On Prayer 24.1–26.6

“Hallowed be your name.” Whether this presents what the one praying asks for as not yet having happened, or whether, having obtained it, he asks that it may remain and be kept, it is clear from the wording here that, as though the Father's name were not yet hallowed, we are commanded, at least according to Matthew and Luke, to say, “Hallowed be your name.” And how, someone might say, can a man ask that the “name” of God be hallowed, as though it were not hallowed? Let us consider what the “name” of the Father is, and what its being hallowed is.

A “name,” then, is a summary designation that presents the individual quality of the one named. For example, there is an individual quality of Paul the apostle: one of his soul, by which it is of a certain kind; one of his mind, by which it contemplates certain things; and one of his body, by which it is of a certain kind. What is individual in these qualities and not shared with another (for there is no one else among existing things indistinguishable from Paul) is shown by the name “Paul.” But in the case of human beings, whose individual qualities as it were change, their names too are soundly changed according to Scripture; for when the quality of “Abram” changed, he was called “Abraham”; and when that of Simon changed, he was named “Peter”; and when that of “Saul,” who persecuted Jesus, changed, he was called “Paul.” But in the case of God, who is himself unchangeable and ever unalterable, there is always one name, so to speak, even for him, “He who is,” spoken in Exodus, or something that might be so spoken. Since, then, all of us have some conception of God, thinking whatever things about him, but not all of us conceive what he is (for rare, and, if one must say it, rarer than the rare, are those who grasp his holiness in all things), we are reasonably taught that the conception of God in us should become holy, so that we may see his holiness as he creates, provides, judges, chooses and abandons, accepts and rejects, and honors and punishes each according to his worth.

For in these and similar things, so to speak, the individual quality of God is characterized, which I think is called “the name of God” in the Scriptures: in Exodus, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”; in Deuteronomy, “Let my utterance be awaited like rain, let my words come down like dew, like a rainstorm on the grass and like snow on the herbage; for I have called on the name of the Lord”; and in the Psalms, “They will remember your name in every generation and generation.” For the one who applies the conception of God to things to which it must not be applied takes “the name of the Lord God” “in vain”; while the one who can utter rain that helps the hearers to bear fruit in their souls, and offers encouraging words like dew, and by the force of edifying speech brings a most useful rainstorm or a most effective snow upon his hearers, can do these things for this reason: understanding that he himself needs God who perfects, he calls to himself the one who properly supplies these gifts. And everyone who sets out clearly the things of God recalls them rather than learns them, even if he seems to hear them from someone or thinks he finds the mysteries of piety.

And just as the one who prays must understand these things when he asks that the “name” of God be hallowed, so in the Psalms it is said, “Let us exalt his name together,” the prophet commanding us, in all harmony, in the same mind and the same judgment, to attain to the true and lofty knowledge of God's distinctive character. For this is exalting the “name” of God “together”: when someone, having shared in an emanation of divinity through being upheld by God and having overcome his enemies, who cannot rejoice over his fall, exalts the very power of God in which he has shared; as is shown in the twenty-ninth psalm by the words, “I will exalt you, O Lord, for you have upheld me and have not made my enemies rejoice over me.” And a person exalts God by dedicating a house to him within himself, since the title of the psalm is: “A psalm of a song at the dedication of the house of David.”

Further, about “Hallowed be your name” and the following petitions expressed in the imperative mood, it must be said that the translators also continually used imperatives instead of optatives, as in the Psalms: “Let the deceitful lips be made dumb, which speak iniquity against the righteous,” instead of “may they be made”; and, “Let the creditor search out all that he has”; “Let there be no helper for him,” in the hundred and eighth psalm, about Judas; for the whole psalm is a request about Judas, that certain things may happen to him. But Tatian, not seeing that “let there be” does not always signify a wish but sometimes a command, supposed most impiously of God, who said “Let there be light,” that he prayed rather than commanded the light to come into being; “since,” as he says with his godless understanding, “God was in darkness.” To him we must say: how will he take “Let the earth bring forth green herbage,” and “Let the water under the heaven be gathered together,” and “Let the waters bring forth creeping things with living souls,” and “Let the earth bring forth a living soul”? Does God pray that the water under the heaven be gathered “into one gathering” so that he may stand on firm ground, or does he pray “Let the earth bring forth” so that he may partake of what grows from the earth? And what need has he, like the need of light, of creatures of the water, the air, or the land, that he should pray about these too? And if, even on his view, it is absurd to pray about these things, which are expressed in the imperative, how must not the same be said of “Let there be light,” as spoken not as a wish but as a command? I thought it necessary, since the prayer is expressed in imperative words, to recall his misinterpretations, for the sake of those who have been deceived and have accepted his impious teaching, which we too once encountered.

