On Prayer 29.1–30.3

“And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” The words “but deliver us from the evil one” are passed over in silence in Luke. If the Savior does not command us to pray for what is impossible, it seems to me worth inquiring how we are commanded to pray not to enter “into temptation,” when the whole of human life on earth is a trial. For insofar as we are on earth, clothed with the flesh that wars “against the Spirit,” whose “mind” “is hostile to God,” being in no way able to submit “to the law of God,” we are in temptation.

That the whole of human “life” “on earth” is “a trial” we have learned from Job in these words: “Is not the life of men on earth a trial?” And the same is shown in the seventeenth psalm by the words, “In you I shall be delivered from trial.” And Paul too, writing to the Corinthians, says that God grants not that we are not tempted, but that we are not tempted beyond our strength: “No temptation has seized you except what is human; and God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way out, so that you may be able to endure it.” For whether “the wrestling” “is” “against” the “flesh” that desires or wars “against the Spirit,” or against the soul “of all flesh” (which is the ruling faculty, called the heart, named after the body in which it dwells), such as is “the wrestling” for those tempted with human temptations; or whether, as for athletes who have advanced and are more perfect, who no longer wrestle “against blood and flesh” nor are tested in human temptations, which they have already trampled underfoot, our contests are “against the principalities and the powers and the world-rulers of this darkness and the spiritual forces of wickedness”—we have not been freed from being tempted.

How, then, does the Savior command us to pray not to enter “into temptation,” since God in some way tests all? For the Jewish woman says, not only to the elders of that time but also to all who read her book: “Remember what he did with Abraham, and how he tested Isaac, and what happened to Jacob in Mesopotamia of Syria, as he kept the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother. For he has not tried us with fire, as he did them, to search their hearts, nor has he taken vengeance on us; but the Lord scourges those who draw near to him, to admonish them.” And David declares it as a general rule about all the righteous, saying, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous,” and the apostle in the Acts: “that through many afflictions we must enter the kingdom of God.”

And unless we understand what escapes most people about praying not to enter “into temptation,” it is time to say that the apostles were not heard when they prayed. They suffered countless things throughout their lives, “in labors far more, in beatings far more, in prisons more abundantly, in deaths often”; and Paul in particular received “from the Jews five times forty stripes save one,” “three times” he was beaten with rods, “once” he was stoned, “three times” he was shipwrecked, “a night and a day he spent in the deep,” a man afflicted “in every way,” perplexed, persecuted, struck down, and confessing, “To this present hour we hunger and thirst, and are naked and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being slandered, we entreat.” And if the apostles did not obtain what they prayed for, what hope is there for anyone inferior to them who prays to obtain a hearing from God?

And those who do not understand exactly the intent of the Savior's command might reasonably suppose that the words in the twenty-fifth psalm, “Examine me, O Lord, and test me; try my kidneys and my heart,” are contrary to what our Lord taught about prayer. But when did anyone who knew that he had completed the full measure of his account think that men are outside temptations? And what time is there in which one may be careless, as though not contending against sin? Is someone poor? Let him beware lest he steal and swear by “the name of God.” Is he rich? Let him not be careless; for he can become “false” when “filled,” and say in his pride, “Who sees me?” Not even Paul, rich “in all speech and all knowledge,” was freed from the danger of sinning by being too much elated on account of these things, but he needed a thorn of Satan to buffet him, “so that” he might “not” be too elated. And if someone is conscious of better things in himself and has taken wing away from evils, let him read what is said in the Second Book of Chronicles about Hezekiah, who is said to have fallen “from the pride of his heart.”

And if, because we have not said more about the poor man, someone is careless as though poverty held no temptation, let him know that the plotter plots “to bring down the poor and needy,” especially since, according to Solomon, “the poor man does not withstand a threat.” And why need I speak of how many, because of bodily wealth not well managed, have taken their place in punishment with the rich man in the gospel, and how many, bearing poverty ignobly and behaving in a more servile and abject way than befits “the saints,” have fallen from the heavenly hope? Nor are those between these two, wealth and poverty, entirely free from sinning in their moderate possessions.

