On Prayer

Things that, because they are very great and beyond man and far above our perishable nature, are impossible for the rational and mortal race to grasp, become possible by the will of God through the great and immeasurable grace of God poured out from God upon men, through Jesus Christ, the minister of his unsurpassable grace toward us, and through the Spirit who works with him. The acquisition of wisdom, for example, by which all things were fashioned (for, according to David, God made “all things in wisdom”), though impossible for human nature, becomes possible instead of impossible through our Lord Jesus Christ, “who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” “For what man will know the counsel of God? Or who will conceive what the Lord wills? For the reasonings of mortals are timid, and our designs are likely to fail; for a corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind. And we can hardly guess at what is on earth; but who has traced out what is in the heavens?” Who would not say that it is impossible for a man to trace out “what is in the heavens”? Yet this impossibility becomes possible by the surpassing grace of God; for he who was caught up to the third heaven perhaps traced out what is in the three heavens, since he heard “inexpressible words, which it is not permitted for a man to speak.” And who can say that it is possible for a man to know the mind of the Lord? But this too God grants through Christ … the will of their lord, no longer, when he teaches them the will of the Lord, since he no longer wishes to be lord but changes into a friend to those whose lord he formerly was. But also, just as no one “among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him, so also no one” knows “the things of God except the Spirit of God.” And if no one “knows” “the things of God” “except the Spirit of God,” it is impossible for a man to know “the things of God.” But consider how this too becomes possible: “But we,” he says, “have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God; and we speak of these not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit.”

But it is likely, most God-fearing and most industrious Ambrose, and most modest and most courageous Tatiana (from whom I pray that “the ways of women” have already ceased, as they had ceased for Sarah), that you are wondering why, when our subject is prayer, these things were said in the preface about things impossible for men becoming possible by the grace of God. I am persuaded that one of the things impossible, as far as our weakness goes, is to set out clearly, accurately, and in a manner worthy of God, the whole account of prayer: how one ought to pray, what one ought to say to God in prayer, and which times are more suitable than others for prayer … the one who, because of the surpassing greatness “of the revelations,” took care “that no one” should “think of” him “more than he sees” “or hears from” him, confesses that he does not know how to pray “as we ought”; for what we ought to pray, he says, “as we ought, we do not know.” And it is necessary not only to pray, but to pray “as we ought,” and to pray for what we ought. For even if we are able to grasp what we ought to pray for, this is deficient unless we add also “as we ought.” And what use to us is “as we ought,” if we do not know how to pray for what we ought?

Of these two, then, the one—I mean “what we ought”—is the words of the prayer, while “as we ought” is the disposition of the one who prays. For example, of “what we ought”: “Ask for the great things, and the small will be added to you,” and, “Ask for the heavenly things, and the earthly will be added to you,” and, “Pray for those who mistreat you,” and, “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest,” and, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation,” and, “Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a sabbath,” and, “When you pray, do not babble,” and whatever is similar to these. Of “as we ought”: “I wish, then, that the men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands without anger or dispute; likewise also that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with reverence and self-control, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, as befits women who profess godliness, with good works.” Instructive of “as we ought” is also this: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go, first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” For what greater gift can be sent up to God by a rational being than the fragrant word of prayer, offered from a conscience that has no foul odor of sin? Again, of “as we ought” is this: “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again, so that Satan may not rejoice over you because of your lack of self-control.” For by these things “as we ought” is hindered, unless the act of the mysteries of marriage, which deserve to be passed over in silence, is performed with more dignity, more deliberation, and less passion; the “agreement” here spoken of removing the discord of passion, consuming the lack of self-control, and preventing Satan's malicious rejoicing. Besides these, instructive of “as we ought” is this: “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone”; and the saying in Paul, “Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head,” sets forth “as we ought.”

But Paul, knowing all these things and able to set out many times more from the law and the prophets and the fullness of the gospel, with a varied exposition of each, speaks from a disposition that is not only modest but also truthful (seeing, even after all these things, how far he falls short of knowing what we ought to pray for “as we ought”), and says: “what we ought to pray for as we ought, we do not know”; and to this statement he adds the following. From this, what is lacking is supplied to one who does not know, but has made himself worthy to have what is lacking supplied in him. For he says: “The Spirit himself intercedes exceedingly with God with groanings too deep for words; and he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to God.” And the Spirit, who cries “Abba, Father” in the hearts of the blessed, knowing carefully the groanings of those in the tent, groanings fit to weigh down those who have fallen or transgressed, “intercedes exceedingly with God with groanings too deep for words,” taking our groanings upon himself through his great love for mankind and compassion. And by the wisdom that is in him, seeing our soul humbled “to the dust” and shut up in the body “of humiliation,” he “intercedes exceedingly with God,” using not ordinary “groanings” but ones “too deep for words,” akin to the inexpressible words which it is not permitted for a man to speak. This Spirit, not content with interceding with God, intensifies his intercession and “intercedes exceedingly”—I think for those who are more than conquerors, as Paul was, who says, “But in all these things we are more than conquerors.” And it is likely that he only “intercedes” for those who are not so great as to be more than conquerors, nor again such as to be conquered, but who conquer.

