The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.3–2.8

“And when you pray,” he says, “you shall not be like the hypocrites, who love to pray standing in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.” Here too it is not wrong to be seen by men, but to do these things in order to be seen by men; and the same things are said too many times, since there is now one rule to be kept, by which it is known that what is to be dreaded or shunned is not that men know these things, but that they be done with this intent, that the fruit of pleasing men is sought in them. The Lord himself also keeps the same words, when he adds likewise, “Truly I say to you, they have received their reward,” showing by this that what he forbids is that that reward be sought in which fools rejoice when they are praised by men.

“But you, when you pray,” he says, “enter into your chambers.” What are these chambers but the hearts themselves, which are also signified in the Psalm when it is said, “What you say in your hearts, be sorry for upon your beds”? “And shutting the doors, pray,” he says, “to your Father in secret.” It is little to enter the chambers if the door is open to the importunate, through which door the things outside rudely plunge in and assail our inner parts. Now we have said that all temporal and visible things are outside, which penetrate into our thoughts through the door, that is, through the carnal sense, and with a crowd of vain images make a din around those who pray. The door must be shut, then, that is, the carnal sense must be resisted, so that spiritual prayer may be directed to the Father, which is made in the innermost parts of the heart, where the Father is prayed to in secret. “And your Father,” he says, “who sees in secret will repay you.” And this had to be ended with such a close; for he does not now admonish us to pray, but how to pray; nor above, that we give alms, but with what mind we give them; since he is giving precepts about cleansing the heart, which nothing cleanses except a single and simple intention toward eternal life, by the sole and pure love of wisdom.

“And when you pray,” he says, “do not speak much, as the heathen do; for they think that they are heard for their much speaking.” As it belongs to hypocrites to offer themselves to be watched in prayer, their fruit being to please men, so it belongs to the heathen, that is, the Gentiles, to think they are heard for much speaking. And in truth all much speaking comes from the Gentiles, who give their effort to exercising the tongue rather than to cleansing the mind. And they try to transfer this kind of trifling pursuit even to bending God by prayer, thinking that he, like a human judge, is brought to a verdict by words. “So do not be like them,” says the one true Master. “For your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” For if many words are put forth so that an ignorant person may be instructed and taught, what need is there of them toward the knower of all things, to whom all things that are speak by the very fact that they are, and show themselves to have been made; and from whose art and wisdom the things that are to come are not hidden, in which both the things that have passed and the things that will pass are all present and not passing?

But since he too is going to say words, though few, by which to teach us to pray, it can be asked why even these few words are needed toward him who knows all things before they happen, and knows, as has been said, what we need before we ask him. Here first it is answered that we ought to deal with God, in order to obtain what we wish, not by words but by the things which we carry in the mind and by the intention of thought, with pure love and simple affection; but that our Lord taught us the things themselves by words, so that, having committed them to memory, we may recall them at the time of prayer. But again it can be asked, whether one is to pray by things or by words, what need there is of prayer itself, if God already knows what we need; unless because the very intention of prayer calms and cleanses our heart and makes it more capable of receiving the divine gifts, which are poured into us spiritually. For God does not hear us because of the canvassing of prayers, he who is always ready to give us his light, not visible but intelligible and spiritual; but we are not always ready to receive, when we are inclined to other things and are darkened by desire for temporal things. In prayer, then, there comes about a turning of the heart to him who is always ready to give, if we would take what he gives; and in that very turning a cleansing of the inner eye, when the things that were desired in a temporal way are shut out, so that the sight of the single heart can bear the single light, shining divinely without any setting or change; and not only bear it, but also abide in it; not only without trouble, but even with unspeakable joy, by which the blessed life is truly and sincerely brought to completion.

