'in heaven,' be likened to them.

But according to Matthew alone, the 'as in heaven and on earth' (Matthew 6:10) can be taken in common — so that what is enjoined upon us to say in prayer runs thus: 'Hallowed be thy name' (Matthew 6:9) 'as in heaven and on earth'; 'Thy kingdom come' 'as in heaven and on earth' (Matthew 6:10); 'Thy will be done, as in heaven and on earth.' (Matthew 6:10) For God's 'name' has been hallowed among those 'in heaven,' and God's 'kingdom' has stood in them, and God's 'will' has come to be in them — all of which is lacking to us who are 'on earth,' but can come to be ours as we make ourselves worthy to obtain God's hearing concerning all these things.

But someone may ask, saying 'Thy will be done, as in heaven and on earth' (Matthew 6:10): how has God's 'will' come to be 'in heaven,' where 'the spiritual hosts of wickedness' are, on account of which God's 'sword shall be drunk' 'in heaven'? And if we so pray that God's 'will' come to be 'on' 'earth' as it is done 'in heaven,' might we unawares be praying that contrary things also remain 'on earth' — since these too come from heaven — with many base things coming to be 'on earth' through the inferior 'spiritual hosts of wickedness' that are 'in the heavenly places'? One who allegorizes heaven, saying it is Christ, and earth the church — for who is so 'a throne' of the Father as Christ? And what 'footstool of God's feet' as the church? — will easily loose the questions, saying each member of the church must so receive the paternal 'will' as Christ received it — who came to do his Father's 'will' and perfected it all. For it is possible, joined to him, to become 'one spirit' with him, thereby receiving the 'will' as one: as it is perfected 'in heaven,' so may it be perfected 'also on earth.' For 'he who is joined to the Lord,' according to Paul, 'is one spirit.' And I suppose this interpretation will prove not contemptible to one who considers it more exactly.

But one who opposes it will set beside it what was said at the end of this Gospel, after the resurrection, by the Lord to the eleven disciples: 'All authority has been given me, as in heaven, also on earth.' (Matthew 28:18) For having authority over those 'in heaven' — he says he has received in addition that 'on earth': those 'in heaven' having been enlightened even before by the Word, and at the 'consummation of the age' those 'on earth' too, through the authority given to the Son of God, imitating the things accomplished 'in heaven,' over which the Savior received authority. As it were, then, through our prayers he wishes to take those discipled to him as co-workers with the Father — that, as the things 'in heaven' are subjected to truth and the Word, so the things 'on earth,' set right through the authority he received 'as in heaven and on earth,' may bring the ruled to a blessed end. And one who calls the Savior heaven and earth the church — 'the firstborn of all creation,' in whom the Father rests as upon a throne, calling him heaven — would find the 'man' whom he put on, made his own by that power through 'humbling himself' and becoming 'obedient unto death,' saying after the resurrection the 'All authority has been given me, as in heaven and on earth' (Matthew 28:18) — the authority 'in heaven,' as of the things indwelling the Only-begotten, received by the man according to the Savior, that he may share it with him, mingled with his divinity and united to him.

But since the second interpretation does not yet loose the difficulties concerning how God's 'will' is 'in heaven,' with the spiritual hosts 'of wickedness' 'in the heavenly places' wrestling against those 'on earth' — from that side it will be possible to loose the question thus: that, as it is not by place but by choice that one 'on earth,' having his 'citizenship in heaven' and treasuring 'in heaven,' with his heart 'in heaven,' bearing 'the image of the heavenly,' is no longer 'of the earth' nor of the 'below' 'world,' but of heaven and of the better, 'heavenly' 'world' beyond this — so too the 'spiritual hosts of wickedness' still lingering 'in the heavenly places,' having their 'citizenship on earth,' plotting against men through what they wrestle, treasuring on earth, bearing 'the image of the earthy' — 'he who is the beginning of the Lord's creation, made to be mocked by the angels' — are not heavenly nor in the heavens, because of their wretched disposition. When, then, it is said 'Thy will be done, as in heaven, also on earth,' (Matthew 6:10) those must not be reckoned to be 'in heaven' at all — having fallen in mind with him who fell 'from heaven' 'like lightning.'

And perhaps, when our Savior commands that we must pray that the Father's 'will' come to be 'as in heaven' 'so also on earth,' he does not at all command that our prayers concern those in the place 'above,' that they be likened to those in the heavenly place. His injunction of prayer is, for one who wishes all things 'on earth' — that is, the worse things, made like to earthly things — to be likened to the better, to all who have 'their citizenship in heaven,' who have all become heaven. For the sinner, wherever he is, is 'earth' — who, unless he repent, shall come to his kindred earth. But he who does God's 'will' and disobeys none of the saving spiritual laws is heaven. Whether, then, we are still 'earth' through sin, let us pray that God's 'will' extend over us too, setting right, as it already reached those before us who are heaven or were heaven; or whether we are reckoned by God no longer earth but heaven already, let us ask that 'on earth' too, as in 'heaven' — I mean, among the worse — God's 'will' be fulfilled, unto the heaven-making, if I may so speak, of earth, so that earth be earth no longer, but all things become heaven. For if God's 'will,' as 'in heaven' in the senses interpreted, come to be 'also on earth,' earth shall not remain earth. As if I spoke more plainly on another example: if God's 'will,' as it has come to be upon the temperate, so come to be also upon the intemperate, the intemperate shall be temperate; or as God's 'will' has come to be upon the righteous, if it so come to be also upon the unrighteous, the unrighteous shall be righteous. That is why, if God's 'will,' as it has come to be 'in heaven,' come to be 'also on earth,' we shall all be heaven — with the unprofitable flesh and its kindred blood unable to inherit 'God's kingdom,' but to be said to inherit if they 'change from flesh and earth and dust and blood to the heavenly substance.' (Philippians 3:21)

“Give us this day our daily bread”§27

27'Give us this day our daily bread' — or as Luke has it, 'Our daily bread give us day by day.' (Matthew 6:11) Since some suppose these words are said concerning bodily food — that we pray for it — it is worth removing their false opinion by these arguments and setting forth the truth concerning the daily bread. We must say to them: how could he who says we must ask heavenly and great things — when neither is the bread dispensed into our flesh heavenly, nor is the request concerning it a great petition — as it were forgetting what he taught, command the address of an entreaty to the Father concerning an earthly and small thing?

But we, following him as teacher, shall set forth at greater length the teachings concerning this bread. He says in John, to those who came to Capernaum seeking him: 'Amen, amen, I say to you: you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.' (John 6:26–58) For he who ate 'of' the loaves blessed by Jesus and was filled with them rather seeks to grasp the Son of God more exactly, and hastens to him. That is why he well commands, saying: 'Labor not for the food that perishes, but for the food that abides unto eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give you.' (John 6:27) And when his hearers asked and said, 'What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?' (John 6:28) Jesus answered and said to them: 'This is the work of God: that you believe in him whom he sent.' (John 6:29) And God sent 'his Word and healed them,' as written in the Psalms — plainly, those who were sick. With this Word, those who believe work 'the works of God' — which are food abiding unto eternal life. And 'my Father,' he says, 'gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.' (John 6:33) And true bread nourishes the 'true' 'man' — made 'after the image of God' — who, nourished, becomes 'after the likeness' 'of him who created.' And what is more nourishing to the soul than the Word? What more precious to the mind that holds her than God's wisdom? What more fitting to the rational nature than truth?

