On Prayer 1–25

The Spirit of God and the Word of God and the Reason of God, Word of reason and Reason of word and Spirit of both, Jesus Christ our Lord, has laid down for the new disciples of the new covenant a new form of prayer. For it was fitting that in this respect too new wine should be stored in new wineskins and a new patch sewn onto a new garment. For the rest, whatever had gone before was either changed, like circumcision; or supplemented, like the rest of the law; or fulfilled, like prophecy; or perfected, like faith itself. The new grace of God has renewed all things from carnal to spiritual by bringing in the gospel, which settles the account of the whole former age; in which our Lord Jesus Christ has been shown to be the Spirit of God and the Word of God and the Reason of God: the Spirit by which he was mighty, the Word by which he taught, the Reason by which he came. So the prayer established by Christ is composed of three: of the word by which it is spoken, of the spirit by which alone it has power, of the reason by which it is taught. John too had taught his disciples to pray; but all of John's work was laying the way for Christ, until, when Christ increased (as the same John foretold that he must increase and he himself decrease), the whole work of the forerunner passed over, together with the Spirit himself, to the Lord. That is why it is not extant in what words John taught them to pray: because earthly things have given way to heavenly. “He who is from the earth,” he says, “speaks earthly things, and he who is present from heaven speaks what he has seen.” And what that belongs to the Lord Christ is not heavenly, as this rule of praying is too? Let us consider, then, blessed ones, his heavenly wisdom: first, in the precept to pray in secret, by which he both required faith of a person, that he should trust that the sight and hearing of almighty God are present under roofs and even in a hidden place; and desired modesty of faith, that he should offer his worship to him alone whom he trusted to hear and see everywhere. The next wisdom, in the next precept, likewise concerns faith and the modesty of faith: that we should not think the Lord must be approached with a column of words, since we are certain that he provides for his own of his own accord. And yet this brevity, which belongs to the third step of wisdom, is supported by the substance of a great and blessed meaning; and as much as it is compressed in words, so much is it spread out in sense. For it embraces not only the proper duties of prayer, the veneration of God or the petition of man, but almost the whole teaching of the Lord, the whole record of his discipline, so that in the prayer there is truly contained a summary of the whole gospel.

The prayer begins with a testimony to God and with the merit of faith, when we say, “Our Father who art in heaven.” For we both pray to God and commend our faith, of which this form of address is the reward. It is written: “To those who believed in him he gave power to be called sons of God.” Though the Lord very often declared God a Father to us, indeed he even commanded us to call no one on earth father except the one we have in heaven. So in praying thus we also fulfill a precept. Happy are those who acknowledge the Father! This is the reproach against Israel, to which the Spirit calls heaven and earth to witness: “I have begotten sons, and they have not acknowledged me.” And in saying “Father” we also call him God: this form of address is one of both love and power. Likewise, in the Father the Son is invoked; for “I and the Father,” he says, “are one.” Not even our mother the church is passed over, since in the Son and the Father the mother is recognized, from whom the name both of Father and of Son is established. With one term, then, or word, we both honor God with his own, and remember the precept, and mark those who have forgotten the Father.

The name of God the Father had been disclosed to no one. Even Moses, who had asked about it, had heard indeed another name. It has been revealed to us in the Son. For what is “Son” now but the new name of the Father? “I have come,” he says, “in the name of the Father”; and again, “Father, glorify your name”; and more openly, “I have made your name known to men.” That, then, we ask to be hallowed. Not that it befits men to wish God well, as though there were another from whom anything could be wished for him, or as though he would suffer unless we wished it. Certainly it is fitting that God be blessed in every place and time by every person, because of the remembrance of his benefits always due. But this petition too serves as a blessing. For when is the name of God not holy and hallowed through itself, since it hallows others from itself? To whom that surrounding company of angels does not cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy.” So we too, candidates for the angels if we are worthy, learn already here that heavenly cry to God and the duty of our future glory. So much for the glory of God. But as to our petition, when we say “Hallowed be your name,” we ask that it be hallowed in us who are in him, and at the same time in others whom the grace of God still awaits; so that we may obey this precept too, by praying for all, even for our enemies. And so, leaving the phrase open, not saying “Hallowed be it in us,” we say “in all.”