But now we must consider what he has commanded us to pray for, he through whom we both learn what to pray for and obtain what we pray for. “Pray, then, in this way,” he says: “Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come; your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth; give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; and do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Since in every petition the good will of the one we petition must first be won, and then what we petition for must be said, good will is usually won by praise of him to whom the prayer is directed, and this is usually put at the beginning of the prayer; and here our Lord commanded us to say nothing else but “Our Father, who are in heaven.” For many things have been said in praise of God, spread variously and widely through all the holy Scriptures, which anyone may consider when he reads; yet nowhere is a precept found for the people of Israel to say “Our Father,” or to pray to God as Father; but he was made known to them as Lord, as to those who were serving, that is, still living according to the flesh. I say this of the time when they received the commandments of the Law which they were ordered to keep; for the prophets often show that the same Lord of ours could also have been their Father, if they had not strayed from his commandments: as in this, “I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have despised me”; and this, “I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High”; and this, “If I am Lord, where is my fear? And if I am Father, where is my honour?” and very many others, where the Jews are rebuked because by sinning they were unwilling to be sons; apart from those things which are said in prophecy of the future Christian people, that it would have God as Father, according to that saying of the Gospel, “He gave them power to become sons of God.” And the apostle Paul says, “As long as the heir is a child, he differs in nothing from a slave,” and he recalls that we have received the spirit of adoption, in which we cry, “Abba, Father.”

And since our being called to an eternal inheritance, to be co-heirs of Christ and to come into the adoption of sons, is not of our merits but of the grace of God, we put that very grace at the beginning of the prayer when we say, “Our Father.” By this name love too is stirred up (for what ought to be dearer to sons than a father?), and suppliant feeling, when men say to God, “Our Father,” and a certain confidence of obtaining what we are about to ask, since before we asked anything we received so great a gift as to be allowed to say to God, “Our Father.” For what will he not now give to sons who ask, when he has already given this very thing, that they should be sons? Finally, with how much care does it touch the mind, that he who says “Our Father” should not be unworthy of so great a Father! For if some plebeian were permitted by a senator of advanced age to call him father, he would without doubt tremble and not easily dare, thinking of the lowliness of his birth, the want of his means, and the meanness of his plebeian person: how much more, then, must one tremble to call God Father, if there is so great a stain and so much filth in one’s character that God would much more justly expel them from union with himself than that senator the poverty of any beggar? For the senator despises in the beggar that into which he himself can come through the frailty of human affairs; but God never falls into filthy morals. And thanks be to the mercy of him who requires this of us, that he be our Father, which can be obtained at no cost, but by good will alone. Here also the rich, or those noble by birth according to the world, are admonished, when they have become Christians, not to be proud toward the poor and lowborn, since together they say to God, “Our Father”: which they cannot say truly and piously unless they recognize that they are brothers.

Let the new people, then, called to an eternal inheritance, use the word of the New Testament and say, “Our Father, who are in heaven,” that is, in the holy and righteous. For God is not contained in any extent of place. For the heavens are indeed excellent bodies of the world, but yet bodies, which cannot exist except in a place; and if God’s place is believed to be in the heavens as in the higher parts of the world, the birds are of greater desert, since their life is nearer to God. But it is not written, “The Lord is near to lofty men,” or to those who dwell on mountains; but it is written, “The Lord is near to the broken-hearted,” which pertains rather to humility. But as the sinner was called earth, when it was said to him, “You are earth, and to earth you shall go,” so the righteous man can on the contrary be called heaven. For it is said to the righteous, “For the temple of God is holy, which you are.” Wherefore, if God dwells in his temple, and the saints are his temple, “who are in heaven” is rightly said as “who are in the saints.” And this likeness is most fitting, so that spiritually there seems to be as much difference between the righteous and sinners as there is bodily between heaven and earth.