But if someone objects to this, saying he would not teach us to ask for the daily bread as for another bread distinct from himself, let him hear that in John too, in one place he discourses of it as of another beside himself, in another as being himself the bread: as of another, in these words — 'Moses gave you not the bread from heaven,' (John 6:32) 'not the true,' 'but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven'; as of himself, he says to those who said to him, 'Evermore give us this bread': 'I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.' (John 6:35) And after a little: 'I am the (living) bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.' (John 6:51)

And since every food is called bread according to Scripture — as plain from its being recorded of Moses that 'bread he did not eat for forty days, and water he did not drink' (Exodus 34:28) — and varied and diverse is the nourishing Word, since not all can be nourished, by firmness and vigor, on the divine lessons — therefore, wishing to present athletic food suited to the more perfect, he says: 'The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.' (John 6:51) And after a little: 'Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. He who chews my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him at the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. He who chews my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, I too live by the Father; and he who chews me, he too shall live by me.' (John 6:53-57) And this is the 'true' 'food' — the 'flesh' of Christ, which, being 'Word,' became 'flesh,' according to the saying 'And the Word became flesh.' And when we chew and drink him, he 'tabernacled in us'; and when he is dispensed, 'we beheld his glory' is fulfilled. 'This is the bread that came down from heaven — not as the fathers ate and died; he who chews this bread shall live forever.' (John 6:58)

But Paul, discoursing to 'babes' and Corinthians walking 'after man,' says: 'Milk I gave you to drink, not food; for you were not yet able. But neither even now are you able; for you are still carnal.' (1 Corinthians 3:2) And in Hebrews: 'And you have come to need milk, not solid food. For everyone who shares milk is without experience of the word of righteousness — for he is a babe. But solid food is for the perfect, who by habit have their senses trained to discern good and evil.' (Hebrews 5:14) And I take even the 'One believes he may eat all things, but the weak eats herbs' (Romans 14:2) to be said by him principally not of bodily foods but of God's words that nourish the soul: the most faithful and most perfect can partake of all — whom he indicates through the 'One believes he may eat all things' — while the weaker and more imperfect begins with simpler lessons, which do not strongly impart vigor — whom, wishing to mark him, he calls 'the weak eats herbs.'

And I take what is said with Solomon in the Proverbs to teach that he who, through simplicity, cannot hold the more vigorous and greater doctrines — yet does not think amiss — is better than the readier, sharper man who charges more greatly upon realities but does not make plain the word of the peace and harmony of all. The wording runs thus: 'Better a portion of herbs with friendship and grace than a calf from the stall with hatred.' (Proverbs 15:17) Often, at any rate, we have welcomed a private and simpler feast with a good conscience — entertained by those who could set nothing more before us — rather than loftiness of words raised 'against the knowledge of God,' proclaiming with great plausibility a doctrine foreign to the Father who gave 'the law and the prophets,' the Father of our Lord Jesus. That our soul, then, may not sicken for lack of foods, nor die to God 'by famine of the Lord's word,' let us ask of the Father the living bread — who is the same as the daily — persuaded by our teacher and Savior, believing and living more rightly.

But what the 'daily' is must now be considered. And first know this: that the word 'daily' (epiousios) has been named by no Greek, neither of the wise nor in common private usage — but seems coined by the evangelists. At any rate Matthew and Luke agreed upon it, bringing it forth nowise differing. The translators of the Hebrew did the like in other cases too. For what Greek ever used the appellation 'give ear' (enotizou), or the 'be eared' (akoutistheti) for 'receive with ears and make hearing'? Like the appellation 'daily' (epeousion) is what stands written with Moses, spoken by God: 'But you shall be to me' 'a peculiar people' (periousios). And each word seems to me made from 'substance' (ousia) — the one declaring the bread that contributes toward substance, the other signifying the people concerned with substance and sharing in it.

Now 'substance,' properly, is conceived by those who say the subsistence of the incorporeal is prior: after the incorporeal — things stably having being, admitting neither addition nor suffering subtraction (for this is peculiar to bodies, about which increase and wasting occur, since they are fluent, needing the incoming sustainer that nourishes; if more comes in seasonally than flows away, increase occurs; if less, decrease; and perhaps some receive the incoming thing not at all, in unmixed, if I may so speak... ). But by those who deem substance consequent, with bodies prior, its definitions are these: substance is either the first matter of beings, and that from which beings come; or the matter of bodies, and that from which bodies come; or of named things, and that from which named things come; or the first substrate without quality; or what pre-subsists for beings; or what receives all changes and alterations, itself unaltered in its own ratio; or what abides through all alteration and change. On their view substance is both qualityless and unfigured in its own ratio — having no appointed magnitude either — but is set under every quality like a ready place. And 'qualities' they ordinarily call activities and makings — wherein happenings and relations turn out to be; for they say substance shares in none of these in its own ratio, but is ever inseparable from one of them by affection — no less receptive of all the maker's activities, as he makes and changes. For the tone connate with it, pervading through all of every quality, is the cause of the economies about it. Through wholes, then, they call it changeable and through wholes divisible, and say all substance can be mingled with all — united, however.

But since, inquiring concerning substance on account of the 'daily bread' and the peculiar people, we said these things to discern what substance signifies — and bread in what went before was intelligible, which we had to ask — substance akin to the bread must necessarily be conceived: that as bodily bread, dispensed, passes into the body of the nourished and into its substance, so the 'living' bread, 'come down from heaven,' dispensed into mind and soul, may share its own power with the one who offered himself to nourishment from it. And so shall be what we ask: 'daily bread.' And again: as, according to the 'quality' of the 'food' — whether 'solid' and suited to athletes, or milky and herby — the nourished comes to be in diverse power, so it follows that, as God's Word is becomingly given — whether as milk to babes, or as herbs to the sick in season, or as flesh to contenders in season — each of the nourished, by the analogy of the Word to which he offered himself, can do this or that, and become this or that. Yet there is a deemed food that is poisonous, and another that makes sick, and another that cannot even be dispensed — all of which must by analogy be transferred to the diversities of deemed nourishing lessons. Daily bread, then, is what is most fitting to the rational nature and most akin to substance itself — procuring at once health and good habit and strength for the soul, and sharing its own immortality (for God's Word is immortal) with the one who eats it.

This daily bread, then, seems to me called by another name in Scripture 'the tree of life' — toward which he who stretches 'his hand' and takes from it 'shall live forever.' And by a third name this 'tree' is called God's 'wisdom' with Solomon, in these words: 'She is a tree of life to all who cling to her, and safe as upon the Lord to those who lean.' (Proverbs 3:18) And since angels too are nourished by God's wisdom — empowered, from contemplation in truth with wisdom, to perform their own works — it is said in the Psalms that angels too are nourished, with men of God — Hebrews, as they are called — sharing with the angels, and as it were feasting with them. Such is the 'bread of angels man ate.' For let our mind not be so poor as to suppose the angels, who ever partake, are nourished by some bodily bread — the storied bread that came down from heaven upon those who left Egypt — with the Hebrews sharing this same bread with the angels, God's ministering spirits.

It is not untimely, as we seek the 'daily bread' and the 'tree of life' and God's wisdom — the common food of holy men and angels — to attend also to the three men recorded in Genesis, brought down with Abraham and partaking of three measures of 'fine flour' kneaded into loaves: lest these things be said barely tropically, since the saints can at times share intelligible and rational food not only with men but even with diviner powers — whether for their benefit or to display what most nourishing things they have been able to procure for themselves — with the angels rejoicing and nourished in such display, and becoming readier to co-work in every way and to breathe together thereafter toward the grasp of more and greater things, upon the nourishing lessons furnished beforehand to the rest — he having gladdened and, if I may so speak, nursed them. It is no wonder if a man nourishes angels — when even Christ confesses he stands at the 'door' and knocks, that, entering with the one who opened to him, he may sup 'with him' from that one's goods, and afterwards himself share his own with the one who first feasted the Son of God, according to his own power.