Following this form we add, “Your will be done in heaven and on earth”: not that anyone prevents God's will from being done and we pray for the success of his will, but we ask that his will be done in all. For by a figurative interpretation of flesh and spirit, we are heaven and earth. Though even if it is to be understood simply, the sense of the petition is the same: that God's will be done in us on earth, so that it may be done also in heaven. And what does God will but that we walk according to his discipline? We ask, then, that he supply us with the substance and capacity of his will, so that we may be saved both in heaven and on earth; for the sum of his will is the salvation of those whom he has adopted. There is also that will of God which the Lord carried out by preaching, working, and enduring. For if he himself declared that he did not do his own will but the Father's, then without doubt the things he did were the Father's will, to which we are now called as to models, that we too may preach, work, and endure even to death. To fulfill these, we need the will of God. Again, in saying “Your will be done,” we also wish ourselves well, in that there is nothing evil in God's will, even if something adverse is inflicted according to each person's deserts. By this saying we now forewarn ourselves to endure. The Lord too, when under the pressure of his passion he wished to show the weakness of the flesh in his own flesh, said, “Father, take this cup away,” and, remembering himself, “except that not my will but yours be done.” He himself was the will and power of the Father, and yet, to show the endurance that is due, he gave himself up to the Father's will.

“Your kingdom come” also relates to the same thing as “Your will be done”: in us, that is. For when does God not reign, in whose hand is the heart of all kings? But whatever we wish for ourselves we direct in hope toward him, and we attribute to him what we expect from him. So if the manifestation of the Lord's kingdom relates to the will of God and to our anxious waiting, how do some ask for a kind of prolongation of the world, when the kingdom of God, for whose coming we pray, tends toward the consummation of the world? We desire to reign sooner and not to serve longer. Even if it had not been prescribed in the prayer to ask for the coming of the kingdom, we would have uttered that cry of our own accord, hastening to the embrace of our hope. The souls of the martyrs beneath the altar cry to the Lord in indignation, “How long, O Lord, will you not avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” For their vengeance, certainly, is ordered from the end of the world. Indeed, as swiftly as possible, O Lord, may your kingdom come: the prayer of Christians, the confusion of the nations, the exultation of the angels, for which we suffer conflict, or rather for which we pray.

But how elegantly divine wisdom has arranged the order of the prayer, so that after heavenly things, that is, after the name of God, the will of God, and the kingdom of God, it should make room for petition for earthly needs too! For the Lord had declared, “Seek first the kingdom, and then these things too will be added to you.” Though we should rather understand “Give us this day our daily bread” spiritually. For Christ is our bread, because Christ is life, and the bread of life. “I am,” he says, “the bread of life”; and a little before, “The bread is the word of the living God, which came down from heaven”; then, because his body too is reckoned in bread: “This is my body.” So, in asking for daily bread, we ask for perpetuity in Christ and inseparability from his body. But since this saying is also admitted in a bodily sense, it cannot be done without reverence and spiritual discipline. For he commands us to ask for bread, which alone is necessary to the faithful; “for the nations seek” the rest. So he impresses it by examples and goes over it again in parables, when he says, “Does a father take bread from his children and give it to the dogs?” And again, “Does he give a stone to his son when he asks for bread?” For he shows what sons expect from their father. The one who knocked at night, too, was asking for bread. And rightly he added, “Give us this day,” since he had said before, “Do not think about tomorrow, what you will eat.” To this he also fitted the parable of the man who, when his crops came in, thought of enlarging his barns and of long years of security; that very night he dies.

It followed that, having observed God's generosity, we should pray for his clemency too. For what good will food do us if we are in fact reckoned to him like a bull for the sacrifice? The Lord knew that he alone was without sin. So he teaches us to ask, “Forgive us our debts.” The prayer for pardon is a confession, because one who asks pardon confesses his sin. Thus repentance too is shown to be acceptable to God, because he wills it rather than the death of the sinner. In the Scriptures “debt” is a figure for sin, because it is likewise owed to judgment and exacted by it, and does not escape the justice of the exaction unless the exaction is remitted; as the master remitted the debt to that servant. For this is where the example of the whole parable points. For that the same servant, freed by his master, does not likewise spare his own debtor, and is therefore reported to his master and handed over to the torturer until he pays the last farthing, that is, down to the smallest sin, fits the fact that we too profess to forgive our debtors. And elsewhere too, from this aspect of the prayer, he says, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” And when Peter had asked whether a brother should be forgiven seven times, “No,” he said, “seventy times seven”: to reform the law for the better, since in Genesis vengeance was reckoned seven times for Cain but seventy times seven for Lamech.