For the sake of signifying this, when we stand for prayer we turn to the east, whence the sky rises: not as if God dwelt there, as though he who is present everywhere, not by extents of place but by the power of his majesty, had deserted the other parts of the world; but so that the mind may be admonished to turn itself to the more excellent nature, that is, to God, when its body, which is earthly, is turned to a more excellent body, that is, to the heavenly body. It also suits the stages of religion, and is most expedient, that God be thought of rightly in the minds of all, both little ones and great. And therefore those who are still given to visible beauties and cannot think of anything incorporeal, since they necessarily put heaven before earth, hold a more tolerable opinion if they believe that God, whom they still think of bodily, is in heaven rather than on earth: so that when at some time they have learned that the dignity of the soul exceeds even a heavenly body, they may seek him rather in the soul than in a body, even a heavenly one; and when they have learned how great the difference is between the souls of sinners and of the righteous, just as they did not dare, while they still thought carnally, to place him on earth but in heaven, so afterward with better faith or understanding they may seek him rather in the souls of the righteous than in those of sinners. Rightly, then, is “Our Father, who are in heaven” understood to have been said as “in the hearts of the righteous,” as in his holy temple. At the same time, too, so that he who prays may wish him whom he calls upon to dwell in himself as well, and while he aspires to this, may hold fast to righteousness, the gift by which God is invited to dwell in the soul.

Now let us see what things are to be asked. For it has been said who it is that is asked, and where he dwells. The first of all the things that are asked is this: “Hallowed be your name.” This is not asked as if the name of God were not holy, but that it may be held holy by men: that is, that God may become so known to them that they think nothing holier, nothing which they fear more to offend. For neither, because it was said, “God is known in Judah, his name is great in Israel,” is it to be understood as if God were lesser in one place and greater in another; but his name is great there where it is named according to the greatness of his majesty. So his name is said to be holy there where it is named with veneration and fear of offending. And this is what is now happening, while the Gospel, becoming known through the various nations up to now, commends the name of the one God through the ministry of his Son.

Next follows, “Your kingdom come.” As the Lord himself teaches in the Gospel, the day of judgment will come when the Gospel has been preached among all nations: which pertains to the hallowing of God’s name. For here too “Your kingdom come” is not said as if God did not reign now. But perhaps someone may say that “come” was said meaning “to the earth”; as if he did not now reign on earth too, and had not always reigned in it from the founding of the world. “Come,” then, is to be taken as “be made manifest to men.” For just as even present light is absent to the blind and to those who close their eyes, so the kingdom of God, although it never departs from the earth, is yet absent to those who do not know it. But no one will be permitted not to know the kingdom of God when his Only-begotten has come from heaven, not only intelligibly but also visibly in the Lord’s man, to judge the living and the dead. After that judgment, that is, when the distinction and separation of the righteous from the unrighteous has been made, God will so dwell in the righteous that there will be no need for anyone to be taught by man, but all will be, as is written, taught by God. Then the blessed life will be perfected in every part in the saints forever, just as now the heavenly angels, most holy and most blessed, are wise and blessed by God alone enlightening them; for the Lord promised this too to his own: “In the resurrection,” he says, “they will be like the angels in heaven.”

And therefore after that petition in which we say, “Your kingdom come,” follows, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth”: that is, as your will is in the angels who are in heaven, so that they cleave to you in every way and enjoy you fully, no error clouding their wisdom, no misery hindering their blessedness, so may it be done in your saints who are on earth and were made from the earth as regards the body, and who, although they are to be taken up into a heavenly dwelling and change, are yet to be taken up from the earth. To this also looks that proclamation of the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will”: so that when our good will has gone before, which follows him who calls, the will of God may be perfected in us as it is in the heavenly angels, so that no adversity resists our blessedness, which is peace. Again, “Your will be done” is rightly understood as “may your precepts be obeyed”: “as in heaven, so on earth,” that is, as by the angels, so by men. For that God’s will is done when his precepts are obeyed the Lord himself says, when he says, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me”; and often, “I came not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me”; and when he says, “Behold my mother and behold my brothers; and whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and mother and sister.” In those, then, who do the will of God, the will of God is certainly done: not because they themselves cause God to will, but because they do what he wills, that is, they act according to his will.

