The Conferences 9.2–9.20

“The whole goal of the monk and the perfection of his heart tends toward constant and unbroken perseverance in prayer, and, as far as human frailty allows, it strives toward immovable tranquillity of mind and perpetual purity. For the sake of this we tirelessly seek and continually practise all labor of body as well as contrition of spirit. And there is a kind of reciprocal and inseparable bond between the two. For just as the whole structure of the virtues tends toward the perfection of prayer, so unless all of them are bound together and fitted into one by this as their crown, they cannot in any way remain firm or stable. For just as this perpetual and continual tranquillity of prayer of which we are speaking cannot be acquired or completed without them, so neither can those virtues which lay its foundation be brought to completion without persistence in it. And therefore we shall not be able either to treat rightly of the effect of prayer or to enter by a hasty discussion into its principal end, which is achieved by the labor of building all the virtues, unless first everything that must be either cut away or provided for its sake has been counted out in order and examined, and, according to the teaching of the gospel parable, whatever belongs to the building of that spiritual and most lofty tower has been reckoned up and carefully gathered beforehand. Yet even these things, once prepared, will be of no use, nor will they allow the high summits of perfection to be rightly set upon them, unless first all the rubbish of vices has been cleared away and the decayed and dead debris of the passions has been dug out, and the firmest foundations of simplicity and humility have been laid upon the living and solid ground, as they say, of our breast, or rather upon that rock of the gospel. On these foundations this tower, to be built by the labors of the spiritual virtues, will be able both to stand immovably and to rise, confident in its own firmness, to the highest heights of heaven. For if it rests on such foundations, though the heaviest rains of passions pour down, though violent torrents of persecutions strike against it like a battering ram, though a savage storm of hostile spirits rushes upon it and presses on it, not only will no collapse bring it down, but the shock will not even shake it at all.

“And therefore, so that prayer may be offered with the fervor and purity it ought to have, these things must be observed in every way. First, anxiety about fleshly things must be cut off altogether; next, not only the care but even the memory of any business or affair must not be admitted at all. Slander, empty talk or much talking, and buffoonery must likewise be cut away; above all, the disturbance of anger or of sadness must be rooted out completely, and the harmful tinder of carnal desire and of love of money torn up by the roots. When these and similar vices, which can also be seen by human eyes, have been thoroughly driven out and cut off, and when such a cleansing of the rubbish, as we have said, has gone before, a cleansing that is completed by the purity of simplicity and innocence, then first the unshaken foundations of deep humility must be laid, able to bear a tower that is to reach into heaven; next, the spiritual structure of the virtues must be set upon them, and the mind restrained from all running about and slippery wandering, so that it may begin little by little to be raised to the contemplation of God and to spiritual insight. For whatever our soul has taken in before the hour of prayer must of necessity come back to us through the working of memory while we pray. Therefore, such as we wish to be found when we pray, such we ought to make ourselves before the time of prayer. For the mind in supplication is shaped by its previous state; and when we bow down to pray, the image of the same actions, words, and thoughts plays before our eyes, and will make us either angry, as in our previous condition, or sad, or turn over again our past desires or affairs, or be shaken (I am ashamed to say it) by silly laughter, tickled by some joking word or act, or fly back to our former distractions. And therefore whatever we do not want to creep in upon us while we pray, let us hasten before prayer to drive out of the inner sanctuary of our breast, so that we may thus fulfil the apostle’s words: “Pray without ceasing,” and: “In every place lifting up pure hands without anger and disputing.” For otherwise we shall not be able to carry out this command, unless our mind, purified from all contagion of vices and given over to the virtues alone as to its natural goods, is fed by the continual contemplation of almighty God.