Of the daily bread, then, he who partakes, strengthening his 'heart,' becomes a son of God; but he who shares in the 'dragon' is no other than the intelligible Ethiopian — changing, through the dragon's..., even himself into a serpent — so that, reproached by the Word, even if he says he wishes to be baptized, he hears: 'Brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?' (Matthew 3:7) And David says this concerning the dragon's body feasted upon by the Ethiopians: 'Thou didst crush the heads of the dragons upon the water; thou didst break the serpent's head in pieces; thou gavest him for food to the Ethiopian peoples.' But if it is no absurdity — with the Son of God substantially subsisting, and the Opponent also subsisting — that each becomes food, one to this one, one to that — why do we hesitate to accept, for all powers better and worse, and for men, that each of us can be nourished from all these? At any rate Peter, about to share with the centurion Cornelius and those gathered with him in Caesarea, and after this to share God's words with the nations too, sees 'heaven opened' and a 'vessel let down by four beginnings,' (Acts 10:11) 'wherein were all the quadrupeds and creeping things and wild beasts of the earth' (Acts 10:12) — and is bid 'rise,' sacrifice, and eat. And when, begging off, he said, 'Thou knowest that never did common or unclean enter my mouth,' (Acts 10:14) he is ordered to 'call no man common or unclean' — since what God cleansed Peter must not make common. For the saying runs: 'What God cleansed, make thou not common.' (Acts 10:15) So the clean food and the unclean, distinguished in the Mosaic law under names of many animals, referring to the diverse characters of the rationals, teaches that these are nourishing to us, these contrariwise — until God, cleansing all, makes all nourishing, or those 'from every nation.'

With these things so, and so great a difference of foods, one beyond all those named is the daily bread — concerning which we must pray to be counted worthy of it, and, nourished by the Word, who 'in the beginning' is 'toward God,' to be made godlike. But someone will say the 'daily' (epiousion) is formed from 'coming upon' (epienai) — so that we are commanded to ask the bread proper to the coming age, which God, taking beforehand, may already grant us: so that what is, as it were, to be given tomorrow be given us 'today' — 'today' taken of the present age, 'tomorrow' of the coming. But since the former interpretation is better, so far as I am judge, let us examine what lies beside it: the 'today' with Matthew, or the 'day by day' written with Luke. It is the custom in many places of Scripture to call the whole age 'today' — as 'this is the father of the Moabites unto this day,' (Genesis 19:37) and 'this is the father of the Ammonites unto this day,' (Genesis 19:38) and 'this saying was spread abroad among the Jews unto this day,' (Matthew 28:15) and in the Psalms, 'Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.' (Psalm 95:7) And with Jesus it is said most plainly thus: 'Depart not from the Lord in the today's days.' And if 'today' is this whole age, perhaps 'yesterday' is the age gone by. Which we have taken to be said in the Psalms and with Paul in Hebrews: in the Psalms thus — 'A thousand years in thy sight are as the day of yesterday, which is past' (Psalms 90:4) (whatever the famed millennium is, likened to the 'yesterday' day, differing from the 'today'); and with the Apostle it is written: 'Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, the same, and unto the ages.' And it is no wonder that to God the whole age has the ratio of one day with us — I suppose, of even less.

And it must be examined whether the words of the feasts recorded by 'days' or 'months' or 'seasons' or 'years' or 'assemblies' refer to ages. For if 'the law has a shadow of the coming things,' the many sabbaths must be a 'shadow' of many days, and the new moons, occurring through temporal intervals — I know not with what moon attending what sun they are performed. And if the first 'month,' and the tenth day 'unto the fourteenth,' and the feast of unleavened from the fourteenth 'unto the twenty-first,' contain a 'shadow of coming things' — 'who is wise, and' to such degree a 'friend' of God, as to see, of more months, the first, and its tenth day, and what follows? And what need to speak of the feast of seven weeks of days, and of the seventh month — whose new moon is a day 'of trumpets,' and whose tenth day is a day 'of atonement' — known to the God alone who legislated them? And who has so held the mind of Christ as to grasp the seventh years of the Hebrew slaves' freedom, and the 'release' of debts, and rest from tilling the holy land? And there is one higher than the feast through seven years, called Jubilee — which, even to imagine in part, or to grasp plainly that its laws shall be fulfilled as true, belongs to none except the one who contemplated the Father's counsel concerning the ordinance in all the ages, according to his 'unsearchable' 'judgments' and his untraceable ways.

Often it came upon me to wonder, comparing two apostolic sayings, how it is the 'consummation of the ages,' at which Jesus 'has been manifested for the annulling of sins' — if ages are to come after this one. The sayings run thus: in Hebrews, 'But now once, at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested, for the annulling of sins through his sacrifice'; in Ephesians, 'that in the coming ages he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us.' (Ephesians 2:7) Pondering such greatness, I suppose that, as the last month is the consummation of the year — after which another month's beginning sets in — so perhaps, with many ages completing, as it were, a year of ages, the present age is the consummation, after which certain coming ages shall set in, whose beginning is the coming age — and in those coming ages God shall display the riches 'of his grace in kindness' — with the most sinful, even the blasphemer against the Holy Spirit, held fast by sin in the whole present age, and from the beginning to the end, to be dispensed in the coming age afterward — how, I know not.

He, then, who saw these things, and conceived in mind a week of ages — to contemplate a holy sabbatism — and a month of ages — to see God's holy new moon — and a year of ages — to understand together the year's feasts, when every 'male' must appear 'before the Lord God' — and the proportionate years of such ages — to grasp the holy seventh year — and seven sevens of ages — to hymn the so-great Lawgiver — having examined how he can fuss over the least portion of an hour of the day of so great an age, will do everything, that, made worthy by preparation here of obtaining the daily bread, he may receive it on the 'today' day — with the 'day by day' already becoming plain from what went before. For to the God who is from boundless to boundless, the one who prays concerning not only the 'today' but in a way the 'today' of the 'day by day' — from what he can contemplate — 'beyond all measure above what we ask or conceive' — shall be able to receive, if I may speak so hyperbolically, even 'what eye saw not' and 'what ear heard not' and 'what went not up upon man's heart.'

And these things too seem to me most necessary to examine, that both the 'today' be understood and the 'day by day,' when we pray that the 'daily bread' 'be given us' from his Father. But if in the last book we shall first examine the 'our' — since it is said not 'Give us this day our daily bread' but 'Our daily bread give us day by day' — yet we must examine how this bread is 'ours.' The Apostle teaches that 'whether life or death, or things present or things to come — all' are the saints'. Concerning which there is no need to speak at present.

“Forgive us our debts”§28

28'And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors' (Matthew 6:12) — or as Luke has it, 'And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone indebted to us.' (Luke 11:4) Concerning debts, the Apostle says: 'Render to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute, fear to whom fear, tax to whom tax, honor to whom honor. Owe no one anything, except to love one another.' (Romans 13:7) We owe, then — holding certain duties — not only in giving, but in gentle speech too, and in certain works; and we owe a certain disposition toward them. These debts we either pay, by performing what the divine law commands, or, by despising the wholesome word, not paying, we remain in owing.