There is also this understanding: “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth”: as in the holy and righteous, so also in sinners. This again can be taken in two ways: either that we should pray even for our enemies (for what else are they to be considered, against whose will the Christian and catholic name increases?), so that “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth” is said as if it were said, “May sinners do your will as the righteous do, so that they may be converted to you”; or thus, “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth,” so that to each his own is assigned; which will happen at the last judgment, when reward will be given to the righteous and damnation to sinners, when the lambs will be separated from the goats.

That understanding too is not absurd, indeed most suited to our faith and hope, that we take heaven and earth as spirit and flesh. And since the Apostle says, “With the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin,” we see the will of God done in the mind, that is, in the spirit; but when death has been swallowed up in victory, and this mortal has put on immortality, which will happen by the resurrection of the flesh and that change which is promised to the righteous according to the preaching of the same Apostle, may the will of God be done on earth also, as in heaven: that is, that as the spirit does not resist God, following and doing his will, so the body too may not resist the spirit or soul, which is now troubled by the weakness of the body and is prone to carnal habit. This will belong to the highest peace in eternal life, that not only to will may be present to us, but also to accomplish the good. “For to will,” he says, “is present to me, but to accomplish the good is not”: because not yet on earth as in heaven, that is, not yet in the flesh as in the spirit, has the will of God been done. For the will of God is done even in our misery, when we suffer through the flesh the things owed to us by right of mortality, which our nature earned by sinning; but this is what is to be prayed for, that as in heaven, so also on earth, the will of God may be done: that is, that as we delight in the law with the heart according to the inner man, so, when the change of the body has taken place, no part of us may oppose this delight of ours with earthly pains or pleasures.

Nor is this far from the truth, that we take “Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth” as: as in our Lord Jesus Christ himself, so also in the church; as in the husband who fulfilled the will of the Father, so also in the wife who has been betrothed to him. For heaven and earth are fittingly understood as husband and wife, since the earth is fruitful when the heaven makes it fertile.

The fourth petition is, “Give us today our daily bread.” Daily bread is said either for all those things which sustain the needs of this life, about which, when he gave precepts, he said, “Do not think about tomorrow,” so that “give us today” was added for this reason; or for the sacrament of the body of Christ, which we receive daily; or for spiritual food, of which the same Lord says, “Work for the food which does not perish,” and this, “I am the bread of life, who came down from heaven.” But which of these three is more probable can be considered. For perhaps someone may be disturbed as to why we should pray to obtain those things which are necessary for this life, such as food and clothing, when the Lord himself says, “Do not be anxious about what you shall eat or what you shall put on.” Or can anyone not be anxious about a thing he prays to obtain, when prayer must be directed with such intensity of mind that all that was said about shutting the chambers is referred to it, and also that saying, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”? He certainly does not say, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and then seek these things,” but “all these things,” he says, “will be added to you,” that is, even to those who do not seek them. But how anyone can rightly be said not to seek what he most intently prays to God to receive, I do not know whether it can be found.

As for the sacrament of the Lord’s body: there are those, very many in the eastern parts, who do not communicate daily in the Lord’s supper, although this bread has been called daily. So that they may not raise a question, then, let them keep silent and not defend their opinion on this matter even by ecclesiastical authority itself (since they do this without scandal, and are neither forbidden to do it by those who preside over the churches, nor condemned for not complying; from which it is proved that this is not understood as the daily bread in those parts, for otherwise those who do not receive of it daily would be accused of a great sin). But, so that, as has been said, we may argue nothing about these people one way or the other, this at least ought to occur to those who reflect: that we have received from the Lord a rule of praying which must not be transgressed either by adding anything or by passing over anything. This being so, who would dare to say that we ought to pray the Lord’s Prayer only once, or at least, even if a second or third time, only up to the hour at which we communicate in the Lord’s body, but afterward not pray it so through the remaining parts of the day? For we will no longer be able to say “give us today” of what we have already received; or else anyone could compel us to celebrate that sacrament even in the last part of the day.

