Miscellanies 7.7.35–7.8.51

We are commanded to worship and honor the Word, persuaded that he is Savior and Leader, and through him the Father; not on special days, as some others do, but continually, doing this throughout our whole life and in every way. Certainly “the chosen race,” justified according to the commandment, says, “Seven times a day I have praised you.” Hence the one who knows honors God not in a fixed place … nor in a special temple, nor on certain festivals and appointed days, but throughout his whole life, in every place, whether he happens to be alone by himself or wherever he has some of those who have believed as he has; that is, he gives thanks for his knowledge and his way of life. And if the presence of some good man always shapes the one who meets him toward the better, through respect and reverence, how should not the one who is always in God's presence, unceasingly, through knowledge, life, and thanksgiving, reasonably become better than himself in every respect, in deeds, words, and disposition? Such is the one who is persuaded that God is present everywhere, and does not suppose him shut up in certain fixed places, so that, thinking himself at some time to be without him, he might behave licentiously by night or by day. So, keeping festival our whole life, persuaded that God is present everywhere and on every side, we farm while praising, we sail while singing hymns, and in the rest of our conduct we live by rule. The one who knows is more intimately joined to God, being at once grave and cheerful in all things: grave because of his turning toward the divine, cheerful because he reckons up the human goods that God has given us.

The prophet appears to set forth the excellence of knowledge in this way: “Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge,” building up by a climax to what governs perfection. This, then, is truly the royal man; this is the holy priest of God. This is still preserved even now among the most learned of the barbarians, who promote the priestly class to kingship. This man, then, never gives himself up to the mob-rule that is mistress of the theaters, and does not admit even in a dream what is said, done, and seen there for the sake of dissolute pleasure. So he admits neither these pleasures of spectacle nor the varieties of other enjoyments: costly perfumes that bewitch the sense of smell, concoctions of dishes and the pleasures of various wines that entice the taste, or garlands of many flowers and sweet scents that make the soul effeminate through the senses. Instead, referring the dignified enjoyment of all things to God, he always offers the firstfruits of food, of drink, and of ointment to the Giver of all, giving thanks both for the gift and for its use through the Word given to him. He rarely goes to drinking parties, unless the friendly and harmonious character that the gathering promises persuades him to come. For he is persuaded that God knows and hears all things, not only the voice but also the thought; since even hearing in us, working through bodily passages, has its perception not through the bodily power, but through a kind of perception of the soul and the understanding that distinguishes voices that signify something.

God, then, does not have human form for this reason, in order to hear; nor does he need senses, as the Stoics held, especially hearing and sight, on the ground that he could never perceive otherwise. But the sensitivity of the air, the keenest perception of the angels, and the power of conscience that touches the soul know all things, by some unspeakable power and without sensible hearing, at the instant of thought. And even if someone says that the voice does not reach God, since it rolls about down in the air, yet the thoughts of the holy cut not only through the air but through the whole world. And the divine power, like light, is quick to see through the whole soul. What then? Do not our choices also reach God, sending forth their own voice? And are they not also carried across by conscience? And what voice should he wait for who, according to his purpose, has known the elect even before birth, and what will be as though it already were? Or does not the light of the power shine everywhere into the depth of the whole soul, the lamp of the power “searching the inner chambers,” as Scripture says? For God is all ear and all eye, if one may use these names.

In general, then, an unfitting conception of God preserves no piety, whether in hymns or in speeches, nor even in writings or doctrines, but turns aside into low and unseemly notions and suspicions. Hence the praise of the many differs in no way from blasphemy, because of their ignorance of the truth. Now prayers are for the same things that appetites and desires and, in a word, impulses are for. That is why no one desires a drink, but to drink the drink; nor an inheritance, but to inherit; and in the same way not knowledge, but to know; nor right conduct, but to live rightly. Prayers, then, are for the things that requests are for, and requests for the things that desires are for. And praying and longing occur correspondingly, for having good things and the benefits that come with possessing them. The one who knows, therefore, always makes his prayer and request for the things that are truly good, the goods of the soul; and he prays, while he himself also works together with God, to come into a settled state of goodness, so as no longer to have good things like lessons laid up beside him, but to be good.

Therefore it befits these above all to pray: those who know the divine as one should and have the virtue that suits it, who know what things are truly good, what should be asked for, and when and how each thing should be asked. It is the height of ignorance to ask from those who are not gods as though they were gods, or to ask for things that are not beneficial, asking evils for themselves under the appearance of goods. Hence, reasonably, since the good God is one, both we and the angels pray to him alone that some good things may be given and others may remain. But not in the same way; for it is not the same to ask that a gift may remain as to strive to receive it in the first place. The averting of evils too is a form of prayer. But one must never use such a prayer to harm human beings, unless the one who knows arranges his request as a means of turning to righteousness those who have become “callous.” Prayer, then, to speak rather boldly, is converse with God. Even if we only whisper, then, and speak to him in silence without so much as opening our lips, we cry out from within; for God hears all inward converse unceasingly.