To make so concise a prayer complete he added that we should pray not only for the forgiveness of sins but also for their being turned away altogether: “Lead us not into temptation,” that is, do not allow us to be led into it, namely by him who tempts. For far be it that the Lord should seem to tempt, as though he either did not know each person's faith or were eager to overthrow it. Weakness and malice belong to the devil. For even Abraham he had commanded to sacrifice his son not in order to tempt his faith but to prove it, so that through him he might make an example for his precept, by which he was soon to command that no one should hold his dear ones dearer than God. He himself, tempted by the devil, showed who is the leader and artificer of temptation. He confirms this passage by later words, saying, “Pray that you may not be tempted.” So they were tempted, by deserting the Lord, because they had given themselves to sleep rather than to prayer. Therefore the closing clause answers, interpreting what “Lead us not into temptation” means; for this is: “But carry us away from evil.”

In the brief compass of a few words, how many sayings of the prophets, the gospels, and the apostles are touched on, how many discourses of the Lord, parables, examples, precepts! How many duties are discharged at once! The honor of God in “Father”; the testimony of faith in the name; the offering of obedience in the will; the remembrance of hope in the kingdom; the petition for life in the bread; the confession of debts in the plea for pardon; watchfulness against temptations in the request for protection. What wonder? God alone could teach how he wished to be prayed to. The religious act of prayer, then, ordered by himself and animated by his Spirit already at the moment it came from the divine mouth, ascends by its own privilege into heaven, commending to the Father what the Son has taught.

Yet since the Lord, who foresees human needs, said separately, after handing on the rule of prayer, “Ask, and you will receive,” and since there are things to be asked according to each person's circumstances, then, the lawful and ordinary prayer having been said first as a foundation, we have the right to build on it from outside petitions for our further desires, keeping in mind, however, the precepts.

So that we may not be as far from God's ears as from his precepts, the remembrance of the precepts paves the way to heaven for our prayers. Chief of these is that we should not go up to God's altar before we have settled any discord or offense we have contracted with our brothers. For what is it to approach the peace of God without peace? To seek the remission of debts while retaining them? How will one who is angry with his brother appease the Father, when all anger has been forbidden us from the beginning? For even Joseph, sending his brothers away to bring their father, said, “And do not be angry on the way.” He was warning us, of course (for elsewhere our discipline is called “the way”), that when we are set on the way of prayer we should not go to the Father with anger. Then the Lord, openly enlarging the law, places anger against a brother on a level with murder. He does not allow it to be discharged even by an evil word; even if one must be angry, not beyond the setting of the sun, as the apostle admonishes. And how rash it is either to pass a day without prayer while you put off making amends to your brother, or to lose your prayer by persisting in anger!

The intention of prayer ought to be free not only from anger but from every disturbance of mind whatever, sent forth from a spirit such as is the Spirit to whom it is sent. For a defiled spirit cannot be acknowledged by the Holy Spirit, nor a sad one by a joyful one, nor a fettered one by a free one. No one receives an adversary; no one admits any but his like.

For the rest, what reason is there to go to prayer with hands washed but spirit filthy, when even the hands themselves need spiritual cleanness, so that they may be lifted up pure from falsehood, from murder, from cruelty, from poisonings, from idolatry, and from the other stains which, conceived by the spirit, are carried out by the work of the hands? These are true cleannesses, not those which most people superstitiously attend to, taking water before every prayer, even when they come from a bath of the whole body. When I inquired into this more carefully and asked the reason, I found that it was a commemoration of Pilate's washing his hands when he handed over the Lord. We worship the Lord; we do not hand him over. Indeed, we ought even to oppose the example of the one who handed him over, and not for that reason wash our hands. Unless we wash because of some defilement from human intercourse, for conscience' sake, our hands are clean enough, which we washed once for all, with the whole body, in Christ.