But someone who is healthy and robust in body supposes that he is outside all temptation by the very fact of being healthy and robust. Yet of whom else but the robust and healthy is the sin of destroying “the temple of God”? No one will dare to say more, since what concerns this passage is plain to all. And who, when sick, has escaped the incitements to destroying “the temple of God,” being at leisure at that time and quite open to thoughts of unclean things? And why need I speak of all the other things that trouble him besides these, unless he keeps his “heart” “with all vigilance”? For many, overcome by pains and not knowing how to bear sickness bravely, were then shown to be sick in soul rather than in body; and many, through avoiding dishonor and being ashamed to bear the name of Christ nobly, have fallen into everlasting shame.

But someone thinks he is at rest, as not being tempted, when he is honored among men. And how is the saying, “They have their reward” from “men,” not severe, when it is proclaimed to those who are elated by the glory they have among the many as though it were a good? And how is this not a rebuke: “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” And why need I list the faults of pride among those thought well born, and, among those called low born, the flattering servility, through ignorance, toward those thought superior, which separates from God those who have no genuine friendship but feign the best of things among men, love?

The whole “life,” then, of “man on earth,” as has been said, “is” “a trial”; therefore let us pray to be delivered from trial, not by not being tempted (for that is impossible, especially for those “on earth”), but by not being overcome when tempted. And I suppose that the one who is overcome when tempted enters “into temptation,” caught in its nets; into which nets the Savior entered for the sake of those previously caught in them, “looking out through the nets,” as is said in the Song of Songs, and “answers” those who have been caught by them and have entered “into temptation,” “and says” to them, who are his bride: “Arise, come, my neighbor, my fair one, my dove.” And I will add also this, to show that every time is a time of temptation for men: not even the one who meditates on the law of God “day and night,” and practices to fulfill the saying, “The mouth of the righteous will meditate wisdom,” has been freed from being tempted.

As for all those who, having devoted themselves to the study of the divine Scriptures, misunderstood what is proclaimed in the law and the prophets and devoted themselves to godless and impious doctrines, or to silly and ridiculous ones, why need I even speak of them, when countless people who seem not liable to the charge of neglecting the readings stumble in such ways? Many have suffered the same with the readings from the apostles and the gospels, fashioning through their own folly a Son or a Father other than the one spoken of in theology and understood in truth by the saints. For the one who does not think truly about God or his Christ has fallen away from the true God and his Only-begotten; and the one whom his folly has fashioned, thinking him to be Father and Son, he does not really worship. He suffered this because he did not recognize the temptation that lies in reading the holy writings, nor arm himself and stand firm as against a contest present to him even then.

We must pray, then, not that we may not be tempted (for that is impossible), but that we may not be enveloped by temptation, as those are who are caught in it and conquered. Since, then, outside the prayer it is written that we should pray “not to enter into temptation,” which may be somewhat clear from what has been said, but in the prayer we must say to God the Father, “Do not bring us into temptation,” it is worth seeing how we must understand that God brings into “temptation” the one who does not pray or is not heard. For since the one who is conquered enters “into temptation,” it is incongruous to think that God brings anyone “into temptation,” as though handing him over to be conquered. And the same incongruity awaits anyone who interprets in any way “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” For if it is an evil to fall “into temptation,” which we pray not to suffer, how is it not absurd to think that the good God, who cannot bear “bad fruits,” envelops anyone in evils?