The like must be conceived for debts toward brothers — both those reborn with us in Christ by the word of godliness, and those of our womb or our father. There is a debt toward citizens too, and another common one toward all men — toward strangers in particular, and in particular toward those of a father's age — and another toward some, whom it is reasonable to honor as sons or as brothers. He who does not see that what is owed to brothers is performed remains a debtor of what he did not do. And he — if, when men cast upon us some of our failings, from the philanthropic spirit of wisdom — the debt grows greater. But we owe to ourselves too: to use the body thus — not to wear out the body's flesh by love of pleasure; and to bring this care to the soul, and make provision for the mind's keenness, and for speech, that it be stingless and useful and nowise idle. And when we do not do what is owed by us to ourselves, our liability becomes heavier.

And beyond all these, as God's 'workmanship' and creation, we owe him a certain disposition kept toward him, and love 'from the whole heart' 'and from the whole strength' 'and from the whole mind.' If we do not accomplish these, we remain debtors to God, sinning against the Lord. And who shall pray for us concerning these? 'For if a man sinning sin against a man, they shall pray for him; but if he sin against the Lord, who shall pray for him?' (1 Samuel 2:25) — as Eli says in First Kingdoms. But with Christ having bought us with his own blood, we are debtors — as every slave is debtor to his buyer for so great a sum given for him. And we have a debt toward 'the Holy Spirit' too — paid when we grieve him not, 'whereby' we were 'sealed unto the day of redemption' — and, not grieving him, bear the fruits we are required to bear, with him present in us and quickening our soul. And if we know not exactly who is each one's angel, 'beholding' in the heavens the Father's 'face' — yet to each who oversees himself it becomes plain that to him too we are debtors of certain things. And if we are 'in a theater of the world and angels and men,' (1 Corinthians 4:9 (angels)) know that, as in a theater one is debtor to say or do such things in sight of the spectators — which, if he do not, he is punished as having insulted the whole theater — so we owe 'to' the whole 'world' 'and' to all, angels and the race of men, the things we shall learn from wisdom if we will.

But apart from these more general debts, there is a debt of a widow cared for by the church, and another of a deacon, and another of a presbyter — and a bishop's debt is heaviest, exacted by the Savior of the whole church, and avenged if unpaid. And the Apostle named a common debt of man and wife, saying: 'Let the husband render the debt to the wife, and likewise the wife to the husband' (1 Corinthians 7:3) — adding, 'Defraud not one another.' And why must I say what readers of this writing can gather for themselves from what is said — how many debts, either not paying, we shall be held, or paying, be freed? Only, living in this life, there is no hour of night or day without owing.

But in owing, one either pays or keeps back the debt. In this life one can pay; one can also keep back. Some owe nothing to anyone; some, paying most, owe little; some, paying little, owe more; and perhaps there is one who, paying nothing, owes all. And he who pays all, so as to owe nothing, succeeds in this in time — needing forgiveness for former debts. Which forgiveness he who has been zealous, from some time, to become such as to owe nothing of what befalls him, as unpaid, may reasonably obtain. And these lawless activities, imprinted on the ruling faculty, become the 'handwriting against us' by which we shall be judged — as books, as it were, written by all hands, to be produced when 'we shall all stand before the tribunal' (2 Corinthians 5:10) 'of Christ, that each may receive the things through the body, according to what he did, whether good or bad.' (2 Corinthians 5:10) To these debts belongs also what is said in Proverbs: 'Give not thyself for surety, ashamed of face; for if thou hast not whence to pay, they shall take thy mattress from under thy sides.' (2 Corinthians 5:10)

And if we owe to so many, then certainly some owe to us: some owe us as men, others as citizens, others as fathers, some as sons — and after these, wives to husbands as husbands, or friends to friends as friends. When, then, some of our many debtors behave more weakly concerning the payment of what is due to us, we shall do more humanely if we bear it with forgetfulness of wrongs toward them, remembering our own debts — how many we often passed by, not only toward men but toward God himself. For remembering that, being debtors, we did not pay but kept back, with time passing in which we should have done such things toward our neighbor, we shall be gentler toward those who owed even to us and did not pay the debt — especially if we forget not what was presumptuously done against the Divine by us, and the 'iniquity against the height' spoken by us, whether in ignorance of the truth or in displeasure at the circumstances befalling us.

But if we will not become gentler toward those indebted to us, we shall suffer what befell the one who forgave not his fellow-slave the 'hundred denarii' — who, forgiven according to the parable lying in the Gospel, was seized, and his master exacts the forgiven sums, saying to him: 'Wicked and slothful slave, oughtest thou not to have pitied thy fellow-slave, as I pitied thee? Cast him into prison, till he pay all that is owed.' (Matthew 18:32) And the Lord adds to this: 'So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not each one his brother from your hearts.' (Matthew 18:23–35) Yet they say we must forgive the repentant among those who sinned against us, even if our debtor do this often: 'For,' he says, 'if seven times a day thy brother sin against thee,' (Luke 17:4) and seven times turn, saying 'I repent,' thou shalt forgive him. It is not we who are harsh toward the unrepentant — such are harsh to themselves: 'for he who casts off discipline hates himself.' (Proverbs 15:32) Yet even for such, healing must by every means be sought to come upon the wholly perverted — so as not even to perceive his own evils, but to be drunk with a drunkenness more deadly than 'from wine': the drunkenness from the stupor of wickedness.

But Luke, saying 'Forgive us our sins' — since sins are debts of debtors who owe and pay not — says the same as Matthew, who seems to give no place to one who wishes to forgive only repentant debtors, since the Savior legislated that we must add in prayer: 'For we ourselves also forgive everyone indebted to us.' (Luke 11:4) Yet we all have authority to forgive sins against us — plain from both the 'as we also forgive our debtors' and the 'for we ourselves also forgive everyone indebted to us.' (Matthew 6:12) But he who is breathed upon by Jesus as the apostles were, and can be known 'by their fruits' as having received the Holy Spirit, and become spiritual by being led by the Spirit in the manner of a son of God for each thing to be done according to reason — forgives whatever God forgives, and retains the unhealable sins, serving, as the prophets did in speaking not their own things but the divine will's to God — so he too serves the God alone who has authority to forgive.

The voices in John's Gospel concerning the apostles' forgiveness run thus: 'Receive the Holy Spirit. Whosesoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; whosesoever you retain, they are retained.' (John 20:23) But if anyone takes these without examination, one might blame the apostles for not forgiving all, that all be forgiven — but retaining some sins, so that through them they are retained with God too. It is useful to take an example from the Law, to understand the forgiveness of men's sins wrought by men under God for men. The priests according to the Law are forbidden to offer sacrifice for certain sins, that the trespasses for which the sacrifices are made be forgiven. And surely the priest, having authority for the offering concerning involuntary or... trespasses, does not already offer whole-burnt-offering and sin-offering for adultery or willful murder or any graver fall. So too the apostles, and those likened to the apostles — priests under the 'great' 'High Priest,' having received knowledge of God's healing — know, taught by the Spirit, for what they must offer sacrifices of sins, and when, and in what manner — and know for what they must not do this. At any rate the priest Eli, knowing his sons Hophni and Phinehas sinning, as able to co-work nothing toward forgiveness of sins for them, confesses despair that this shall be, through what he says: 'If a man sinning sin against a man, they shall pray for him; but if he sin against the Lord, who shall pray for him?'