“For the nature of the soul is not unfittingly compared to a very fine down or a very light feather. If it has not been spoiled or soaked by the corruption of some moisture coming upon it from outside, it is lifted up as if naturally to the heights of heaven by the lightness of its substance, with the help of the slightest breath. But if it has been weighed down by the sprinkling or soaking of some moisture, not only will it not be carried off by its natural lightness into any flight through the air, but it will even be pressed down to the depths of the earth by the weight of the moisture it has taken in. So too our mind, if it is not weighed down by vices that come upon it and by the cares of the world, or corrupted by the moisture of harmful desire, will be lifted up, as by the natural benefit of its own purity, and raised on high by the lightest breath of spiritual meditation; and leaving what is low and earthly, it will be carried over to those heavenly and invisible things. Hence we are quite fittingly warned by the Lord’s commands: “See that your hearts are never weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this world.” And therefore, if we want our prayers to pierce not only the heavens but even what is above the heavens, let us take care to bring our mind, cleansed from all earthly vices and purified from all the dregs of the passions, back to its natural lightness, so that its prayer may rise to God weighed down by no burden of vices.

“We should note, however, the causes by which the Lord indicated that the mind is weighed down. For he did not name adulteries, sexual immorality, murders, blasphemies, or robberies, which no one fails to know are deadly and damnable, but surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares or anxieties of this world. No one in this world guards against these or judges them damnable; indeed some (I am ashamed to say it) who call themselves monks entangle themselves in these very distractions as if they were harmless and useful. Although these three, when committed literally, weigh down the soul, separate it from God, and press it down to earthly things, they are nevertheless easy to avoid, especially for us who are cut off by so long a separation from all the life of this world and have no occasion at all to mix in these visible cares and drunkenness and surfeiting. But there is also another surfeiting, no less harmful, and a spiritual drunkenness harder to avoid, and a worldly care and anxiety that often entangles us even after the complete renunciation of all our possessions, after abstinence from wine and all feasting, and even when we are settled in solitude. (Of these the prophet says: “Awake, you who are drunk, and not with wine.” Another also says: “Be astonished and wonder, waver and stagger; be drunk, and not with wine; reel, and not with drunkenness.” The wine of this drunkenness must consequently be, as the prophet says, “the fury of dragons”; and notice from what root this wine comes: “Their vine,” he says, “is from the vineyard of Sodom, and their branches from Gomorrah.” Would you also know the fruit of that vine and the shoot of that branch? “Their grape is a grape of gall, their cluster a cluster of bitterness.”) For unless we have been cleansed of all vices and are sober from the surfeiting of all the passions, our heart will be weighed down, even without the drunkenness of wine and without any abundance of feasting, by a drunkenness and surfeiting more harmful still. That worldly cares can sometimes fall even on us who take part in no business of this world is shown plainly by the rule of the elders, who defined as belonging to worldly care and anxiety whatever goes beyond the necessity of daily food and the unavoidable use of the flesh. For example, if, when the work of one solidus could supply the needs of our body, we choose to stretch ourselves with more eager work and labor to acquire two or three solidi; and when the covering of two tunics suffices, that is, for use by night and by day, we contrive to become owners of three or four; and when a dwelling of one or two cells suffices, we build, delighting in worldly ambition and grandeur, four or five cells, and these with exquisite decoration and larger than use requires, displaying the passion of worldly desire in whatever we can.