It is useful, then, to set beside these things what is said by Paul in the Letter to the Romans in this way: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves”; and a little after: “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions; for their women exchanged the natural use for that which is against nature; and likewise the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, were inflamed,” and so on; and again a little after: “And since they did not see fit to have God in knowledge, God gave them up to an unfit mind, to do what is not proper.” All these things must be put to those who divide the Godhead, and we must say to them, since they think that the good Father of our Lord is other than the God of the law: if the good God brings “into temptation” the one who does not obtain his prayer, and if the Father of the Lord gives up “in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves” those who have first sinned somewhat, and if, being, as they say, free from judging and punishing, he gives them up “to dishonorable passions” and “to an unfit mind, to do what is not proper”—then those not given up to them by God would not have come to be “in the desires of their own hearts,” nor would those not given up to them by God have fallen under passions “of dishonor,” nor would those so condemned have fallen “into an unfit mind” without being given up to it by God.

I know well that these things will greatly trouble them, since they fashioned another God besides the maker of heaven and earth for this very reason, that finding many such things in the law and the prophets they took offense at the one who utters such words, as not good. But we, because of the difficulties raised about “Do not bring us into temptation,” for which we have also set out the apostle's words, must now consider whether we too find worthy solutions to these incongruities. I think that God governs each rational soul with a view to its eternal life, since it always has free will, and by its own responsibility either comes to be among the better things, ascending step by step to the summit of goods, or descends in various ways through carelessness into this or that flood of wickedness. Since, then, a quick and shorter cure makes some despise the diseases into which they have fallen, as easily cured, so that after being healed they might fall into the same things a second time, he will reasonably, in such cases, overlook the wickedness as it increases to some point, and overlook it as it spreads very far in them, even incurably; so that, by lingering in evil and being filled with the sin they desire, they may be sated and perceive the harm, and, hating what they formerly welcomed, may, once healed, enjoy more firmly the health of their souls that comes from being healed. So, for example, “the mixed multitude” once among the sons of Israel “lusted with a lust, and sat down and wept, and the sons of Israel too, and said: Who will feed us with meat? We remember the fish we used to eat freely in Egypt, and the cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic; but now our soul is dried up; there is nothing but the manna before our eyes.” Then a little after it is said: “And Moses heard them weeping by their clans, each at the door of his tent.” And again a little after, the Lord says to Moses: “And you shall say to the people, Purify yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you wept before the Lord, saying, Who will feed us with meat? For it was good for us in Egypt. And the Lord will give you meat to eat, and you shall eat meat. You shall not eat one day, nor two, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days; for a whole month you shall eat, until it comes out of your nostrils; and it shall be loathsome to you, because you disobeyed the Lord, who is among you, and wept before him, saying, Why did we come out of Egypt?”

Let us see, then, whether we have usefully set this story before you for the solution of what is incongruous in “Do not bring us into temptation” and in the apostle's words. Having lusted “with a lust,” “the mixed multitude” among the sons of Israel “wept, and the sons of Israel too” with them. And it is clear that as long as they did not have what they desired, they could not be sated with it nor cease from the passion. But the loving and good God, giving them what they desired, did not wish to give it in such a way that desire would be left in them. Therefore he says that they would eat the “meat” not “one day” (for their passion would have remained in their soul, which was set on fire and inflamed by it, if they had partaken of the meat for a short time); nor does he give them what they desired for “two days”; but wishing to make it cloying to them, he as it were does not promise but threatens, to anyone who can understand, by what he seemed to grant them, saying: “You will not spend only five days” eating “meat,” nor twice these, nor again twice those, but “you shall eat” so long, eating meat for a whole month, “until it comes out of your nostrils” with a bilious sickness—the thing you thought good, and the blameworthy and shameful desire for it—so that I may release you from life no longer desiring, and, having departed in this state, you may be able, as pure from desire and remembering through how many pains you were freed from it, either never to fall into it again, or, if this ever happens, only after long periods of time, when you forget what you suffered through your desire: unless you take heed to yourselves and take up the Word who wholly frees from every passion, you may fall into evils and, having later desired becoming (genesis) again, may need a second time to obtain what you desire and to hate what you desired, and then in this way run back to the good things and the heavenly food, despising which you longed for worse things.