I know not how some, permitting themselves things beyond priestly worth — perhaps not even exact about priestly knowledge — boast as able to forgive idolatries, adulteries, and fornications too — to loose, through their prayer for the daring, even the 'sin unto death.' For they do not read the 'There is a sin unto death; I do not say that one should ask concerning it.' Nor must we pass over in silence most manly Job, offering sacrifice for his sons, saying: 'Lest my sons in their mind conceived evil against God' — for concerning doubtful cases, whether sin was sinned — and these not even reaching the lips — he offers the sacrifice.

“Bring us not into temptation”§29

29'And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' (Matthew 6:13) The 'but deliver us from evil' (Matthew 6:13) is passed over in silence with Luke. If the Savior does not command us to pray impossibilities, it seems to me worth inquiring how we are commanded to pray not to enter 'into temptation' — when the whole life of men on earth is a trial. For as long as we are on earth, girt with the flesh that wars 'against the spirit' — whose 'mind' is 'enmity' 'toward God,' wholly unable to submit 'to God's law' — we are in temptation.

That all human life 'on earth' is a 'trial,' we learned from Job in these words: 'Is not man's life on earth a trial?' The same is declared by the seventeenth Psalm in the 'In thee I shall be delivered from trial.' (Psalm 18:29) And Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says God grants not freedom from being tempted but freedom from being tempted beyond power: 'No temptation has taken you but human; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted beyond what you can, but will make with the temptation also the way out, that you may be able to bear it.' (1 Corinthians 10:13) For whether our 'wrestling' is 'against' the lusting flesh, or the flesh warring 'against the spirit,' or against the soul 'of all flesh' — which is homonymous with the body it inhabits, the ruling faculty, called 'heart' — such is the 'wrestling' of those to be tempted with human temptations; or whether, as advanced and more perfect athletes — no longer 'wrestling against blood and flesh,' (Job 40:8 (LXX)) nor examined in the human temptations they have already trodden down — our contests are 'against the principalities and the authorities and the world-rulers of this darkness, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness' (Ephesians 6:12) — we have not been freed from being tempted.

How, then, does the Savior command us to pray not to enter 'into temptation' — when God in a way tempts all? 'Remember,' says Judith — if not to the elders of that time only but to all who meet with her writing — 'what he did with Abraham, and what he tempted Isaac with, and what befell Jacob in Mesopotamia of Syria, feeding Laban's sheep, his mother's brother's. For not as he fired those into a proving of their heart does the Lord who scourges unto admonition those who draw near him avenge us.' And as a general saying concerning all righteous men, David says: 'Many are the afflictions of the righteous' (Psalm 17:30 (LXX)); and the Apostle in the Acts: 'Through many afflictions we must enter into God's kingdom.'

And unless we understand what escapes most concerning praying not to enter 'into temptation,' it is time to say that the apostles, praying, were not heard — suffering myriads through their whole lifetime: 'in labors more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often' (2 Corinthians 11:23); and Paul in particular 'received from the Jews five times forty save one,' (2 Corinthians 11:24) 'was thrice beaten with rods,' (2 Corinthians 11:25) 'once stoned,' 'thrice shipwrecked,' 'spent a night and day in the deep' (2 Corinthians 11:25) — a man 'in all things' afflicted and perplexed and persecuted and cast down, confessing too that 'even unto this present hour we hunger and thirst and are naked and buffeted and homeless, and labor, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being blasphemed, we entreat.' (Judith 8:21–27) But if the apostles, in praying, did not obtain — what hope has one inferior to them, praying, of obtaining a hearing God?

One who does not examine exactly what the Savior's commandment wills may reasonably suppose the 'Prove me, O Lord, and tempt me; fire my reins and my heart' (Psalm 33:20 (LXX)) in the twenty-fifth Psalm to be contrary to what our Lord taught concerning prayer. But when did anyone deem a man to be outside temptations — whose word he knew fulfilled? And what season is there in which, as not wrestling over not sinning, he has despised caution? Is one poor? Let him beware, lest stealing he swear 'by God's name.' Is one rich? Let him not despise caution: for, filled, he can become 'false,' and, lifted up, say 'Who sees me?' Not even Paul, rich 'in all speech and all knowledge,' (1 Corinthians 1:5) was freed from the danger of sinning in self-exaltation over these — he needs 'a thorn of Satan buffeting' (2 Corinthians 12:7) him, 'lest' he 'be exalted.' And if one is conscious of better things and is winged away from evils, let him read what is said in Second Chronicles concerning Hezekiah — who is said to have fallen 'from the height of his heart.'

And if one despises caution because we said no more of the poor man — as though there were no temptation concerning poverty — let him know that the plotter plots 'to cast down the poor and needy' — especially since, according to Solomon, 'the poor abides not threat.' And why speak of how many, through bodily wealth, ill-stewarded, received in punishment the place with the rich man in the Gospel? And how many, basely bearing poverty — conducting themselves more slavishly and lowly than befits 'the saints' — fell from the heavenly hope? Nor are those between the two — on either side, wealth and poverty, in measured possession — altogether freed from sinning.

But one healthy and vigorous in body supposes, in the very being healthy and vigorous, that he is outside all temptation. And whose sin is it, but the healthy and vigorous, 'to destroy the temple of God' — which no one will dare speak plainly of in detail, since what concerns that place lies openly before all? And what sick man escapes the provocations to 'destroy God's temple' — leisured at that season, readily receiving thoughts of impure matters? And what disturbs him beyond these — unless 'with all guard' he keep his 'heart' — why even speak? For many, overcome by pains and unable to bear diseases manfully, were then proved sick in soul rather than in bodies. And many, fleeing disgrace — ashamed to bear Christ's noble name nobly — fell into eternal shame.

But one supposes he rests, as not tempted, when glorified among men. And how is the 'they have received their reward,' announced 'from men' to those elated by glory among the many for good, not grievous? And how is the 'How can you believe, receiving glory from one another, and seeking not the glory that comes from the only God?' (John 5:44) not rebuking? And why must I recount the falls in pride of the deemed well-born, and of the deemed low-born the untaught fawning suspicion toward those deemed to excel — which draws men from God: who have no genuine friendship, but play the hypocrite toward the fairest of things among men — love?

All 'life,' then, as aforesaid, of 'man upon earth' 'is' a trial. That is why we pray to be delivered from trial — not in not being tempted (for that is impossible, especially for those 'on earth'), but in not being defeated when tempted. I take the defeated in temptation to enter 'into' temptation, held in its nets. Into these nets, for the sake of those already caught in them, the Savior entered — 'stooping through the nets,' as said in the Song of Songs — and 'answers' those already caught by them, who entered 'into' temptation, and says, as 'bride' to his 'bride': 'Rise, come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove.' (Song of Solomon 2:10) And I shall add, to persuade that every season is a season of temptation for men: not even 'he who meditates God's law day and night,' who strives to accomplish the 'mouth of the righteous shall meditate wisdom,' (Psalm 37:30) is freed from being tempted.

At any rate, those who, declining in devoting themselves to the examination of divine Scriptures, devoted themselves to godless and impious doctrines — or to silly and laughable ones — why speak of them? When myriads who seem not liable to the charge of neglecting the readings trip over such things? The same befalls many with the apostolic and evangelical readings too — who through their own folly fashion another Son or Father beside the one theologized and truly known to the saints. For he who thinks untrue things concerning God or his Christ has fallen from the true God and his Only-begotten; and the one his folly fashioned, supposing it Father and Son, he does not truly worship — suffering this because he did not perceive the temptation in reading holy things, nor armed himself and stood against the contest then present to him also.