“That this does not happen without the prompting of demons the clearest experiences have taught us. For a certain highly approved elder was passing by the cell of a brother who was suffering from this sickness of mind we have described, who was restlessly toiling with daily distractions in building and repairing superfluous things. From a distance he saw him breaking a very hard stone with a heavy hammer, and he saw an Ethiopian standing beside him, striking the blows of the hammer together with him, their hands joined and clasped, and urging him on to keep at the work with fiery torches. He stood still for a very long time, marveling at the force of the most dreadful demon and at the fraud of so great a delusion. For whenever the brother, worn out with excessive weariness, wanted to rest and put an end to the work, he was spurred on by the prompting of that spirit and driven to take up the hammer again and not to stop from the effort of the work he had begun, so that, sustained tirelessly by its incitements, he did not feel the harm of so great a labor. At last the old man, moved by such a dreadful mockery of the demon, turned aside to the brother’s cell and, greeting him, said: ‘What is this work that you are doing, brother?’ He answered: ‘We are laboring against this very hard stone, and we have barely been able to break it at last.’ The old man replied: ‘You said well, “we have been able.” For you were not alone when you were striking it; there was another with you whom you did not see, who stood by you in this work not so much as a helper but as a most violent driver.’ And therefore that the disease of worldly ambition is not in our minds will not be proved merely by abstaining from those affairs which we could not seek or carry out even if we wanted to, nor by despising those things which, if we pursued them, would at once make us conspicuous both among spiritual men and among people of the world, but when with strict severity of mind we reject even those things which lie within our power and seem to be cloaked with a certain respectability. And indeed these things, which seem small and trifling and which we see admitted indifferently by those of our profession, weigh down the mind according to their kind no less than those greater things which, according to their condition, commonly intoxicate the senses of worldly people. They do not allow the monk to lay aside the earthly dregs and breathe toward God, on whom his attention ought always to be fixed; for him even a slight separation from that highest good must be regarded as present death and the most ruinous destruction. And when the mind has been established in such tranquillity and freed from the bonds of all fleshly passions, and the attention of the heart clings most tenaciously to that one and highest good, it will fulfil the apostle’s words: “Pray without ceasing,” and: “In every place lifting up pure hands without anger and disputing.” For when by this purity (if one may say so) the mind’s understanding has been absorbed and reshaped from its earthly condition into a spiritual and angelic likeness, whatever it takes in, whatever it considers, whatever it does, will be a most pure and sincere prayer.

Germanus: “If only we could possess the permanence of spiritual thoughts in the same way and with the same ease with which we often conceive their seeds! For when they have been conceived in our heart, whether through remembering the Scriptures, or through recalling some spiritual actions, or through contemplating heavenly mysteries, they slip away by an unnoticed flight and vanish very quickly. And when our mind has found other occasions for spiritual thoughts, still others creep in, and those it had grasped also escape with slippery fickleness, so that the soul, keeping no constancy of its own and not possessing firm hold of holy thoughts by its own power, must be thought, even when it seems to hold them somehow, to have conceived them by chance and not by effort. For how can their origin be thought attributable to our will, when their continuance does not lie with us? But lest in investigating this question we stray too far from the order of the account we began and delay any longer the promised exposition of the state of prayer, let us reserve it for its own time. We earnestly ask to be instructed about the character of prayer, especially since the blessed apostle warns us never to cease from it, saying: “Pray without ceasing.” And so we want first to be taught about its character, that is, what kind of prayer ought always to be offered; and then how we can possess or practise this same prayer, whatever it is, without ceasing. For both daily experience and the discourse of your holiness show that it cannot be accomplished with slight attention of heart, since you have defined the goal of the monk and the summit of all perfection as consisting in the consummation of prayer.”

Isaac: “I think that all the kinds of prayer cannot be grasped without great purity of heart and soul and the illumination of the Holy Spirit. For there are as many of them as there are states and conditions that can arise in one soul, or rather in all souls. And therefore, although we know that because of the dullness of our heart we cannot see into all the kinds of prayer, we shall nevertheless try to set them out somehow, as far as our modest experience has been able to reach. For according to the measure of purity to which each mind advances, and the character of the state into which it is inclined by what befalls it or is renewed by its own effort, the prayers themselves also change from moment to moment; and therefore it is quite certain that no one can always offer uniform prayers. For a person prays in one way when he is cheerful, in another when he is weighed down by the burden of sadness or despair, in another when he is flourishing in spiritual success, in another when he is pressed down by the weight of attacks, in another when he asks pardon for sins, in another when he asks to acquire grace or some virtue, or prays for the extinction of some vice, in another when he is pierced by the thought of hell and the fear of the judgment to come, in another when he burns with the hope and desire of good things to come, in another when he is in needs and dangers, in another when he is in security and quiet, in another when he is enlightened by revelations of heavenly mysteries, in another when he is hemmed in by barrenness in virtues and dryness of feeling.