Though Israel washes all its limbs daily, it is never clean. Certainly its hands are always unclean, crusted for ever with the blood of the prophets and of the Lord himself; and therefore, heirs to guilt through the conscience of their fathers, they do not dare to lift them up to the Lord, lest some Isaiah should cry out, lest Christ should shudder. We, however, not only lift them up but also spread them out, and, modeling them on the Lord's passion, we also confess Christ as we pray.

But since we have touched on one empty observance, it will not be tiresome to point out the others too, whose vanity deserves reproach, since they are done without the authority of any precept either of the Lord or of an apostle. Things of this kind are counted not as religion but as superstition, affected and forced, belonging to a curious rather than a reasonable service; certainly to be checked if only because they put us on a level with the Gentiles. Such is the practice of some of praying with their cloaks laid aside; for that is how the heathen approach their idols. Surely, if this ought to be done, the apostles, who teach about the manner of praying, would have included it; unless some think that Paul left his cloak with Carpus while praying! God, of course, would not hear those in cloaks, he who heard the three holy men praying in the furnace of the Babylonian king in their trousers and turbans!

Likewise, I do not see the reason for the custom some have of sitting down when the prayer has been offered, unless it is the one children want. What then? If that Hermas, whose writing is generally entitled “The Shepherd,” had not sat on the bed after finishing his prayer but had done something else, would we claim that too as an observance? Certainly not. For it is simply set down, even here, “When I had prayed and sat on the bed,” for the order of the narrative, not as a model of discipline. Otherwise one would have to pray nowhere except where there was a bed! Indeed, anyone who sat on a chair or a bench would be acting against Scripture. Further, since the heathen do the same, sitting down after worshiping their little images, it deserves to be censured in us for this very reason, that it is practised before idols. To this is added the charge of irreverence, which even the heathen themselves would understand if they had any sense. For if it is irreverent to sit down in the sight of, and face to face with, one whom you most revere and venerate, how much more is that act most irreligious in the sight of the living God, while the angel of prayer is still standing by? Unless we are reproaching God that prayer has tired us out!

But if we pray with modesty and humility we will commend our prayers to God the more, not even raising our hands too high, but raising them with restraint and propriety, and not even lifting up our face in boldness. For that tax collector, who prayed humbled and downcast not only in his petition but also in his face, went away more justified than the most impudent Pharisee. The sounds of the voice too should be subdued; or how great a windpipe would we need, if we were heard for our noise? But God listens not to the voice but to the heart, as he looks upon it. The demon of the Pythian oracle says, “I understand even the mute, and hear one who does not speak.” Do God's ears wait for a sound? How, then, could Jonah's prayer from the depths of the whale's belly, through the entrails of so great a beast, from the very abyss, through so great a mass of sea, escape to heaven? What more will those who pray loudly get, except that they disturb their neighbors? Indeed, by making their petitions known, what less do they do than if they prayed in public?

Another custom has now become prevalent. Those who are fasting, when prayer has been made with the brothers, withhold the kiss of peace, which is the seal of prayer. But when is peace more to be exchanged with the brothers than when prayer ascends more commendably from one engaged in a work of devotion, so that they may share in our devotion, having gained from it by passing on their peace to their brother? What prayer is complete when it is divorced from the holy kiss? Whom does peace hinder in doing his duty to the Lord? What sort of sacrifice is it from which one departs without peace? Whatever the prayer may be, it will not be better than the observance of the precept by which we are commanded to hide our fasts. For now, from the abstaining from the kiss, we are recognized as fasting. But even if there is some reason for it, yet, so as not to be guilty against this precept, you may perhaps postpone the peace at home, among those from whom your fasting cannot be altogether hidden. But wherever else you can conceal your devotion, you ought to remember the precept: so you will satisfy both the discipline abroad and custom at home. So too on the day of the Passover, when the observance of the fast is general and as it were public, we rightly lay aside the kiss, taking no care to conceal what we do along with everyone.

Similarly, on station days most think they should not attend the prayers of the sacrifices, because the station would be broken by receiving the Lord's body. Does the Eucharist, then, dissolve a service devoted to God, or rather bind it more to God? Will not your station be more solemn if you have also stood at God's altar? When the Lord's body has been received and reserved, both are preserved: participation in the sacrifice and the discharge of the duty. If the station took its name from a military model (for we are God's soldiery), certainly no joy or sorrow befalling the camp cancels the soldiers' stations; for joy will carry out discipline more gladly, sorrow more carefully.