We must pray, then, not that we be not tempted (for that is impossible), but that we be not encompassed by temptation — which those held in it and overcome suffer. Since, then, outside the prayer it is written 'not to enter into temptation' — which, from what is said, can somehow be plain — and in the prayer we must say to God the Father 'bring us not into temptation' — it is worth seeing how we must conceive God bringing into temptation the one who did not pray, or the one not heard. For it sounds ill to conceive God bringing anyone 'into temptation' — with the overcome entering 'into' temptation — as though, by his being overcome, God handed him over. And the same ill sound awaits one who in any way expounds the 'pray not to enter into temptation.' For if falling 'into temptation' is evil — against suffering which we pray — how is it not absurd to conceive the good God, who cannot 'bear evil fruits,' encompassing anyone with evils?

Useful for this, then, is to set beside it what Paul said in Romans, in this way: 'Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds and quadrupeds and creeping things. Therefore God handed them over, in the lusts of their hearts, unto uncleanness, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.' (Romans 1:22-24) And after a little: 'For this God handed them over to passions of dishonor' (Romans 1:26); and 'handed them over to a reprobate mind, to do what is unfitting.' (Romans 1:28) Were those not handed over to them by God not made 'in the lusts of their own hearts'? Would those not handed over by God to 'passions of dishonor' have fallen under them? Would they have collapsed 'into a reprobate mind' without being handed to it by God — those so condemned?

Those, then — I well know these things will greatly trouble them, and that is why they fashion another god beside the maker of heaven and earth, since, finding many such things in the Law and the Prophets, they stumbled at them, as at one not good who utters such voices. But for us — with the difficulties already raised concerning the 'bring us not into temptation,' for which we set out the apostolic words too — we must see whether we also find worthy loosenings of the ill sounds. I take God to dispense each rational soul with an eye to its eternal life — which ever keeps its self-determination — and, by its own cause, either among the better, ascending to the summit of goods, or descending variously, through inattention, into such-and-such a bilge of evil. Since, then, speedy healing, and more compendious, breeds in some a contempt of the diseases into which they fell — easily healed, so that after healing they would fall a second time into the same — reasonably, in such cases, he overlooks wickedness growing for a time, and, spreading longer in them, overlooks it as incurable: that, by spending time with evil and being glutted with the sin they desire, they may be sated, perceive the harm, hate what they formerly welcomed, and, healed, be able more firmly to profit from the health belonging to being healed in their souls. As the 'mixed multitude' 'among the sons of Israel 'lusted a lust, and, sitting down, the sons of Israel wept too, and said: Who shall feed us flesh? We remembered the fish we ate freely in Egypt, and the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. But now our soul is dry; nothing but the manna are our eyes.' (Numbers 11:4-6) Then after a little it is said: 'And Moses heard them weeping by their families, each at his door.' (Numbers 11:10) And again after a little the Lord says to Moses: 'And to the people thou shalt say: Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat flesh — for you wept before the Lord, saying: Who shall feed us flesh? For it was well with us in Egypt. And the Lord shall give you flesh to eat, and you shall eat flesh. Not one day shall you eat, nor two, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days — unto a month of days shall you eat, until it come out of your nostrils, and be cholera to you — because you disobeyed the Lord, who is among you, and wept before him, saying: Why did we come out of Egypt?' (Numbers 11:18-20)

Let us see, then, whether we usefully compared this history toward loosing the ill sound in the 'bring us not into temptation' and in the apostolic words. Lusting 'a lust,' 'the mixed multitude' among the sons of Israel — Israel wept with them. And it is plain that, without what they lusted for, they could take no fill of them, nor cease from the passion. But the philanthropic and good God, giving them what they lusted for, did not so will to give as to leave lust remaining in them. That is why he says they shall eat the 'flesh' not 'one day' — for their passion would have remained in their soul, fired and kindled by it, if they had shared flesh for a little — nor 'two' days does he give them what they lusted for. Wishing to make it loathsome to them, he as it were promises not, but threatens the discerning through what he seemed to grant — saying: you shall not make 'five' days 'only' eating the 'flesh,' nor twice those, nor yet twice those — but 'you shall eat' so long, feasting on flesh a whole month, 'until it come out of your nostrils,' (Numbers 11:20) with choleric suffering, the deemed good and the blameworthy, shameful lust for it. That I may free you from life no longer lusting — and, so delivered, you may, as pure from lust, and remembering from how many pains you were freed of it, either never fall into it again, or — if ever this happens — after long circuits of years, forgetting what you suffered through lust — unless you attend to yourselves and take up the Word that wholly frees from all passion — fall into evils afterwards, and, lusting after procreation(?), beg to obtain twice what you lust for, hating the lusted, and then so run back to the good and the heavenly food, which, despising, they reached for the worse.

The like, then, shall those suffer who 'changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds and quadrupeds and creeping things' (Romans 1:23) — by being forsaken, handed 'in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, to dishonor the bodies' (Romans 1:24) of those who degraded the name of him who grants to all sentient rationals not only sensing, but to some sensing rationally, and to some perfectly and virtuously sensing and understanding. And reasonably such are handed over by the God forsaken by them — forsaken in turn by him — to 'passions of dishonor,' receiving 'the recompense' 'of the error' they loved, 'wasting(?)' 'pleasure.' For the 'recompense of error' comes upon them, handed 'to passions of dishonor,' rather than upon those cleansed by wise fire. And in prison they are exacted to the last quadrans for each of their debts. For in being handed to 'dishonoring' passions — not only the natural but many unnatural — they are polluted and thickened by flesh, as though having then neither soul nor mind, but becoming wholly fleshes. But in fire and prison, receiving not 'recompense of error' but benefaction unto cleansing of the evils in error, with saving pains following the pleasure-loving, they are freed from all pitch and blood — in which, befouled and bemired, they could not even conceive of being saved, by their own destruction. 'God shall wash,' then, 'the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and cleanse the blood from their midst, by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning.' (Isaiah 4:4) For 'he comes as a refiner's fire and as fullers' herb,' washing and cleansing those in need of such drugs, because they would not approvedly 'hold God in knowledge.' Handed to these, they shall willingly hate the 'reprobate mind.' For God wills the good to come to no one as by necessity, but willingly — though some, from longer commerce with evil, hardly perceive its shame, and turn from it as falsely supposed good.

But consider whether for this too God hardens Pharaoh's heart: that what he said unhardened he may be able to say — 'The Lord is righteous; I and my people are wicked.' (Exodus 9:27) Yet one needs to be hardened further and suffer further — lest, from ceasing to be hardened too quickly, despising hardening as evil, he become again more often worthy of being hardened. If, then, 'nets are not unrighteously spread for the winged,' (Proverbs 1:17) according to Proverbs, but God reasonably 'brings into the snare' — according to him who said, 'Thou broughtest us into the snare' — and 'without' the Father's 'will' not even the cheapest of winged sparrows falls 'into the snare' (falling 'into the snare' for this reason: that he used ill the wings given for rising, by his authority) — let us pray to do nothing worthy of being brought 'into' 'temptation' by God's righteous judgment: with everyone handed by God 'in the lusts' of his own heart 'unto uncleanness' being brought in, and everyone handed 'to passions of dishonor,' and everyone, 'as he approved not holding God' in himself, handed 'to a reprobate mind, to do what is unfitting.' (Isaiah 4:4)

The need of being tempted is something like this. What our soul received — hidden from all but God, and even from ourselves — becomes manifest through temptations: that we no longer be hidden from ourselves, whatever we are, but, knowing even ourselves, perceive, if we will, our own evils, and give thanks for the goods manifested to us through temptations. That temptations come to manifest us, whatever we are, or to discern what is hidden in our heart, is shown by what the Lord said to Job, and what stands written in Deuteronomy, running thus: 'Thinkest thou that I dealt with thee otherwise than that thou mightest appear righteous?' (Job 40:8) And in Deuteronomy thus: 'He afflicted thee and starved thee and fed thee manna' (Deuteronomy 8:3) — and led thee 'in the wilderness,' 'where biting serpent and scorpion and thirst' (Deuteronomy 8:15) — 'that' 'what is in thy heart be discerned.'