Connected with “what we ought to pray for as we ought, we do not know, but the Spirit intercedes exceedingly with God with groanings too deep for words” is the saying, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also.” For our mind cannot pray unless the Spirit prays before it, as it were within its hearing, just as it cannot sing and hymn the Father in Christ with good rhythm, melody, measure, and harmony unless “the Spirit” who searches “all things, even the depths of God,” first praises and hymns him whose “depths” he has searched and, as far as he was able, grasped. And I think that one of Jesus' disciples, perceiving the weakness of human nature, which falls short of the way one ought to pray, and knowing this especially when he heard the wise and great words spoken by the Savior in his prayer to the Father, said to the Lord when he had ceased praying: “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” The whole sequence of the passage runs thus: “And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples to pray” … For did a man brought up in the instruction of the law and the hearing of the prophetic words, and not absent from the synagogues, not know how to pray in some way until he saw the Lord praying “in a certain place”? That would be absurd to say. He prayed according to the customs of the Jews, but he saw that he needed greater knowledge on the subject of prayer. And what was John “teaching his disciples” about prayer, when they came to him to be baptized from Jerusalem and all Judea and the surrounding region, unless as one “more than a prophet” he saw certain things about prayer, which he probably handed on in secret not to all who were baptized but to those who were being made disciples for baptism?

Such prayers, truly spiritual, when the Spirit was praying in the heart of the saints, were written down, full of secret and wonderful doctrines. In the first book of Kingdoms there is, in part, the prayer of Hannah (for the whole of it, “when she continued praying before the Lord,” speaking “in her heart,” was not … in writing); in the Psalms the sixteenth psalm is entitled “A prayer of David,” and the eighty-ninth, “A prayer of Moses, the man of God,” and the hundred and first, “A prayer of the poor man, when he is weary and pours out his supplication before the Lord.” These prayers, since they were truly prayers, made and spoken in the Spirit, are also filled with the doctrines of the wisdom of God, so that one might say of what they proclaim: “Who is wise, and will understand these things? And discerning, and will know them?”

Since, then, to treat of prayer is so great a task that it needs the Father to enlighten us for this too, and his firstborn Word himself to teach, and the Spirit to work in us so that we may understand and speak worthily of so great a question, I pray as a man (for I do not credit myself with the capacity for prayer), and ask to obtain the Spirit before the discourse on prayer, so that a most complete and spiritual word may be given us, and the prayers recorded in the Gospels may be made clear. So let us now begin our treatise on prayer.

First, then, as far as my observation goes, I find the word euchē used when Jacob, having become a fugitive from the anger of his “brother” Esau, was going away “to Mesopotamia” according to the instructions of Isaac and Rebekah. The wording is this: “And Jacob vowed a vow, saying: If the Lord God will be with me and keep me on this way on which I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, and bring me back in safety to my father's house, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be to me a house of God; and of all that you give me I will give a tenth to you.” …

Here it must be noted that the word euchē (which in many places has a meaning different from proseuchē) was used of one who, with a vow, promises to do certain things if he obtains certain things from God. The word is, however, also applied to what we customarily call prayer; as we have found in Exodus after the plague of frogs, the second in the order of the ten … : “Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said to them: Pray for me to the Lord, and let him take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go, and they shall sacrifice to the Lord.” And if anyone is reluctant to accept that the word euchē signifies, besides the former meaning, also the customary one, because “pray” is Pharaoh's word, let him note also what follows: “And Moses said to Pharaoh: Appoint me a time when I shall pray for you and for your servants and for your people, to destroy the frogs from you and from your people and from your houses; only in the river shall they remain.”

We have observed that at the gnats, the third plague, neither does Pharaoh ask that prayer be made nor does Moses pray. And at the dog-fly, the fourth, he says, “Pray then for me to the Lord,” when Moses also said, “I will go out from you and pray to God, and the dog-fly will depart from Pharaoh and his servants and his people tomorrow”; and a little after, “And Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to God.” Again, at the fifth and sixth plagues, neither did Pharaoh ask that prayer be made nor did Moses pray; but at the seventh, “Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron and said to them: I have sinned this time; the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are ungodly. Pray then to the Lord, and let him cause the voices of God and the hail and the fire to cease”; and a little after, “Moses went out from Pharaoh outside the city and spread out his hands to the Lord, and the voices ceased.” Why it is not said “and he prayed,” as in the former cases, but “he spread out his hands to the Lord,” must be examined more fittingly elsewhere. And at the eighth plague Pharaoh says: “And pray to the Lord your God, and let him take away this death from me. And Moses went out from Pharaoh and prayed to God.”