“And therefore, having set these things out about the character of prayer, though not as fully as the greatness of the subject demands, but as far as the shortness of time allows or at least as the slenderness of our ability and the dullness of our heart can manage, a greater difficulty now faces us: to explain one by one the kinds of prayer which the apostle distinguished in a fourfold division, saying: “I urge, then, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made.” We should not doubt at all that the apostle did not make this division idly. First we must investigate what is meant by supplication, what by prayer, what by intercession, and what by thanksgiving. Then we must inquire whether these four kinds are to be taken up by the one praying all together, that is, so that all are joined in every supplication; or whether they are to be offered in turn and one by one, so that, for instance, sometimes supplications, sometimes prayers, sometimes intercessions or thanksgivings ought to be put forth; or whether one person ought to offer God supplications, another prayers, another intercessions, another thanksgivings, according to the measure of the age to which each mind advances by the effort of its attention.

“And so first the proper meanings of the names and words must be treated, and we must discuss what difference there is between prayer, supplication, and intercession; then likewise we must examine whether they are to be offered one by one or together; third, we must investigate whether the very order, arranged as it is by the apostle’s authority, teaches the hearer something more, or whether this distinction is to be taken simply and it should be thought that he arranged it in this way without any purpose. That seems to me quite absurd. For we must not believe that the Holy Spirit spoke anything through the apostle casually and without reason. And therefore let us go over each point in the same order in which we began, as the Lord shall grant.

“I urge, then, first of all, that supplications be made.” Supplication is an imploring or petition concerning sins, by which each one, pierced with compunction, begs pardon for his present or past offenses.

“Prayers are those by which we offer or vow something to God, which in Greek is called euchē, that is, a vow. For where the Greek says tas euchas mou tō kyriō apodōsō, the Latin reads: “I will pay my vows to the Lord,” which according to the proper sense of the word can be expressed thus: “I will pay my prayers to the Lord.” And what we read in Ecclesiastes, “If you vow a vow to God, do not delay to pay it,” is likewise written in Greek: ean euxē euchēn tō kyriō, that is, “If you pray a prayer to the Lord, do not delay to pay it.” Each of us will fulfil this as follows. We pray when, renouncing this world, we pledge that, dead to all the deeds and way of life of the world, we will serve the Lord with the whole attention of our heart. We pray when we promise that, despising worldly honor and scorning earthly wealth, we will cleave to the Lord in all contrition of heart and poverty of spirit. We pray when we promise that we will show perpetually the purest chastity of body or unshaken patience, or when we vow that the roots of anger or of sadness that works death will be torn completely out of our heart. If, grown slack through sloth and returning to our old vices, we do not do this, we shall be guilty of our prayers and vows, and it will be said of us: “It is better not to vow than to vow and not pay,” which according to the Greek can be put: “It is better for you not to pray than to pray and not pay.”

“In the third place are set intercessions, which we are accustomed to offer for others also when we are in fervor of spirit, asking either for our dear ones or for the peace of the whole world, and, to use the apostle’s own words, when we make supplication “for all men, for kings and all who are in high position.”

“Then in the fourth place are set thanksgivings, which the mind, in ineffable raptures, renders to the Lord, either when it recalls God’s past benefits, or when it contemplates his present ones, or when it looks forward to what great things God has prepared in the future for those who love him. With this intention, too, fuller prayers are sometimes poured out, when our spirit, gazing with most pure eyes on the rewards of the saints laid up for the future, is moved to pour out ineffable thanks to God with immense joy.