As for dress, however, at least that of women, the variety of practice has made us, men of no standing, deal with the matter shamelessly after the most holy apostle; except that it is not shameless if we deal with it according to the apostle. Concerning modesty of dress and adornment there is a plain prescription of Peter too, who with the same mouth, because with the same Spirit, as Paul, restrains both the glory of clothes, the pride of gold, and the pandering elaborateness of hairstyles.

But a matter observed variously among the churches, as if uncertain, must be reconsidered: whether virgins ought to be veiled or not. Those who allow virgins to go with uncovered heads seem to rely on this: that the apostle specified not virgins by name but women as the ones to be veiled; not the sex, so as to say “females,” but a class of the sex, by saying “women.” For if he had named the sex, by saying “females,” he would have laid down the rule absolutely for every woman; but when he names one class of the sex, by passing over the other he sets it apart. For he could, they say, either have named virgins specifically too, or females generally, in a word.

Those who grant this ought to reflect on the status of the word itself. What is “woman” from the very first letters of the holy records? They will find that it is the name of the sex, not of a class of the sex; since God called Eve, when she had not yet known a man, both “woman” and “female”: “female” as the sex in general, “woman” as a class of the sex in particular. So, since Eve, still unmarried then, was called by the word “woman,” that word became common to the virgin too. Nor is it any wonder if the apostle, moved of course by the same Spirit by whom all divine Scripture, and that Genesis in particular, was composed, used the same word in writing “woman,” which, after the example of the unmarried Eve, applies to the virgin too. Everything else agrees. For by the very fact that he did not name virgins, as he does in another place where he teaches about marrying, he declares clearly enough that it is said of every woman and of the whole sex, and that no distinction is made between woman and virgin, whom he does not name at all. For he who remembers to distinguish elsewhere, namely where the difference requires it (and he distinguishes by designating each class with its own word), where he does not distinguish, not naming either, wishes no difference to be understood. What of the fact that in the Greek language, in which the apostle wrote his letters, it is usual to say “women” rather than “females,” that is, gynaikas rather than theleias? So if this word, which in translation corresponds to “female,” is commonly used as the name of the sex, he named the sex in saying gynaika; and in the sex the virgin too is included. But the pronouncement is also plain: “Every woman,” he says, “praying and prophesying with head uncovered dishonors her head.” What is “every woman” except of every age, every rank, every condition? In saying “every” he excepts nothing of womankind, as he excepts nothing of mankind from not being veiled; for he says likewise “every man.” As, then, in the male sex, under the name “man,” even the beardless youth is forbidden to be veiled, so in the female sex, under the name “woman,” even the virgin is commanded to be veiled. Let the younger age in both sexes equally follow the discipline of the older; or else let male virgins be veiled too, if female virgins are not veiled, since they too are not bound by name; let “man” and “youth” be different, if “woman” and “virgin” are different. Indeed, he says they must be veiled “because of the angels,” because angels fell away from God on account of the daughters of men. Who, then, would contend that only women, that is, those already married and past virginity, are objects of desire, unless virgins may not excel in beauty and find lovers? Rather, let us consider whether they did not desire virgins only, since Scripture says “daughters of men,” for it could have said “wives of men” or “females” indifferently. Also, when it says, “And they took them for themselves as wives,” it implies that those taken as wives are unattached; about those not unattached it would have spoken otherwise. And they are unattached as much by widowhood as by virginity. So, by naming the sex generally as “daughters,” it mixed the classes in the genus. Again, when he says that nature itself teaches that females must be veiled, since it has assigned hair to women as covering and adornment, has not the same covering and the same honor of the head been ascribed to virgins too? If it is shameful for a woman to be shaved, so it is for a virgin. To those, then, to whom one condition of the head is assigned, one discipline of the head is required, even of those virgins whom childhood protects; for from the first she was named “female.” So, in fact, Israel observes it too. But even if it did not, our law, enlarged and supplemented, would vindicate the addition for itself. Let our law be excused for putting the veil on virgins too. For now, let the age that is unaware of its sex keep the privilege of simplicity. For Eve and Adam too, when they came to understanding, at once covered what they had come to know. Certainly in those in whom childhood has already changed, their age ought to be as generous to discipline as to nature. For by their members and their functions they are handed over to the women. No one is a virgin from the time she can marry, since her age has already married her to its own husband, that is, to time. “But someone has vowed herself to God.” Yet from then on she changes her hair and turns her whole dress to that of a woman. Let her, then, maintain the whole and present the whole of a virgin: what she hides for God's sake, let her shade fully. It concerns us to commend what is done by God's grace to the knowledge of God alone, lest we take our recompense from man for what we hope for from God. Why do you bare before God what you cover before men? Will you be more modest in public than in church? If it is God's grace and you have received it, “why do you boast,” he says, “as if you had not received it?” Why do you judge others by displaying yourself? Or do you invite others to good by your boasting? Yet you yourself run the risk of losing it if you boast, and you drive others into the same dangers. What is taken up out of love of glory is easily destroyed. Be veiled, virgin, if you are a virgin; for you ought to blush. If you are a virgin, do not endure many eyes. Let no one marvel at your face; let no one perceive your pretense. You do well to feign being married, if you veil your head. Indeed, you do not seem to feign; for you have married Christ. To him you have handed over your flesh; act according to your husband's rule. If he commands the wives of others to be veiled, certainly much more his own. But do not think that the arrangement of each predecessor should be disturbed. Many assign their prudence, and its constancy, to another's custom. Let them not be compelled to be veiled; certainly those who are willing ought not to be forbidden. As for those who cannot deny that they are virgins, I grant that they may presume, at the risk of their reputation, on the security of their conscience before God. But of those who are betrothed I can declare and testify firmly, beyond my usual measure, that they must be veiled from the day on which they have trembled at a man's body with the first kiss and the joining of right hands. For in them everything has married beforehand: their age by maturity, their flesh by age, their spirit by consciousness, their modesty by the experience of the kiss, their hope by expectation, their mind by will. And Rebecca is example enough for us, who, when her betrothed was pointed out to her, was veiled merely at the recognition of him, as one marrying.