We have said that in many places the word euchē is not used in the customary sense, as in the case of Jacob; so also in Leviticus: “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: Whoever vows a vow, such as the value of his soul to the Lord, the value of a male from twenty years old to sixty years old shall be fifty didrachms of silver by the holy shekel”; and in Numbers: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: A man or woman who vows a great vow to consecrate himself in purity to the Lord shall keep himself pure from wine and strong drink,” and the rest about the one called a Nazirite. Then a little after: “And he shall consecrate his head on that day on which he was consecrated to the Lord for the days of the vow.” And again a little after: “This is the law of the one who has vowed: on whatever day he fulfills the days of his vow”; and again a little after: “And after this the one who has vowed shall drink wine. This is the law of the one who has vowed, whoever vows to the Lord his gift for his vow, besides whatever his hand can afford, according to the power of the vow which he vows, according to the law of purity.” And near the end of Numbers: “And Moses spoke to the rulers of the tribes of the sons of Israel, saying: This is the word which the Lord has commanded: A man who vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath with a binding, or binds himself concerning his soul, shall not profane his word; he shall do all that comes out of his mouth. And if a woman vows a vow to the Lord, or binds herself with a binding in her father's house in her youth, and her father hears her vows and her bindings with which she bound herself upon her soul, and her father keeps silent, all her vows shall stand, and all the bindings with which she bound herself upon her soul shall remain for her”; and next to these he legislates certain things about such a woman. In this sense it is written in Proverbs … : “It is a snare for a man hastily to consecrate some of his own; for after vowing comes repentance”; and in Ecclesiastes: “It is better not to vow than to vow and not pay”; and in the Acts of the Apostles: “We have four men who have a vow on them.”

It seemed to me not unreasonable first to distinguish the meaning according to the Scriptures, since euchē has two meanings, and likewise proseuchē. For this word too, besides the common and customary sense in which it is used in many places, is also applied in the sense of euchē as we customarily understand it, in what is said about Hannah in the first book of Kingdoms: “And Eli the priest sat on a seat by the doorposts of the temple of the Lord. And she was bitter of soul, and she prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. And she vowed a vow and said: O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look upon the humiliation of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, and give to your servant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord as one given all the days of his life, and no iron shall come upon his head.”

One could, however, not unpersuasively, attending here to “she prayed to the Lord” and “she vowed a vow,” say that if she did both, that is, “prayed to the Lord” and “vowed a vow,” perhaps “prayed” is used of what we customarily call prayer, while “vowed a vow” is used in the sense found in Leviticus and Numbers. For “I will give him to the Lord as one given all the days of his life, and no iron shall come upon his head” is not properly a prayer but that kind of vow which Jephthah also vowed in these words: “And Jephthah vowed a vow to the Lord and said: If you will indeed deliver the sons of Ammon into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of Ammon shall be the Lord's, and I will offer him up as a whole burnt offering.”

If, then, after this we must, as you asked, first set out the plausible arguments of those who think that nothing is accomplished by prayers and therefore say that praying is superfluous, we shall not hesitate to do this too as far as we can, using the word “prayer” now in a more general and simple sense … This view is so discreditable, and has found so few notable champions, that there is hardly anyone at all to be found, among those who accept providence and set God over the universe, who does not accept prayer. For the doctrine belongs either to those who are utterly godless and deny the existence of God, or to those who admit God in name only but deprive him of providence. Yet the opposing power, wishing to attach the most impious doctrines to the name of Christ and to the teaching of the Son of God, has already been able to persuade some that one should not pray. The champions of this opinion are those who do away with sensible things altogether and use neither baptism nor the Eucharist, slandering the Scriptures as if they did not mean even this prayer, but taught something else by it.

The arguments of those who set prayers aside (that is, of those who set God over the universe and say there is providence; for it is not our present task to examine what is said by those who do away with God or providence altogether) would be these: “God” knows “all things before they come to be,” and nothing becomes known to him for the first time from its coming to be when it comes to be, as though it were not known before. What need is there, then, to send up a prayer to one who, even before we pray, knows what we need? For “the heavenly Father knows what” we “need before” we “ask him.” And it is reasonable that, being the Father and Creator of the universe, who loves “all things that exist” and abhors nothing he has made, he should arrange everything concerning each one for its salvation even without prayer, like a father who cares for infants and does not wait for their request, since they are either not able to ask at all, or through ignorance often wish to receive the opposite of what is good and profitable for them. And we men fall short of God further than very young children fall short of the mind of their parents.