“From these four kinds occasions of rich supplications sometimes arise. For we know that most fervent and fiery prayers very often come forth from the kind called supplication, which is born of compunction for sins; from the state of prayer, which flows from confidence in one’s offerings and the fulfilment of vows through purity of conscience; from intercession, which proceeds from the ardor of love; and from thanksgiving, which is produced by considering God’s benefits and his greatness and kindness. So it is clear that all these kinds we have mentioned are found useful and necessary for all people, so that in one and the same man a changing disposition puts forth pure and most fervent supplications, now of the kind called supplication, now of prayers, now of intercessions. Nevertheless the first seems to belong more particularly to beginners, who are still stung by the goads and the memory of their vices; the second to those who already stand with some elevation of mind in spiritual progress and in the pursuit of the virtues; the third to those who, fulfilling the perfection of their vows by works, are moved also to intercede for others out of regard for their frailty and zeal of love; the fourth to those who, the thorn of a guilty conscience now pulled from their hearts, secure at last, go over with most pure mind the Lord’s generosity and mercies, which he gave in the past, bestows in the present, or prepares for the future, and are carried away with most fervent heart into that fiery prayer which can neither be grasped nor expressed by the mouth of man. Sometimes, however, the mind that advances into that true disposition of purity and has already begun to be rooted in it, conceiving all these at once and together, and flying through them all like some incomprehensible and all-devouring flame, pours out to God ineffable prayers of the purest strength, which “the Spirit himself, interceding with groanings that cannot be uttered,” sends up to God without our knowing it; conceiving in the moment of that hour and pouring out ineffably in supplication things so great that the mind cannot, I will not say run through them with the mouth, but even recall them at another time. Hence it is that a person at any level is sometimes found to offer pure and intent prayers. For even from that first and lowly rank, which concerns the remembrance of the judgment to come, one who is still placed under the penalty of terror and the fear of examination is for the moment so pierced with compunction that he is filled with the richness of supplication with no less eagerness of spirit than one who, through the purity of his heart surveying and running over the generosity of God, melts in ineffable joy and gladness. For, according to the Lord’s saying, he begins “to love more,” because he knows that more has been forgiven him.

“Yet as life advances and the virtues are perfected, we should seek rather those kinds of supplication which pour forth either from the contemplation of future goods or from the ardor of love, or at least, to speak more humbly and according to the measure of beginners, those that arise for the acquiring of any virtue or the extinction of any vice. For we shall by no means be able to reach those more sublime kinds of supplication we spoke of unless our mind has been carried forward gradually and step by step through the order of these petitions.

“The Lord himself also deigned to initiate us into these four kinds of supplication by his example, so that in this too he might fulfil what is said of him: “what Jesus began to do and to teach.” For he takes up the kind called supplication when he says: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” or what is sung in his person in the psalm: “O God, my God, look upon me; why have you forsaken me?” and other things like these. It is prayer when he says: “I have glorified you on earth; I have finished the work that you gave me to do,” or this: “And for them I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in the truth.” It is intercession when he says: “Father, those whom you have given me, I will that where I am, they also may be with me, that they may see my glory which you have given me,” or indeed when he says: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” It is thanksgiving when he says: “I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing in your sight,” or indeed when he says: “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. And I knew that you always hear me.” Yet although our Lord distinguished these four kinds of supplication, to be offered singly and at different times in the way we have described, he also showed repeatedly by his examples that they can be included together in a perfect supplication, namely through that prayer which we read, at the end of the Gospel according to John, that he poured out most abundantly. Since it would be long to go through all its text, a diligent inquirer can learn from the sequence of the reading itself that this is so. The apostle too expressed this sense clearly in the Epistle to the Philippians, setting down these four kinds of supplication in a somewhat changed order and showing that they ought sometimes to be offered together in the ardor of a single supplication, saying: “But in every prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your petitions be made known to God.” By this he wished to teach us especially that in both prayer and supplication thanksgiving ought to be mingled with petition.