In this way too we lift up our head and raise our hands to heaven and rise on tiptoe at the closing words spoken together in the prayer, following the eagerness of the spirit toward the intelligible realm; and, trying to lift the body from the earth together with our words, having made “the soul, winged” with longing for better things, soar aloft, we press on to enter “the holy place,” scorning the bond of the flesh. For we know very well that the one who knows willingly makes his departure from the whole world, just as the Jews did from Egypt, showing clearly, above all, that he will be as near to God as possible. And if some also assign fixed hours to prayer, such as the third, the sixth, and the ninth, yet the one who knows prays throughout his whole life, eager to be with God through prayer and, in short, to have left behind everything that is of no use to one who has arrived there, as having already received from here the perfection of what is done in love. But the distribution of the hours too, divided in three and honored with an equal number of prayers, is understood by those who know the blessed triad of the holy dwelling places.

Having come to this point, I was reminded of the doctrines introduced by certain heterodox people, namely those of the sect of Prodicus, about there being no need to pray. So that they may not puff themselves up over this godless wisdom of theirs as though it were a novel sect, let them learn that they were anticipated by the philosophers called Cyrenaics. The unholy knowledge of these people who are falsely so called will meet its refutation in due time, so that it may not slip into these notes now and, since the attack on them is no small matter, break off the argument in hand. For we are showing that the one who truly knows according to the church's rule is alone truly holy and pious; to him alone is the request granted according to God's will, both when he asks and when he merely thinks it. For as God can do all that he wills, so the one who knows “receives whatever he asks.” For in general God knows who are worthy of good things and who are not; hence he gives to each what befits them. Therefore he would often not give to the unworthy, even when they ask, but would give to the worthy, clearly, when they are such. Yet asking is not superfluous, even if good things are given without the request. Indeed, thanksgiving and asking for the conversion of one's neighbors are the work of the one who knows. So too the Lord prayed, giving thanks that he had completed his ministry, and praying that as many as possible might come to full knowledge, so that in those who are saved God might be glorified through salvation according to knowledge, and that he who alone is good and alone is Savior might be recognized through the Son from age to age. And indeed faith that one will receive is itself a kind of prayer, laid up in a knowing way.

But if prayer is an occasion of converse with God, no occasion of approaching God should be passed over. Certainly the holiness of the one who knows, intertwined with blessed providence, shows by his voluntary confession that God's benefaction is complete. For the holiness of the one who knows is, as it were, an answering turn toward providence, the responding goodwill of the friend of God. For neither is God good involuntarily, in the way that fire gives heat (his sharing of good things is voluntary, even if it comes before the request), nor will the one who is saved be saved against his will; for he is not lifeless, but will above all hasten to salvation voluntarily and by deliberate choice. That is why the human being received the commandments: as one able of himself to move toward whichever he wishes of the things to be chosen and the things to be avoided. So God does not do good by necessity; by choice he does good to those who turn of their own accord. For the providence that comes to us from God is not servile, as though it proceeded from inferiors to superiors; rather, out of mercy for our weakness, the close-at-hand dispensations of providence are at work, like the care of shepherds for their sheep and of a king for his subjects, while we ourselves are obedient to those who lead us, who govern in good order according to the rank entrusted to them by God. Servants and worshipers of the divine, then, are those who offer the freest and most royal service, the service that comes through a godly mind and knowledge.

Every place, then, is truly sacred in which we receive the thought of God, and so is every time. And when the one whose purpose is good and who is also thankful makes his requests in prayer, he contributes something in some way toward receiving, gladly receiving what he longs for through the things he prays. For when the Giver of good things receives our readiness, all good things follow together at the very moment of conception. Certainly a person's character, how it stands toward what is fitting, is tested through prayer. And if voice and speech have been given to us for the sake of thought, how can God not hear the soul itself and the mind, since even among us soul hears soul and mind hears mind? Hence God does not wait for the many-voiced tongues, as human interpreters do, but simply knows the thoughts of all; and what the voice signifies to us, our thought speaks to God, the thought which he knew, even before creation, would come to be thought. It is possible, then, to send up prayer even without voice, only gathering together from within all that is spiritual into the intelligible voice, in an undistracted turning toward God. And since the east is an image of the day of birth, and from there the light increases, having first “shone out of darkness,” and since for those rolling about in ignorance the day of the knowledge of the truth has risen like the sun, prayers are made facing the sunrise. Hence also the most ancient temples looked west, so that those who stood facing the images might be taught to turn toward the east. “Let my prayer be directed like incense before you, the lifting up of my hands an evening sacrifice,” say the Psalms.