And it is likely that the things that will be are not only foreknown by God but also preordained, and that nothing happens contrary to what he has preordained. Just as, then, if someone should pray for the sun to rise, he would be thought silly, asking that what will happen even without his prayer should happen through his prayer; so a man would be foolish who thinks that through his own prayer things happen which would in any case happen even if he did not pray. And again, just as a man would surpass all madness who, being troubled and scorched by the sun at the summer solstice, thought that through prayer the sun would be moved to the spring signs, so that he might enjoy temperate air; so if anyone thought that by praying he would not suffer the circumstances that necessarily befall the human race, he would surpass all melancholy madness.

And if “sinners are estranged from the womb,” and the righteous man is set apart “from his mother's womb,” and when “they were not yet born and had done nothing good or bad, so that God's purpose according to election might stand, not from works but from him who calls,” it is said, “The elder will serve the younger,” then we ask in vain for the forgiveness of sins, or to receive a spirit of strength, so that we may be able to do “all things” with Christ strengthening us. For if we are “sinners,” we have been estranged “from the womb”; but if we were set apart “from” our “mother's womb,” the best things will come to us even if we do not pray. For what prayer did Jacob offer before he was born, that it should be prophesied that he would “surpass” Esau and that his brother would “serve” him? And what impiety had “Esau” committed, that he was hated before he was born? And why does Moses pray, as is found in the eighty-ninth psalm, if God is his “refuge” “before the mountains were established and the earth and the world were formed”? …

But also concerning all who will be saved it is written in the Letter to the Ephesians that the Father “chose” them “in him,” “in Christ,” “before the foundation of the world, that” they “should be holy and blameless before him, having predestined” them “in love to adoption as sons through Christ to himself.” Either, then, someone is among those chosen “before the foundation of the world,” and it is impossible for him to fall from his election, so that he has no need of prayer; or he has not been chosen nor predestined, and he prays in vain, and even if he prays ten thousand times, he will not be heard. For “those whom” God “foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image” “of the glory” “of his Son.” “And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Why does Josiah toil, or why in praying is he anxious whether he will be heard or not, when he was prophesied by name many generations before, and not only foreknown as to what he would do but foretold in the hearing of many? And why does Judas pray, so that his prayer becomes “sin,” when from the time of David he had been proclaimed as one who would lose “his office,” another taking it in his place? It is plainly incongruous, since God is unchangeable and has comprehended all things beforehand and abides by what he has preordained, to pray, thinking to change his purpose by one's prayer, or to address him as one who has not preordained but waits for each person's prayer, so that because of the prayer he may ordain what is fitting for the one who prays, then appointing what is judged reasonable, which he had not seen before.

Let me set down here, in its very words, what you laid out in your letter to me, which runs thus: “First: if God foreknows the future, and it must come to pass, prayer is vain. Second: if all things happen according to the will of God, and his counsels are fixed, and none of the things he wills can be changed, prayer is vain.” Useful, I think, for the solution of the difficulties that make people slack in prayer are the following preliminary considerations.

Of things that move, some have their mover outside them, such as lifeless things held together only by their cohesion, and things moved by nature and soul, when they are sometimes moved not as such but like things held together only by cohesion. For stones and pieces of wood cut from the quarry or that have lost the power of growth, being held together only by cohesion, have their mover outside them; and so also the bodies of animals and plants that can be carried, when they are moved by someone, are moved not as animals and plants but like stones and wood that have lost the power of growth; and even if these too move, because all bodies are in flux and decay, they have the motion of decay as a consequence. Second, besides these, are things moved by the nature or soul within them, which are also said to move “out of themselves” by those who use terms more strictly. And third is the motion in living creatures, which is called motion “from themselves”; and I think that the motion of rational beings is motion “through themselves.” If we take from a living creature its motion from itself, it can no longer even be thought of as a living creature, but will be like either a plant moved by nature only or a stone carried by something outside it. And if a thing is aware of its own motion, since we have called this moving “through itself,” it must be rational.

Those, then, who wish nothing to be in our power will necessarily accept something most silly: first, that we are not living creatures, and second, that we are not rational either, but that, as if moved by something outside us, and not moving ourselves at all, we would be said to do, by that mover, what we are thought to do. Besides, let anyone attend to his own experiences and see whether he will not be shameless if he says that it is not he himself who wills, not he himself who eats, not he himself who walks, nor he himself who assents to and accepts whatever doctrines he does, nor he himself who rejects others as false. Just as, then, it is impossible for a man to be convinced of certain doctrines, even if someone argues for them ten thousand times with ingenuity and plausible reasoning, so it is impossible for anyone to be so disposed about human affairs as though what is in our power were in no way preserved. For who is really disposed to think that nothing can be grasped, or lives as one who suspends judgment about everything whatever? And who, on forming the impression that a servant has done wrong, does not rebuke the servant? And who is there who does not blame a son for failing in his duty to his parents, or does not reproach and censure the adulteress as having done something shameful? For the truth forces and compels us, even if someone argues ingeniously ten thousand times, to act on impulse and to praise and blame, as though what is in our power were preserved and it were we who become praiseworthy or blameworthy.