“These kinds of supplication will be followed by a still more sublime and exalted state, which is formed by the contemplation of God alone and the ardor of love, by which the mind, melted and cast down into his love, speaks with God most familiarly, as with its own father, with a special devotion. That we ought diligently to seek this state is taught by the form of the Lord’s Prayer, which says: “Our Father.” When, then, we confess with our own voice that the God and Lord of the universe is our Father, we indeed profess that we have been taken from the condition of slaves into the adoption of sons. We then add: “who art in heaven,” so that, shunning with all horror the sojourn of this present life which we spend on this earth as a foreign land that separates us very far from our Father, we may rather hasten with the greatest longing to that country in which we confess that our Father dwells, and may admit nothing of the kind that would make us unworthy of this profession of ours and of the nobility of so great an adoption, deprive us of our father’s inheritance as degenerate sons, and make us incur the wrath of his justice and severity. Advanced to this rank and degree of sons, we shall at once burn with the devotion that is in good sons, so that we spend our whole affection no longer on our own advantage but on our Father’s glory, saying to him: “Hallowed be thy name,” testifying that our desire and our joy is the glory of our Father, and becoming imitators of him who said: “He who speaks of himself seeks his own glory; but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him.” So the vessel of election, filled with this disposition, even wishes to be accursed from Christ, provided that a numerous household be gained for him and the salvation of the whole people of Israel increase to the glory of his Father. For he wishes without anxiety to perish for Christ, knowing that no one can die for the sake of life. And again he says: “We rejoice when we are weak and you are strong.” And what wonder if the vessel of election wishes to be accursed from Christ for the glory of Christ, the conversion of his brothers, and the privilege of his nation, when the prophet Micah also would be made a liar and a stranger to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, provided that the people of the Jewish nation might escape those blows and the ruin of captivity that he had foretold in his prophecy, saying: “Would that I were not a man who has the spirit, and that I spoke a lie instead”? Not to mention that disposition of the lawgiver, who did not refuse to perish with his brothers who were about to perish, saying: “I beseech you, Lord, this people has sinned a great sin; either forgive them this offense, or, if you do not, blot me out of your book which you have written.” But the words “Hallowed be thy name” can also quite fittingly be taken thus: God’s hallowing is our perfection. And so, saying to him “Hallowed be thy name,” we are saying in other words: Make us such, Father, that we may deserve either to understand or to receive how great your holiness is, or at least that you may appear holy in our spiritual way of life. This is effectively fulfilled in us when men “see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven.”

“The second petition of the most pure mind longs for the kingdom of its Father to come at once: either that by which Christ reigns daily in the saints (which happens when the devil’s rule has been driven out of our hearts by the extinction of the stinking vices, and God has begun to reign in us through the sweet fragrance of the virtues, and, sexual immorality overcome, chastity, anger vanquished, tranquillity, pride trampled down, humility reigns in our mind), or else that which has been promised in general, at the appointed time, to all the perfect and the sons of God, in which Christ will say to them: “Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” The mind longs for and awaits this kingdom with eyes, as it were, intent and fixed, and says to him: “Thy kingdom come.” For it knows by the testimony of its conscience that when it appears it will soon share in it. None of the guilty will dare to say or wish this, since whoever knows that at his coming not the palm or rewards but punishment will at once be paid for his deserts will not want to see the judge’s tribunal.

“The third supplication is that of sons: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” There can be no greater prayer than to wish that earthly things may be made equal to heavenly. For what else is it to say “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” than that men may be like the angels, and that, as God’s will is fulfilled by them in heaven, so also all those on earth may do not their own will but his? No one will be able to say this with full affection except the one who believes that God arranges all things that seem either adverse or prosperous for our good, and that he is more provident and concerned for the salvation and welfare of his own than we are for ourselves. Or it may be taken in this way: God’s will is the salvation of all, according to the saying of blessed Paul: “who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Of this will the prophet Isaiah also says, in the person of God the Father: “And all my will shall be done.” So when we say to him “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we are praying in other words that, as those in heaven, so all who dwell on earth may be saved, Father, by the knowledge of you.