For wicked human beings, then, prayer is most harmful, not only to others but also to themselves. For even if they ask for and receive what they call good fortune, it harms them once they have received it, since they do not know how to use it. For they pray to acquire what they do not have, and they ask for things that seem good, not things that are good. But the one who knows will ask for the permanence of what he possesses, for fitness for what he is about to rise to, and … for the everlastingness of what he will not receive. The truly good things, those of the soul, he prays to have and to keep. So he does not even desire anything absent, being content with what is present. For he is not lacking in the goods proper to him, being already sufficient for himself through divine grace and knowledge. Having become self-sufficient and in no need of other things, knowing the will of the Almighty, both having and praying at once, having come close to the all-powerful power, and having striven to be spiritual, he is united to the Spirit through boundless love. This is the great-souled man, who possesses by understanding the most honorable of all things, the best of all things; quick in the thrust of contemplation, and possessing in his soul the abiding power of the things contemplated, that is, the piercing keenness of understanding. And he strives as hard as he can to acquire this power, having become master of “the things that war against the mind,” attending unceasingly to contemplation, and exercised in the discipline that restrains pleasures and sets right what must be done. Besides this, having gained much experience in learning and in life, he has freedom of speech: not simply the power of an unbridled tongue, but a power that speaks plainly, concealing nothing that can be said at the fitting time, where it is most needed, neither for favor nor for fear.

At any rate, having formed a worthy conception of God, and taught by the truth itself as a member of the mystic chorus, he uses the word that urges toward the greatness of virtue, showing virtue and its fruits according to their worth, and he becomes at home, as knowingly as possible, with intelligible and spiritual things through the inspired uplift of prayer. Hence he is always gentle and meek, easy of access, affable, patient under wrong, considerate, of good conscience, austere. He is our austere man, austere not only in being incorruptible but also in being beyond temptation, for he in no way lets his soul yield to or be captured by pleasure and pain. If reason calls him to be a judge, he becomes unswerving, making no concession whatever to the passions, walking without turning aside where justice by nature goes; he is fully persuaded that all things are governed most excellently, and that for souls that have chosen virtue progress always advances toward the better, until they arrive at the Good itself, and come close to the great High Priest, “at the doorway,” as one might say, of the Father. This is our one who knows, the faithful one, persuaded that the affairs of the world are governed in the best way. Certainly he is well pleased with all that happens.

Reasonably, then, he seeks none of the things in life that serve for necessary use, persuaded that God, who knows all things, supplies the good with whatever is beneficial even when they do not ask. For as, I think, things are rendered to the craftsman in a craftsman's way and to the gentile in a gentile's way, so to the one who knows each thing is rendered in a knowing way. The one who is turning from the gentiles will ask for faith, and the one who is ascending to knowledge will ask for “the perfection of love.” But the one who knows, having already reached the summit, prays that his contemplation may grow and remain, as the ordinary person prays for continual health. Indeed, he will ask never to fall away from virtue, cooperating to the utmost to remain unfallen. For he knows that some even of the angels slipped through carelessness and fell back to the ground, not yet having squeezed themselves completely out of their aptitude for doubleness into that single state. But for the one who from here has trained himself for the summit of knowledge and the exalted stature of the perfect man, everything in time and place helps him forward, since he has chosen to live without change and practices it through the steadiness of his mind, uniform on every side. But in those in whom some weight still remains, … tilting downward, what is being raised up through faith is dragged down. For the one who by the discipline of knowledge has made his virtue impossible to lose, the disposition becomes nature; and as weight belongs to a stone, so understanding becomes for him something that cannot be lost, not involuntarily but voluntarily, by a power that is rational, knowing, and provident.

And since what has not been lost through caution becomes impossible to lose through sound reasoning, he will hold fast to caution so as not to sin, and to sound reasoning so that his virtue cannot be lost. Knowledge seems to supply sound reasoning, teaching one to discern what can help virtue to endure. The knowledge of God, then, is the greatest thing; that is why by it too virtue is kept from being lost. And the one who has known God is holy and pious. The one who knows, then, has been shown by us to be alone pious. He rejoices in the good things that are present, and is glad at those promised as though they were already present. For it has not escaped him what they are, as though they were still absent, since he has known them beforehand. Persuaded, then, by knowledge of how each future thing is, he possesses it. For lack and need are measured by what is due. If, then, he possesses wisdom, and wisdom is divine, he who shares in what lacks nothing would lack nothing. For the imparting of wisdom does not take place with the activity and the one who shares in it moving and hindering one another, nor with anything being taken away or becoming lacking; the activity is shown to be undiminished through the very act of sharing. So our one who knows has all good things potentially, though not yet in number, since otherwise he would be incapable of the divine advances and ordered stages still due to him. God too helps him, honoring him with closer oversight.