If, then, what is in our power is preserved, having countless inclinations toward virtue or vice, and again toward what is fitting or what is contrary to it, then necessarily, along with everything else, what it will be is known to God before it comes to be, “from the creation” and “foundation of the world.” And in all that God preordains in accordance with what he has seen about each act that is in our power, there has been preordained, according to the worth of each movement of what is in our power, what will also meet it from providence, and what will moreover happen according to the sequence of future events; God's foreknowledge is not the cause of all the future events that will be brought about by what is in our power, according to our impulse. For even if, by hypothesis, God did not know the future, we should not on that account lose the power to do these particular things and will these particular things. Rather, what results from foreknowledge is that what is in each person's power receives an arrangement in the government of the universe that is useful for the order of the world.

If, then, what is in the power of each is known to him, and for this reason it is reasonable that what each deserves, having been foreseen by him, is ordained by providence for everyone, it is also reasonable that he has comprehended beforehand what a particular person will pray for, with what disposition, with what faith, and what he wishes to happen to him. And this having been comprehended beforehand, something like this will accordingly be set in his ordering: “This man, who will pray with understanding, I will hear because of the very prayer he will pray; but this one I will not hear, either because he will be unworthy of being heard, or because he will pray for things which it is neither profitable for the one praying to receive nor fitting for me to grant; and in this prayer, let us say, of such a person I will not hear him, but in that one I will.” (And if anyone is troubled because God, who has foreknown the future, cannot be mistaken, as though things were necessitated, we must say to him that this very thing is known to God with certainty: that this particular man does not firmly and steadfastly will the better things, or that he will so will the worse that he will be incapable of change toward what is beneficial.) “And again: for this man who will pray I will do these things, for this is fitting for me, since he will pray blamelessly and will not be careless about prayer; and to this one, who will pray to a certain degree, I will give ‘far more abundantly than’ he asks or thinks, for it befits me to outdo him in benefits and to supply more than he has been able to ask. And to this person, who will be of such a kind, I will send this ministering angel, to begin working with him for his salvation from this time and to be with him until this time; and to that one, let us say, this other angel more honorable than the first, for him who will be better than the first. And from this one, who after giving himself to excellent teachings will grow slack and run back to more material things, I will withdraw this better fellow worker; and when he has withdrawn, some worse power, as he deserves, finding occasion to set upon his carelessness, will stand over him and incite him to these particular sins, since he has made himself ready to sin.”

So he who preordains all things will already, as it were, say: “Amos will beget Josiah, who will not imitate his father's faults, but, having found this path that urges him to virtue through those who will be with him, will be noble and good, and will tear down the altar that Jeroboam wickedly built. And I know also that Judas, when my Son has come to dwell among the human race, will at first be noble and good, but later will turn aside and fall into human sins, so that for these it will be reasonable for him to suffer these particular things.” (This foreknowledge, perhaps about all things, but certainly about Judas and other mysteries, is also in the Son of God, who by contemplating the unfolding of future events saw Judas and the sins he would commit; so that with full comprehension, even before Judas existed, he said through David, “O God, do not keep silent at my praise,” and what follows.) “And knowing the future, and what vigor Paul will have toward piety, I will choose him in myself before I create the world, when I set about the beginning of the making of the world, and at his birth I will entrust him to these powers that work for the salvation of men, setting him apart ‘from his mother's womb,’ and allowing him at first, in his youth, through a zeal that comes with ignorance under pretext of piety, to persecute those who have believed in my Christ and to keep ‘the garments’ of those who stoned my servant and martyr Stephen; so that later, after the rashness of youth, taking an occasion and changing to the best things, he may ‘not boast’ ‘before’ me, but may say, ‘I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God,’ and, perceiving the kindness I will show him after the faults of his youth committed under pretext of piety, may say, ‘But by the grace of God I am what I am’; and, restrained by his conscience because of what he did against Christ while still a young man, he will not be too much elated ‘by the surpassing greatness of the revelations’ revealed to him for his benefit.”

And to the argument about praying for the sun to rise, this must be said. The sun too has something in its own power, since it too praises God with the moon: “Praise him,” it says, “sun and moon”; and clearly the moon too, and consequently all the stars: “Praise him,” it says, “all you stars and light.” Just as, then, we have said that God, making use of what is in the power of each being on earth, has arranged them appropriately for some use for things on earth, so we must suppose that, making use of what is in the power of the sun and moon and stars, which is firm, stable, steadfast, and wise, he has ordered “all the host of heaven” and the course and motion of the stars in harmony with the universe. And if I do not pray in vain about what is in the power of another, much more is this so about what is in the power of the stars that dance in heaven for the salvation of the universe. Indeed, one may say of things on earth that certain impressions arising from our circumstances call forth our instability, or our inclination to the better, so that we do or say this thing or that; but in the case of heavenly beings, what impression could arise to drive out and move from its course, so useful to the world, any of those who have a soul so fashioned by reason and are, as regards themselves, causes of their own acts, and who use a body so ethereal and most pure?