“Your kingdom come.” If, according to the word of our Lord and Savior, “the kingdom of God does not come with observation,” “nor will they say, Look, here it is, or, Look, there,” but “the kingdom of God is within” us (for “the word is very near, in” our “mouth and in” our “heart”), clearly the one who prays for the kingdom of God to come reasonably prays that the kingdom of God within him may rise, bear fruit, and be perfected. For every saint is ruled by God and obeys the spiritual laws of God, dwelling in himself as in a well-governed city; the Father is present with him, and Christ reigns with the Father in the perfected soul, according to the saying I mentioned a little before: “We will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” (And I think that by the kingdom of God is meant the blessed condition of the ruling faculty and the order of wise thoughts; and by the kingdom of Christ the saving words that go out to the hearers, and the works of righteousness and of the other virtues that are accomplished; for the Son of God is Word and righteousness.) But every sinner is tyrannized by the ruler “of this age,” since every sinner has made himself at home in the present evil age, not yielding himself to him who gave “himself for our sins, to deliver us from the present evil age,” and to deliver us “according to the will of our God and Father,” as is said in the Letter to the Galatians. And the one who is tyrannized by the ruler of this age through voluntary sin is also ruled by sin; that is why we are commanded by Paul no longer to submit to sin when it wishes to reign over us, and we are ordered in these words: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its desires.”

But someone will say, about both “Hallowed be your name” and “Your kingdom come,” that if the one who prays prays in order to be heard, and is at some time heard, then clearly the “name” of God will at some time be hallowed for someone, in the sense explained, and “the kingdom” of God will be established for him. And if he has these things, how will he still properly pray for what is already present as though it were not present, saying, “Hallowed be your name; your kingdom come”? And if so, it will at some time be proper not to say, “Hallowed be your name; your kingdom come.” To this it must be said that, just as the one who prays to obtain the word “of knowledge” and the word “of wisdom” will always properly pray for these, always receiving more insights of “wisdom” and “knowledge” when he is heard, though knowing “in part” whatever he can contain for the present, while the perfect, which does away with what is “in part,” will be revealed “then,” when the mind meets intelligible things “face to face,” without sense-perception; so the perfection of the hallowing of God's “name” for each of us, and of the establishing of his kingdom, is not possible unless “the perfect” also “comes” concerning “knowledge” and “wisdom,” and perhaps also the other virtues. And we travel toward perfection if, “straining forward to what lies ahead,” we forget what lies behind. So the summit of the kingdom of God within us will be established for those who make progress without ceasing, when what is said by the apostle is fulfilled: that Christ, when all his enemies have been subjected to him, will hand over “the kingdom to God the Father,” “so that God may be all in all.” Therefore, praying “without ceasing” with a disposition being made divine by the Word, let us say to our Father in heaven: “Hallowed be your name; your kingdom come.”

Further, about the kingdom of God this must also be observed: just as there is no “partnership between righteousness and lawlessness,” nor “fellowship of light with darkness,” nor “accord of Christ with Belial,” so the kingdom of sin cannot coexist with the kingdom of God. If, then, we wish to be ruled by God, let “sin” in no way “reign in our mortal body,” and let us not obey its commands when it calls our soul to “the works of the flesh” and to what is foreign to God; but having put to death “the members that are on earth,” let us bear the fruits “of the Spirit,” so that the Lord may walk in us as “in” a spiritual “paradise,” ruling us alone with his Christ, who sits in us “at the right hand” of the spiritual “power” we pray to receive, and sits “until” all his enemies in us become “the footstool of” his “feet,” and every rule and authority and power is done away from us. For these things can happen in each of us, and the last enemy, death, can be done away, so that in us too Christ may say, “O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” Already, then, let our “corruptible” put on holiness in chastity and all purity, and “incorruption”; “and let the mortal,” death having been done away, clothe itself with the Father's “immortality”; so that, ruled by God, we may already be in the good things of regeneration and resurrection.

“Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth.” Luke, after “Your kingdom come,” passed over these words in silence and put, “Give us each day our daily bread.” Let us therefore examine the words we have set out, found only in Matthew, in sequence with what precedes. We who pray, being still “on earth,” and understanding that “the will” of God has been done “in heaven” by all who belong to the heavens, let us pray that “the will” of God may be done in all things for us too who are “on earth,” as for them; which will happen when we do nothing contrary to his “will.” And when “the will” of God, as it is “in heaven,” is accomplished by us too who are “on earth,” we shall be made like those in heaven, since we shall have borne “the image of the heavenly” like them, and we shall inherit the “kingdom” of heaven, while those who come after us “on earth” will pray to be made like us, who will then be “in heaven.”

It is possible, however, in Matthew alone, to take “as in heaven so also on earth” as common to all three petitions, so that what we are commanded to say in the prayer is this: “Hallowed be your name” “as in heaven so also on earth”; “Your kingdom come” “as in heaven so also on earth”; “Your will be done as in heaven so also on earth.” For “the name” of God has been hallowed by those “in heaven,” and “the kingdom” of God has been established for them, and “the will” of God has been done in them; all of which are lacking to us who are “on earth,” but can come to be ours if we make ourselves worthy to obtain from God a hearing about all of them.