It remains, then, that we take daily bread as spiritual, namely the divine precepts, which we ought to meditate on and carry out daily. For of these the Lord says, “Work for the food which does not perish.” And this food is now called daily, as long as this temporal life is carried on through days departing and succeeding. And in truth, as long as the affection of the mind alternates now to higher things, now to lower, that is, now to spiritual, now to carnal things, as with one who sometimes is fed with food and sometimes suffers hunger, bread is necessary daily, by which the hungry may be refreshed and the one slipping back may be raised up. Just as, therefore, our body in this life, that is, before that change, is refreshed with food because it feels loss, so the mind too, since through temporal affections it suffers as it were a loss of its attention to God, is to be refreshed by the food of the precepts. And “give us today” has been said for as long as it is called today, that is, in this temporal life. For after this life we shall be filled with spiritual food forever in such a way that it will not then be called daily bread; for there will be no turning of time there, which makes day succeed day, from which “daily” would be named. But as it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice,” which the Apostle interprets in the Epistle to the Hebrews as “as long as it is called today,” so here too “give us today” is to be taken. But if anyone wishes to take this saying also of the bodily food that is necessary, or of the sacrament of the Lord’s body, all three must be taken together; so that we ask at once for daily bread both necessary for the body, and the visible consecrated bread, and the invisible bread of the word of God.

There follows the fifth petition, “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” That debts means sins is manifest, either from what the same Lord says, “You will not come out from there until you pay the last farthing,” or from his calling debtors those who were reported to him as killed, either in the fall of the tower or those whose blood Herod mixed with sacrifice. For he said that men thought they were debtors beyond measure, that is, sinners; and he added, “Truly I say to you, unless you repent, you will likewise perish.” Here, then, no one is pressed to forgive money to debtors, but whatever another has sinned against him. For we are commanded to forgive money rather by that precept which was stated above, “If anyone wishes to take your tunic and go to law with you, let him have your garment also”; and there it is not necessary to forgive the debt to every money debtor, but to one who is unwilling to pay, so much so that he is even willing to go to law; “but the servant of the Lord,” as the Apostle says, “must not go to law.” To one, then, who, either of his own accord or when called upon, is unwilling to pay the money owed, it is to be forgiven. For he will be unwilling to pay for one of two reasons, either because he does not have it, or because he is greedy and covetous of another’s property; and both pertain to poverty; for the former is poverty of household goods, the latter of the mind. Whoever, therefore, forgives the debt to such a person forgives a poor man, and does a Christian work, provided that rule remains, that he be ready in mind to lose what is owed to him. For if he acts in every way modestly and gently to have it restored to him, intending not so much the profit of the money as to correct the man, for whom it is without doubt ruinous to have the means to pay and not pay, he will not only not sin, but will even do very much good, so that the other, while he wishes to make a profit of another’s money, may not suffer loss of faith; which is so much graver that there is no comparison. From this it is understood that in this fifth petition too, in which we say, “Forgive us our debts,” it is not indeed money that is spoken of, but all things in which anyone sins against us, and by this also money. For he sins against you who refuses to pay you money owed when he has the means to pay. And if you do not forgive this sin, you will not be able to say, “Forgive us, as we also forgive”; but if you pardon it, you see that he who is commanded to pray with such a prayer is admonished also about forgiving money.

Certainly this can be discussed: that since we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive,” we are convicted of having acted against this rule only if we do not forgive those who ask pardon, because we too wish to be forgiven by the most kind Father when we ask pardon. But again, by that precept by which we are commanded to pray for our enemies, we are not commanded to pray for those who ask pardon; for those who are such are no longer enemies. But in no way could anyone truly say that he prays for one whom he has not pardoned. Wherefore it must be admitted that all sins committed against us are to be forgiven, if we wish what we commit to be forgiven us by the Father. For about vengeance enough has been argued above, I think.