Further, it is not unreasonable to use an example like this to urge people to pray and to turn them from neglecting prayer. Just as it is not possible to beget children without a woman and without the activity that serves for begetting children, so one would not obtain certain things unless one prayed in a certain way, with a certain disposition, believing in a certain way, having lived in a certain manner before the prayer. So one must not babble, nor ask for small things, nor pray about earthly things, nor come to prayer with “anger” and troubled thoughts. Nor can leisure given “to prayer” be conceived without purification; nor can the one who prays obtain forgiveness of sins unless he forgives from the heart the brother who has offended him and asks to be pardoned.

I think that benefit comes in many ways to one who prays as he ought, or who strives for this as far as he can. First of all, the one who has directed his mind to prayer certainly gains something from the very disposition of prayer, by presenting himself to God and speaking to him as present, having composed himself as before one who watches and is present. For just as certain images and memories of certain things defile the thoughts in which these images have arisen, in the same way we must be persuaded that the remembrance of God in whom we have believed, who perceives the movements in the sanctuary of the soul, is beneficial, as the soul orders itself to please him as one present, watching, and reaching before every thought, who tests “hearts” and searches “the inward parts.” For even supposing that no other benefit came to one who has set his reasoning toward prayer, one must think that it is no ordinary gain for him to have ordered himself so reverently at the time of prayer. And when this happens often, those who have given themselves more constantly to prayer know by experience from how many sins it keeps them and to how many good deeds it leads them. For if the remembrance and recollection of a man of repute who has made progress in wisdom calls us to imitate him and often checks our impulses toward the worse, how much more does the remembrance of God, the Father of all, together with prayer to him, benefit those who have persuaded themselves that they stand before, and speak to, a God who is present and hears?

What has been said must be established from the divine Scriptures in this way. The one who prays must lift up “holy hands” by forgiving each of those who have wronged him, having removed the passion of anger from his soul and being angry with no one. And again, so that the mind may not be clouded by other thoughts, he must forget everything outside the prayer during the time in which he prays (and how is it not most blessed to be such a person?), as Paul teaches in the First Letter to Timothy, saying: “I wish, then, that the men pray in every place, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputes.” And besides these, a woman, especially when she prays, must have modesty and decorum in soul and body, above all revering God when she prays, having banished from her ruling faculty every licentious and womanly memory, and adorned not “with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly clothing,” but with what befits a woman who professes godliness (and I wonder whether anyone would hesitate to declare blessed, on the ground of such a disposition alone, the woman who has presented herself for prayer in this way); as Paul taught in the same letter, saying: “Likewise that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with reverence and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly clothing, but, as befits women who profess godliness, with good works.”

And the prophet David too says that the saint has many other qualities when he prays; and it is not out of place to set these beside them, so that it may become clear to us that the very posture and preparation for prayer of one who has dedicated himself to God, even if considered alone, is of the greatest benefit. He says: “To you I have lifted up my eyes, you who dwell in heaven,” and, “To you, O God, I have lifted up my soul.” For when the eyes of the understanding are lifted up from lingering on earthly things and being filled with the impression of more material things, and are raised so high that they peer beyond created things and come to be occupied only with thinking of God and conversing reverently and fittingly with him who hears, how have they not already gained the greatest benefit, those very eyes that “with unveiled face” behold “the glory of the Lord” and are transformed into “the same image” “from glory to glory”? For they then partake of an intelligible and more divine emanation, as is shown by the words: “The light of your face has been signed upon us, O Lord.” And the soul too, being lifted up and following the Spirit, and being separated from the body—and not only following the Spirit but coming to be in it, as is shown by “To you I have lifted up my soul”—how does it not already put off its being a soul and become spiritual?

And if not bearing grudges is a very great virtue—so much so that according to the prophet Jeremiah the whole law is summed up in it, when he says, “I did not command these things to your fathers when they came out of Egypt, but this I commanded: let no one bear a grudge in his heart against his neighbor”—then, coming to prayer free of grudges, we keep the command of the Savior, who says, “Whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone”; clearly, standing to pray in such a state, we already possess the best things.

These things have been said as a hypothesis: even if nothing else follows for us when we pray, we gain the best things by having understood how we ought to pray and doing it. And it is clear that one who prays in this way will hear, while he is still speaking, as he looks upon the power of the one who hears him, the words “Behold, I am here,” having cast off, before praying, all discontent with providence. For this is what is shown by the words, “If you take away from yourself the bond, and the stretching out of the hand, and the word of murmuring”: this is the one who is content with what happens, who has become free from every bond, and does not raise his hand in vote against God, who ordains what he wills for our training, nor murmurs in the secret of his thoughts without a voice audible to men. Such murmuring, like that of wicked servants who do not openly find fault with their masters' orders, is practiced by those who do not dare with their voice and whole soul to speak ill of providence for what happens, but wish as it were to escape the notice even of the Lord of all in what displeases them. And I think this is also the meaning of what is in Job: “In all these things that happened Job did not sin with his lips before God,” while of the temptation before it, it is written: “In all these things that happened Job did not sin before God.” And forbidding that this should happen, the word says in Deuteronomy: “Take heed lest there be a hidden word in your heart, an iniquity, saying, The seventh year draws near,” and so on.