But someone might ask, because of “Your will be done as in heaven so also on earth”: how has “the will” of God been done “in heaven,” where there are “the spiritual forces of wickedness,” because of which the “sword” of God will be made drunk even “in heaven”? And if we pray that “the will” of God may be done “on earth” in the same way as it is done “in heaven,” are we not unwittingly praying that the opposite things too may remain “on earth,” since these also come from heaven, many evils being done “on earth” through the “spiritual forces of wickedness” that prevail, which are “in the heavenly places”? Someone who allegorizes heaven and says it is Christ, and earth the church (for who is so worthy a “throne” of the Father as Christ? And what is such a “footstool for the feet” of God as the church?), will easily solve the questions, saying that each member of the church must pray to receive the Father's “will” as Christ has received it, who came to do “the will” of the Father himself and accomplished all of it. For it is possible for one joined to him to become one “spirit” with him, and for that reason to receive “the will,” so that, “as” it has been accomplished “in heaven,” so it may be accomplished “also on earth”; for, according to Paul, “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” And I think this interpretation will not be lightly despised by one who considers it more carefully.

But someone objecting to this interpretation will cite what was said by the Lord to the eleven disciples at the end of this Gospel, after the resurrection: “All authority has been given to me, as in heaven so also on earth.” For having authority over the things “in heaven,” he says that he has received in addition authority over those “on earth”: the things “in heaven” having been enlightened by the Word even before, while at “the consummation of the age” those “on earth” too, through the authority given to the Son of God, imitate the things accomplished “in heaven,” over which the Savior received authority. So it is as though, through prayers, he wishes to take as fellow workers with the Father those who are his disciples, so that, when the things “on earth” have been set right through the authority he received “as in heaven so also on earth,” like the things “in heaven” subjected to truth and the Word, he may bring them to a blessed end for those under his authority. But the one who wishes heaven to be the Savior and the earth the church, saying that heaven is the firstborn “of all creation,” on whom the Father rests as on a throne, might find that “the man” whom he put on, having become united to that power because he “humbled himself” and became obedient “to the point of death,” says after the resurrection, “All authority has been given to me, as in heaven so also on earth”; the man in the Savior having received authority over the things “in heaven” which belong, as it were, to the Only-begotten, so that he may share with him, being blended with his divinity and united to him.

But since the second interpretation does not yet solve the difficulty of how “the will” of God is “in heaven” when the spiritual forces “of wickedness” “in the heavenly places” wrestle against those “on earth,” one can solve the question in this way. Just as the one still “on earth,” not because of place but because of his choice, having his “citizenship in heaven,” laying up treasure “in heaven,” having his heart “in heaven,” bearing “the image of the heavenly,” is no longer “of the earth,” nor “of” the “world” “below,” but of heaven and of “this” better heavenly “world”; so also “the spiritual forces of wickedness” still dwelling “in the heavenly places,” having their “citizenship” “on earth,” and plotting against men by the means through which they wrestle, laying up treasure “on earth,” bearing “the image of the man of dust”—who “is the beginning of the Lord's creation, made to be mocked by the angels”—are not heavenly, nor do they dwell in the heavens, because of their wicked disposition. When, then, it is said, “Your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth,” we must consider that they are not even “in heaven,” having fallen in their mind with the one who fell from “heaven” like lightning.

And perhaps, when our Savior says we must pray that the Father's “will” be done “as in heaven” so “also on earth,” he is not at all commanding that prayers be made for those in the place of the “earth,” that they may be made like those in the heavenly place; rather, the command to pray is his, wishing all things “on earth,” that is, the worse things and those akin to earthly things, to be made like the better things and those that have their “citizenship in heaven,” all having become heaven. For the one who sins, wherever he may be, is “earth,” and unless he repents he will somehow come to be in what is akin to him; but the one who does “the will” of God and does not disobey the saving spiritual laws is heaven. Whether, then, we are still “earth” because of sin, let us pray that “the will” of God may extend to us too, to set us right, as it has reached those before us who have become heaven or are heaven; or whether we are already reckoned by God not earth but heaven, let us ask that “on the earth” too, as “in heaven”—I mean on the worse things—“the will” of God may be fulfilled, for what I may call its heavenly transformation, so that there may no longer be any earth, but all may become heaven. For if, as “in heaven,” according to the interpretation given, “the will” of God is done “also on earth,” the earth will not remain earth. So (to put it more clearly by another example), if, as “the will” of God has been done in the self-controlled, so it is done also in the licentious, the licentious will be self-controlled; or, as “the will” of God has been done in the righteous, if it is done so also in the unrighteous, the unrighteous will be righteous. Therefore, if, as “the will” of God has been done “in heaven,” it is done “also on earth,” we shall all be heaven; since flesh, which does not profit, and blood, akin to it, cannot inherit “the kingdom of God,” but could be said to inherit it if they change from flesh and earth and dust and blood to the heavenly substance.