As to kneeling, too, prayer suffers a variety of observance through a certain few who abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath. Since this disagreement is at present especially being argued in the churches, the Lord will give his grace, so that they either yield or follow their own opinion without offending others. We, however, as we have received, only on the day of the Lord's resurrection ought to guard not only against this but against every posture and duty of anxiety, putting off even our business, lest we give any place to the devil. Likewise too in the period of Pentecost, which is marked by the same solemnity of rejoicing. But on every other day who would hesitate to prostrate himself before God, at least at the first prayer with which we enter the daylight? And on fasts and stations no prayer should be made without kneeling and the rest of the practice of humility. For then we not only pray but also entreat and make satisfaction to God our Lord. Concerning the times of prayer nothing at all has been prescribed, except of course to pray at every time and place.

But how “in every place,” when we are forbidden to pray in public? In every place, he means, which opportunity or even necessity brings. For it is not reckoned contrary to the precept that the apostles, in prison, with the guards listening, prayed and sang to God; or that Paul on the ship gave thanks before everyone.

As to time, however, the outward observance of certain hours too will not be idle: I mean those common hours that mark the intervals of the day, the third, sixth, and ninth, which can be found to be more solemn in the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit was first poured out on the assembled disciples at the third hour. Peter, on the day on which he experienced the vision of all things common in that vessel, had gone up to the upper part of the house at the sixth hour to pray. The same Peter with John was going into the temple at the ninth hour, when he restored the paralytic to health. Although these things stand simply, without a precept for any observance, still it may be good to establish some presumption that both enforces the reminder to pray and, as by a law, wrests us at times from business for such a duty; so that, as we read was observed by Daniel too, of course from the discipline of Israel, we may pray at least not less than three times a day, debtors as we are to three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; apart, of course, from the regular prayers which are owed without any reminder at the coming of daylight and of night. It is fitting too for the faithful not to take food and not to go to the bath before a prayer has been interposed. For the refreshments and nourishment of the spirit are to be put before those of the flesh, because heavenly things come before earthly.