One who prays in this way, having already received so many benefits, becomes more fit to be blended with the Spirit of the Lord who has filled the whole world, and with him who has filled the whole earth and heaven, who speaks through the prophet thus: “Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.” And further, through the purification spoken of above and through prayer, he will share in the Word of God, who stands in the midst even of those who do not know him, and who is never absent from prayer, but prays with the one whose mediator he is, to the Father. For the Son of God is “high priest” of our offerings and “advocate” with the Father, praying for those who pray and joining his appeal to those who appeal; but he would not pray, as for his own, for those who do not pray more constantly through him, nor will he be an “advocate” with God, as for those already his, for those who do not obey the teachings that “one ought always to pray and not lose heart.” For “he told them,” it says, “a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart: In a certain city there was a judge,” and so on. And in what precedes this: “And he said to them, Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him”; and a little after: “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his shamelessness he will rise and give him whatever he needs.” And who among those who believe the truthful mouth of Jesus would not be moved to pray without hesitation, when he says, “Ask, and it will be given you,” “for everyone who asks receives”? For the good Father gives the living bread (not the stone that the adversary wishes to become food for Jesus and his disciples) to those of us who ask him, who have received “the spirit of adoption” from the Father; and “the Father” gives “the good gift,” raining it “from heaven,” “to those who ask him.”

Not only does the High Priest pray with those who pray sincerely, but also the angels who rejoice “in heaven” “over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine righteous who need no repentance,” and the souls of the saints who have already fallen asleep. This is shown when Raphael offers a rational service to God on behalf of Tobit and Sarah (for after the prayer of both, Scripture says, “The prayer of both was heard before the glory of the great Raphael, and he was sent to heal the two”; and Raphael himself, revealing his ministry as an angel toward both by God's command, says, “And now, when you prayed, you and your daughter-in-law Sarah, I brought the memorial of your prayer before the Holy One,” and a little after, “I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who present the prayers of the saints and enter before the glory of the Holy One”; at any rate, according to Raphael's word, “Prayer with fasting and almsgiving and righteousness is good”); and it is shown when Jeremiah appears, as in the books of the Maccabees, distinguished “by gray hair and glory,” so that “the dignity about him was wonderful and most majestic,” and stretches out “his right hand” and gives “to Judas a golden sword,” to whom another saint who had fallen asleep bore witness, saying, “This is he who prays much for the people and the holy city, Jeremiah the prophet of God.”

For it would be absurd, when knowledge is now revealed to the worthy “through a mirror” and “in a riddle” but will then be revealed “face to face,” not to think the same of the other virtues, which, having been prepared in this life, are then perfected in the proper sense. And according to the divine word the one most important of the virtues is love of neighbor; and we must think that this is present much more in the saints who have fallen asleep toward those contending in this life than in those who are still in human weakness and contend alongside the weaker; for it is not only here that “if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” applies to those who love the brothers. For it is fitting that the love of those who are outside the present life also should say: “The care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?” And Christ too confesses that in each of the saints who is weak he is likewise weak, and is “in prison,” and naked, and a stranger, and hungry and thirsty; for who among the readers of the gospel does not know that Christ, by referring to himself what happens to believers, counts their sufferings as his own?

And if “angels” of God came to Jesus and “ministered to him,” and it is not fitting for us to think that the angels' ministry to Jesus lasted only for the short time of his bodily sojourn among men, while he is still “in the midst” of believers, not as one who reclines at table but as one who serves, how many angels are likely to minister to Jesus, who wishes to gather “the sons of Israel” “one by one” and to assemble those of the dispersion, and who saves those who fear and call upon him; and to work together, even more than the apostles, for the growth and increase of the church—so that some angels are even said, in John's Revelation, to preside over the churches? For not in vain do the angels “of God” ascend and descend “upon the Son of Man,” seen by eyes enlightened with the light “of knowledge.”

And so, at the very time of prayer, being reminded by the one who prays of what he needs, they accomplish what they can, as having received a general command. We may use some such image as this for this argument, to make acceptable what we have understood. Suppose a physician who cares for righteousness is standing by a sick man praying for his health, and knows how to treat the disease about which the man is offering his prayer. Clearly he will be moved to heal the one who prayed, perhaps supposing, not without reason, that this very thing has come about in God's mind, since he has heard the prayer of the one who prayed to be delivered from the disease. Or let someone who has more than enough of the necessities of life, and is generous, hear the prayer of a poor man who is offering a petition to God about his needs; clearly he too will fulfill the prayer for the poor man, becoming a servant of the Father's will, who has brought together at the time of the prayer, in the same place as the one who will pray, the one able to provide, who because of the goodness of his choice cannot overlook one who has need of these things.