For have not all things come into being for the sake of good men, for their use and benefit, or rather for their salvation? So he would not take away from them what belongs to virtue, those for whose sake created things exist. For clearly he would honor their good nature and holy choice, since he breathes strength for the rest of their salvation into those who have undertaken to live well, merely urging some on, but also helping those who have become worthy by their own efforts. For every good comes as an added product to the one who knows, if indeed his end is to understand and to do each thing with understanding. And as the physician provides health to those who cooperate toward health, so God provides eternal salvation to those who cooperate toward knowledge and right action; and together with the doing, since what the commandments enjoin is in our power, the promise too is fulfilled. And I think this too is well said among the Greeks. An athlete of no mean sort in the old days, who had trained his body very well for a long time to gain strength, went up to Olympia, and looking at the statue of Zeus of Pisa said, “O Zeus, if everything for the contest has been prepared by me as it should be, come, grant me the victory, as is just.” So too for the one who knows, who has fulfilled blamelessly and with a good conscience everything that depends on him, in learning, in shared discipline, in doing good, and in pleasing God, everything works together toward the most perfect salvation. These things, then, are required of us: what is in our power, and, among the things that concern us, present and absent, choice, longing, acquisition, use, and keeping.

Therefore the one who converses with God must have a soul undefiled and sincerely pure, having above all made himself perfectly good; or, if not, at least he must be advancing toward knowledge and reaching for it, and be completely torn away from the works of vice. And it is fitting to make all one's prayers in a fitting spirit and together with fitting people; for it is dangerous to put one's name to the sins of others. So the one who knows will pray together with those who have believed in a more ordinary way about the things in which it is also fitting to act together. And his whole life is a holy festival. His sacrifices, for instance, are prayers and praises and readings of the Scriptures before the meal, psalms and hymns during the meal and before bed, and prayers again at night. Through these he unites himself to the “divine chorus,” enrolled by continual remembrance in a contemplation that never forgets. What then? Does he not also know the other sacrifice, the giving of both teachings and money to those in need? Most certainly. But he does not use many words in the prayer of the mouth, having learned from the Lord what one ought to ask for. In every place, then, he will pray, but not openly or in view of the many; and he prays in every way, whether walking, conversing, resting, reading, or at the works done according to reason. Even if he only thinks in the very “inner room” of the soul and “calls on the Father with unspoken groanings,” the Father is near, present while he is still speaking. Of the three ends of every action, he does everything for the sake of the noble and the beneficial, and leaves doing things for the sake of the pleasant to those who pursue the ordinary life.

The one who is proved in such piety is far from being ready either to lie or to swear. For an oath is a decisive declaration with the added invocation of the divine. How could the one who is once faithful show himself unfaithful, so as to need an oath, and not have his life itself be a firm and decisive oath? He lives and conducts himself, and shows the trustworthiness of his word in a life and speech that are unchanging and steadfast. And if wrongdoing lies in the judgment of the one who acts and speaks, and not in what the one wronged suffers, he will neither lie nor perjure himself as though wronging the divine, knowing that it is by nature beyond harm. Nor will he lie or break any agreement because of his neighbor, whom he has learned to love, even if the neighbor is no acquaintance of his. And still less, for his own sake, will he lie or perjure himself, since he would never willingly be found unjust toward himself. He will not even swear, choosing to use for assent only “yes” and for denial “no.” For to swear is to bring forth an oath, or … as an oath, from the mind by way of affirmation.

It is enough for him, then, to add to either assent or denial “I speak truly,” to assure those who do not perceive the firmness of his answer. For I think one should have toward outsiders a life worthy of trust, so that an oath is not even asked for, and toward oneself and those who understand, fair-mindedness, which is voluntary justice. The one who knows, indeed, keeps his oath, yet he is not prone to swearing; he comes to swearing rarely, and then only in the way we have said. Speaking truth under oath comes about through agreement with what is true; keeping one's oath, then, follows from right action in one's duties. Where, then, is there any further need of an oath for one who lives at the height of truth? The one who does not even swear is far from perjuring himself; and the one who breaks none of his agreements would never swear at all, since the ratification of both breaking and fulfilling lies in deeds, just as lying and false swearing lie in speaking and swearing contrary to duty. But the one who lives justly, breaking none of his duties, where the judgment of truth is tested, keeps his oath by his deeds; the testimony of the tongue is superfluous for him. Persuaded, then, that God is everywhere always, ashamed not to tell the truth, and knowing lying to be unworthy of himself, he is content with God's knowledge and his own conscience alone. So he does not lie or do anything contrary to his agreements; so too he does not swear an oath when one is demanded of him, nor does he ever deny, lest he lie, even if he dies under torture.