And if we wish to be reminded from history too, know that Eve's easy-deceivability and the rottenness of her reasoning did not begin when, disobeying God, she heard the serpent — it was convicted even before, with the serpent approaching her for this reason: that in his own prudence he laid hold of her weakness. Nor did wickedness begin to come to be in Cain when he 'killed' his 'brother' — for even before, 'upon Cain and his sacrifices he had no regard' (Psalm 66:11 (LXX)) — O heart-knowing God! — but his wickedness came to light when he... Abel. Nor, unless Noah, drinking 'of the wine' he farmed, 'was drunken' and 'was uncovered,' would either Ham's precipitance and impiety toward his father have appeared, or his brothers' reverence and shame toward their begetter. And Esau's plot against Jacob seemed to take as pretext the 'blessing's' removal — but even before this his soul held roots of being 'profane' and 'unholy.' And Joseph's chastity-brightness — prepared not to be caught by any lust — we would not have known, had his mistress not loved him.

That is why, standing in the intervals between successions of temptations, toward what is present, we are prepared for all that can befall — that, whatever happens, we be not convicted as unready, but manifest as having most diligently knit ourselves together. For what falls short through human weakness — when we accomplish all things in ourselves — God shall fulfill: who 'works all things together for good' 'to those who love' him, 'to those foreseen' by his unlying foreknowledge, whatever they shall be with him.

“Deliver us from evil”§30

30Luke, I take it, through the 'bring us not into temptation,' (Luke 11:4) taught in effect the 'deliver us from evil' (Matthew 6:13) too. And it is likely that to the disciple — as already profited — the Lord said the more compendious thing, while to the many, needing plainer teaching, the clearer. And God 'delivers us' 'from evil' — not when the enemy in no way approaches us, wrestling, with whatever methods of his, and serving his own will — but when we conquer, standing manfully toward what befalls. So too we took the 'Many are the afflictions of the righteous, and from them all he shall deliver them.' (Psalms 34:19) For God delivers from afflictions — not when afflictions no longer occur (if even Paul says 'afflicted in all things,' as though never 'not afflicted') — but when, 'afflicted,' we 'are not straitened' by God's help. Of being afflicted — after a certain Hebrew idiom — the involuntary circumstantial is signified; of being straitened, the voluntary: overcome by affliction, yielding to it. Whence Paul well says: 'Afflicted in all things, yet not straitened.' (Psalm 33:20 (LXX)) Like this, I think, is the saying in the Psalms: 'In affliction thou didst enlarge me.' (Psalm 4:1) For by the co-working and presence of the comforting Word of God who saves us, the cheerful and undaunted state of our mind in the season of circumstances, made by God, was called enlargement.

Likewise, then, must being delivered from the evil one be conceived... God delivered Job — not by the devil's not receiving authority to encompass him with such temptations (for he did receive it), but by Job's sinning in nothing that befell, 'before the Lord,' but appearing righteous — to him who said, 'Doth Job worship the Lord for nothing? Hast thou not fenced the outside of him, and the inside of his house, and the outside of all his possessions round about? Thou hast blessed his works, and made his cattle many upon the earth. But stretch forth thy hand and touch all he has — surely he will bless thee to thy face' (Psalm 4:2 (LXX)) — confounded, as then also false-witnessing against Job. Job, suffering so much, did not, as the Opponent said, bless God 'to the face' — but, handed to the tempter, persists blessing the Lord, rebuking his wife who said, 'Say some word to the Lord, and die' — reproaching her with 'Thou hast spoken as one of the foolish women. Shall we receive good from the Lord's hand, and not bear evil?' And a second time the devil said to the Lord concerning Job: 'Skin for skin — all a man has he will give for his soul. But stretch forth thy hand and touch his bones and his flesh — surely he will bless thee to thy face.' (Job 1:9–11; 2:4–10) Defeated by virtue's athlete, he is proved false. For though suffering grievous things, Job persisted, sinning in nothing 'with his lips' 'before God.' Two wrestlings Job wrestled and won; a third he does not wrestle — so great a contest. For the wrestling of the three had to be kept for the Savior — recorded in the three Gospels — with our Savior, conceived as man, conquering the enemy in the three.

That, then, understanding, we may ask God both not to enter 'into temptation' and to be delivered 'from the evil one' — having examined these things more exactly and searched them with ourselves — is worthy, through the sowing(?) of divine and saving thoughts, imprinted from contemplations of truth upon the practicing spiritual soul.

Posture, place, and times of prayer§31

31It seems to me not out of place, after this, for the filling of the problem concerning prayer, to discuss more elementarily the condition and the figure the pray-er must have, and the place where one must pray, and the direction toward which one must look, without any circumstance — and the season fit and choice for prayer, and anything like these. The condition must be laid upon the soul, the figure upon the body. Paul, then — as we said above — sketches the condition in the 'pray' 'without wrath and doubting,' (Psalm 25:4–5 (LXX)) and the figure in the 'lifting holy hands' — which I take him to have received from the Psalms, running thus: 'The lifting of my hands, an evening sacrifice.' (Psalm 141:2) Concerning place: 'I will, then, that men pray in every place.' (Psalm 140:2 (LXX)) Concerning direction, in Solomon's Wisdom: 'that it be known that one must outrun the sun unto thy thanksgiving, and meet thee before the light's rising.'

It seems to me, then, that one about to come to prayer — pausing a little and furnishing himself — becomes more attentive and vigorous toward the whole of prayer: casting off all temptation and turmoil of thoughts, reminding himself as far as possible of the greatness to which he approaches, and that it is impious to come to him slack and loose, as it were despising — laying aside all foreign things — so to come to pray: stretching, as it were, his soul before his hands, and straining his mind before his eyes toward God, and before standing, waking his ruling faculty from sloth and stationing it toward the Lord of all — laying aside all remembrance of wrongs toward any deemed to have wronged him, so far as he too wishes God not to remember wrongs against him — who wronged him and sinned against many neighbors, or is conscious of whatever deeds against right reason. Nor must one doubt that, though the body's conditions are myriad, the condition with outstretched hands and uplifted eyes is to be preferred before all — bearing, as it were, upon the body the image of the properties befitting the soul in prayer. And this, I say, must come to be principally without any circumstance. For with circumstance it has been given to pray becomingly at times seated — for some not-contemptible disease of the feet — or even reclining, for fevers or such weaknesses; and for encompassing circumstance — say, if we sail, or business forbids us, withdrawing, to render the owed prayer — one may pray without even pretending to do so.