Those who have exchanged “the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and reptiles” will suffer something like this, being given up, through being abandoned, “in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies”—they who have brought down to lifeless and senseless matter the name of him who has granted to all sentient rational beings not only sensation but rational sensation, and to some perfect and virtuous sensation and understanding. And such people are reasonably given up by God, whom they abandoned, being abandoned in turn by him, to “passions” “of dishonor,” “receiving” “the due penalty” “for the error” through which they loved a scabby pleasure. For the due penalty “for the error” comes to them more in being given up “to dishonorable passions” than in being cleansed by the wise fire and being made to pay in prison every debt to the last quadrans. For in being given up to passions “of dishonor,” not only natural ones but also many that are against nature, they are defiled and thickened by the flesh, as though no longer having soul or mind but becoming wholly flesh; while in the fire and the prison they receive, not a “penalty” “for the error,” but a benefit for the cleansing of the evils committed in error, with saving pains that follow upon lovers of pleasure, and they are freed from all the filth and blood with which they were so defiled and soiled that they could not even think of being saved, in their own destruction. So God “will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from their midst by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning”; for he “comes in like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap,” washing and cleansing those who need such remedies because they did not see fit “to have God in knowledge”; given up to these, they will of their own will hate the “unfit mind.” For God does not wish that good should come to anyone as by necessity, but willingly; perhaps some, from long association with wickedness, have hardly perceived its shamefulness and turned from it, having falsely supposed it to be good.

Consider whether it is for this reason that God hardens Pharaoh's heart too, so that he may be able to say what he did not say when not hardened: “The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are ungodly.” But he needs to be hardened further and to suffer something further, so that he may not, because he quickly ceased to be hardened, despise hardening as an evil and become worthy of being hardened still more often. If, then, “nets are not spread unjustly for birds,” according to what is said in Proverbs, but God reasonably brings “into the snare,” according to the one who said, “You brought us into the snare,” and without the counsel “of the Father” not even a sparrow, the least of winged creatures, falls “into the snare” (the one that falls “into the snare” falls for this reason, that it did not use well the power of its wings, given for rising on high), let us pray to do nothing worthy of being brought “into” the “temptation” by the just judgment of God—into which is brought everyone given up by God “in the desires” of his heart “to impurity,” and everyone given up “to dishonorable passions,” and everyone who, “since he did not see fit to have God in” himself, is given up “to an unfit mind, to do what is not proper.”

The use of being tempted is something like this. What our soul has received, hidden from all but God, and even from ourselves, becomes manifest through temptations, so that we may no longer be hidden as to what kind of people we are, but, knowing ourselves too, may perceive, if we wish, our own evils, and give thanks for the good things revealed to us through temptations. That the temptations that come happen so that we may be shown to be what we are, or that what is hidden in our heart may be discerned, is shown by what is said by the Lord in Job and what is written in Deuteronomy, which run thus: “Do you think I have dealt with you otherwise than that you might appear righteous?” And in Deuteronomy thus: “He afflicted you and let you hunger and fed you with manna” “and led you” “in the wilderness,” “where there were biting serpents and scorpions and thirst,” “so that” “what was in your heart might be discerned.”

And if we wish to be reminded from the history too, we must know that Eve's readiness to be deceived and the unsoundness of her reasoning did not come into being when she disobeyed God and listened to the serpent, but existed before and was exposed; for the serpent came to her because by his own cunning he perceived her weakness. Nor did wickedness begin in Cain when he “killed” “his brother” (for even before, “the God who knows the heart” “had no regard for Cain and his sacrifices”); but his wickedness came into the open when he slew Abel. And if Noah had not drunk of the “wine” he had cultivated and become “drunk” and uncovered himself, neither Ham's rashness and impiety toward his father would have come to light, nor his brothers' reverence and modesty toward their father. And Esau's plot against Jacob seemed to have as its occasion the taking away “of the blessing,” but even before this his soul had the roots of being “sexually immoral” and “profane.” And we would not have known the splendor of Joseph's self-control, prepared as he was not to be taken by any desire, if his mistress had not fallen in love with him.

Therefore, in the intervals between the succession of temptations, let us stand firm against what is present and prepare ourselves for everything that can possibly happen, so that whatever occurs we may not be exposed as unprepared but shown to have trained ourselves most carefully. For what is lacking through human weakness, when we have done all that is in our power, God will fill up, who works “all things” together “for good for those who love” him, who are foreseen “according to” his unerring foreknowledge as to what they will be of themselves.

It seems to me that Luke, through “Do not bring us into temptation,” has in effect also taught “Deliver us from the evil one.” And it is likely that the Lord said the more concise form to the disciple, as one already benefited, and the clearer form to the many, who needed plainer teaching. God delivers “us from the evil one,” not when the enemy does not approach us at all to wrestle against us through his schemes of whatever kind and through those who serve his will, but when we conquer by standing bravely against what befalls us. So also we have understood the words, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, and he delivers them out of them all.” For God “delivers” from afflictions not when afflictions no longer happen (since Paul too says, “afflicted in every way,” as though never not “afflicted”), but when, “afflicted,” we are by God's help not crushed; “being afflicted,” according to a Hebrew idiom, signifying the circumstance that happens without our choice, while “being crushed” signifies what happens by our choice, when one has been overcome by the affliction and has given in to it. Hence Paul rightly says, “afflicted in every way, but not crushed.” And I think the words in the Psalms are similar to this: “In affliction you have enlarged me.” For the cheerfulness and good spirits of our understanding, given by God in the time of hardships through the cooperation and presence of the Word of God who comforts and saves us, has been called enlargement.

In the same way, then, we must understand being delivered “from the evil one.” God delivered Job not by the devil's not receiving authority to surround him with these particular temptations (for he received it), but by Job's not sinning at all before “the Lord” “in all that happened,” but being shown to be righteous. The one who had said, “Does Job worship the Lord for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, round about? You have blessed the works of his hands, and made his cattle many on the earth. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and surely he will bless you to your face,” was put to shame, as having then lied against Job; who, having suffered so much, did not, as the adversary said, bless God “to his face,” but even when handed over to the tempter continued to bless the Lord, rebuking his wife when she said, “Say some word against the Lord, and die,” and reproving her with the words, “You have spoken as one of the foolish women speaks. If we have received good things from the hand of the Lord, shall we not bear evil things?” And a second time about Job “the devil said to the Lord: Skin for skin; all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bones and his flesh, and surely he will bless you to your face.” But, conquered by the athlete of virtue, he is shown to be a liar; for though Job suffered the harshest things, he persevered, not sinning at all “with his lips” before “God.” And having wrestled two bouts and conquered, Job does not contend in a third contest so great; for the wrestling in three bouts had to be kept for the Savior, which is recorded in the three Gospels, our Savior, understood according to his humanity, having conquered the enemy three times.

So that, then, we may ask God with understanding not to enter “into temptation” and to be delivered “from the evil one,” having examined these things more carefully and searched them out within ourselves, becoming worthy, by listening to God, to be heard by him, let us entreat that when tempted we may not be put to death, and when struck by the flaming darts “of the evil one” we may not be set on fire by them. And all those are set on fire by them whose “hearts,” as one of the Twelve says, have become “like an oven”; but those are not set on fire who with the shield “of faith” quench all the “flaming” “darts” sent against them by “the evil one,” when they have within themselves rivers “of water springing up to eternal life,” which do not allow the power “of the evil one” to prevail, but easily quench it by the flood of divine and saving thoughts, imprinted from the contemplations of truth on the soul of the one who trains himself to be spiritual.