And kneeling too — when one is about to accuse his own sins before God, entreating healing and forgiveness for them — know that it is a symbol of the fallen and subjected: Paul saying, 'For this I bend my knees to the Father, from whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named.' (Ephesians 3:15) And the intelligible kneeling — so called from falling prostrate to God 'in Jesus' name,'... each being humbling itself to him — the Apostle seems to me to declare in the 'that in Jesus' name every knee bow, of heavenly and earthly and under-earthly.' For that the heavenly bodies are figured so as to have even bodily knees must hardly be supposed — their bodies being proved spherical by the exact students of these things. And he who will not accept this will accept — unless he blush before reason — the uses of each member: that nothing in them was crafted by God in vain. Either way he trips: whether he says bodily members came to them from God in vain and not for their own work, or says the inward parts and the straight gut perform their own uses even in the heavenly ones. And he shall conduct himself most foolishly if, statue-fashion, one supposes only the surface to be manlike, but no longer the depths. This, I say, examining kneeling, and seeing that 'in Jesus' name every knee shall bow, of heavenly and earthly and under-earthly.' And what stands written in the prophet, 'To me every knee shall bow,' (Isaiah 45:23) is the same.

And concerning place, know that every place becomes fit for praying by one who prays well: 'For in every place they bring incense to me,' (Malachi 1:11) 'says the Lord'; and 'I will, then, that men pray in every place.' (1 Timothy 2:8) But there is an ordinance, for performing prayers at leisure undistracted — each choosing, of his own house if possible, the more reverend spot — to pray thus, so to speak, in a place: overseeing, besides the general examination of it, whether in this place where he prays anything was ever done amiss and against right reason. For he has made not only himself but even the place of his own prayer such that God's oversight flees thence. And overseeing more fully this place too, I must state an opinion — perhaps weighty, but to the exact trier not contemptible. In the place of not unlawful intercourse, but what by the apostolic word is conceded 'by concession, not by command,' (1 Corinthians 7:6) it must be examined whether it is holy and pure to address God. For to be at leisure 'for prayer' as one must is impossible unless one devote himself to it 'by agreement for a season' (1 Corinthians 7:5) — so perhaps concerning the place too, if possible, one must consider.

But a place of prayer has a certain grace toward profit: the place of the believers' assembly together — where, as is likely, angelic powers too oversee the gatherings of believers, and the very power of our Lord and Savior — already, too, holy spirits; and, I suppose, the predeceased — and plainly those still in life, though the how is not easy to say. And concerning angels, reckon thus: if 'the angel of the Lord encamps round them that fear him, and shall deliver them,' (Psalm 34:7) and Jacob speaks truth — not of himself only but of all devoted to the understanding God — saying, 'The angel who delivers me from all evils' (Genesis 48:16) — it is likely, with more genuinely gathered to Christ's glory, that each one's angel encamps 'round' each 'of them that fear,' with that man whom he is trusted to guard and dispense. So that over the saints gathering there is a double church — one of men, one of angels. And if Raphael says of Tobit alone that he brought his prayer 'for a memorial' — and after him Sarah's, who later became his bride through her marriage to Tobias — what must be said, when more accompany in the same place and the same mind, and are bodied together in Christ? And concerning the Lord's power present with the church, Paul says: 'You gathered, and my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus' (Psalm 33:8 (LXX)) — as the 'power of the Lord Jesus' joins not with Ephesians only but Corinthians too. And if Paul, still girt with the body, deemed his own spirit to join in Corinth — the blessed departed must not be despaired of reaching the churches in spirit — perhaps more than one in the body. That is why the prayers in them must not be despised — having something choice for the one who genuinely joins them.

But as Jesus' power, and Paul's spirit and his like, and the angels of 'the Lord' 'encamping round' each saint, accompany and join those genuinely assembled — so conjecture whether, if one unworthy of a holy angel, or devoting himself to a diabolical angel by what he sins and transgresses despising God — such a one, though his like be rare, shall not long escape the angels' providence, overseeing the church in service of the divine will, bringing such one's falls to the many's knowledge. But if such become a multitude, gathering in human fellowships and pursuing something more bodily, they shall not be overseen. Which is declared in Isaiah, with the Lord saying: 'Not even if you come to be seen by me' (Isaiah 1:15) — 'for,' he says, 'I will turn my eyes from you' — 'and if you multiply supplication, I will not hear you.' (Isaiah 1:15) For perhaps, instead of the aforesaid double array of holy men and blessed angels, there comes again a double meeting together of impious men and wicked angels — and of such a gathering it might be said, by holy angels and sacred men: 'I sat not with a council of vanity, and with transgressors I will not enter. I hated the church of evildoers, and with the impious I will not sit.' (Psalm 26:4)

That is why, I suppose, those in Jerusalem and all Judaea, come into more sins, became subject to enemies — abandoned by God and the championing angels and the saints' salvation, the law-forsaking peoples. For so too whole gatherings are at times forsaken, to fall into temptations — that 'even what' they 'seem to have' be 'taken from them': like the cursed fig tree, 'taken from its roots' for giving no fruit to the hungry Jesus — withering, and losing what little vital power in faith they had. This, I take it, I necessarily said, examining a place of prayer, and presenting the choice in place: in the saints' assembly together, and more reverently in the church gathered to the same.

Facing east when we pray§32

Four kinds of prayer in Scripture§33

33It seems to me, further, having discussed the places of prayer, not to end the word here. Four places, I take it, must be outlined, which I found scattered in the Scriptures — and a prayer must be bodied together for each after these. The places are these: according to power, words of doxology must be said at the prayer's beginning and preface — with God glorified through Christ, hymned together in the Holy Spirit; and after this each must rank common thanksgivings — bringing, upon the thanksgiving, benefits toward many, and what he individually obtained from God; and after thanksgiving, I take one must become embittered over one's own sins, accusing them through confession and asking healing for them and forgiveness from God; and to this, I take it, must be joined the request for great and heavenly things — one's own and general, and for kin and dearest. And upon all, the prayer must rest in God's doxology through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

These places, as we foretold, are found dispersed in the Scriptures: the doxology-place, in the hundred-and-third Psalm, in these words — 'O Lord my God, thou art magnified exceedingly; confession and majesty thou didst put on, who wrappest light as a garment, who stretchest heaven as a hide, who roofest his upper chambers in waters, who makest clouds his footing, who walkest on wings of winds, who makest his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire, who foundest earth upon its safety — it shall not bow unto the age of age. Abyss as a garment is his cloak; upon the mountains shall waters stand. From thy rebuke they shall flee; from the voice of thy thunder they shall cower.' (Psalm 104:1-7) And most of this psalm contains the Father's doxology. One who gathers more for himself can see where the doxology-place is dispersed in many places.

Of thanksgiving, let this be poured forth as example, lying in Second Kingdoms — spoken by David after Nathan's promises to him, astounded at God's gifts and thanking for them in these words: 'Who am I, my Lord, Lord, and what is my house, that thou lovedst me unto these things? And I was made very little before thee, my Lord — and thou spakest for thy servant's house unto far off. And this is man's law, my Lord, Lord. And what shall David add more to speak to thee? And now thou knowest thy servant, Lord. For thy servant thou didst it, and according to thy heart thou didst all this thy greatness, to make known to thy servant, for magnifying thee, my Lord, Lord.'

Of confessions, for example: 'Deliver me from all my lawlessnesses' (Psalm 27:3 (LXX)); and elsewhere, 'My stripes stank and rotted from the face of my folly. I was wretched and wholly bowed, all the day scowling I went.' (Psalm 27:3)

Of requests, in the twenty-seventh Psalm: 'Draw me not with sinners, and with workers of iniquity destroy me not with them' — and whatever is like these.

It is reasonable, beginning from doxology, ending in doxology to rest the prayer — hymning and glorifying the Father of all 'through Jesus Christ' in the Holy Spirit, 'to whom be glory unto the ages.'

Closing word to Ambrose and Tatiana§34