Just as, then, we must not think that these things happen by chance when they happen, since he who has numbered all the hairs of the saints' heads harmoniously brings together, at the time of the prayer, the one who will serve the one needing his help and who will hear the one who has asked faithfully; so we must suppose that the presence of the angels who oversee and minister to God is sometimes brought together to a particular person who prays, so that they may join in accomplishing what the one who prays has asked. And indeed the angel of each one, even of “the little ones” in the church, who “always” beholds “the face of the Father” “who is in heaven” and looks upon the divinity of our Creator, prays with us and works with us, as far as possible, in the things for which we pray.

Besides these things, I think that the words of the prayer of the saints are full of power, especially when in praying they pray “with the spirit” “and with the mind also”; like a light rising from the understanding of the one who prays and going forth from his mouth, by the power of God they weaken the spiritual poison injected by the opposing powers into the ruling faculty of those who neglect to pray and do not keep the command “Pray without ceasing,” spoken by Paul in accordance with the exhortations of Jesus. For like an arrow, it goes forth from the soul of the saint who prays, by knowledge and reason or by faith, wounding, to their destruction and overthrow, the spirits hostile to God that wish to throw around us the bonds of sin.

And he prays “without ceasing”—since the works of virtue, or the commandments fulfilled, are taken up as part of prayer—who joins prayer to the works he ought to do and fitting actions to prayer. For only in this way can we accept “Pray without ceasing” as a command that is possible, if we should say that the whole life of the saint is one great connected prayer; of which prayer what is customarily called prayer is also a part, which ought to be performed no less than three times each day. This is clear from the case of Daniel, who, though so great a danger hung over him, prayed three times a day. And Peter, going up to “the housetop” “about” “the sixth” hour “to pray,” when he also saw the “vessel” “let down” from heaven, “let down by four corners,” shows the middle one of the three prayers; the one before it is spoken of by David: “In the morning you will hear my prayer; in the morning I will stand before you and will watch”; and the last is shown by the words, “The lifting up of my hands, an evening sacrifice.” But not even the time of night shall we pass rightly without this prayer, since David says, “At midnight I rose to give thanks to you for your righteous judgments,” and Paul, as is said in the Acts of the Apostles, “about midnight” at Philippi was praying with Silas and singing hymns to God, so that even the prisoners were listening to “them.”

And if Jesus prays, and prays not in vain, obtaining through prayer what he asks for, which perhaps he would not have received without prayer, which of us will neglect to pray? For Mark says that “in the morning, while it was still very dark, he rose and went out and departed to a desolate place, and there he prayed”; and Luke, “And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him”; and elsewhere, “And he continued all night in prayer to God.” And John records a prayer of his, saying: “These things Jesus spoke, and lifting up his eyes to heaven he said: Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you.” And the words, “I knew that you always hear me,” recorded in the same Gospel as spoken by the Lord, show that one who “always” prays is “always” heard.

But why need I list those who, by praying as they ought, obtained the greatest things from God, when each can gather more for himself from the Scriptures? Hannah ministered to the birth of Samuel, who was counted with Moses, when, being childless, she prayed in faith to the Lord. Hezekiah, while still childless, having learned from Isaiah that he would die, prayed and was taken up into the genealogy of the Savior. When the people were about to perish by a single decree through Haman's plot, the prayer with fasting of Mordecai and Esther was heard and, in addition to the feasts appointed by Moses, brought forth for the people the day of Mordecai's rejoicing. Judith, too, having offered a holy prayer, overcame Holofernes with God's help, and one Hebrew woman brought shame on the house of Nebuchadnezzar. Ananias and Azarias and Misael, being heard, were counted worthy to receive “a whistling wind of dew” that did not allow the flame of the fire to act. The lions in the pit of the Babylonians were muzzled through Daniel's prayers. And Jonah, not despairing of being heard from the belly of the sea monster that had swallowed him, came out of the monster's belly and completed what was lacking in his prophecy to the Ninevites.

And how much could each of us recount, if he wished, remembering with thanksgiving the benefits done to him, to send up praise to God for them? For souls that had long been barren, perceiving the sterility of their own ruling faculties and the barrenness of their own minds, have conceived by the Holy Spirit through persistent prayer and given birth to saving words full of the contemplation of truth. And how many enemies have been scattered, when often myriads of the opposing power have marched against us wishing to wipe us out from the divine faith, while we took courage because “some trust in chariots” and “some in horses,” but “we” call “on the name of the Lord,” and see that truly “a horse is a false hope for safety”! And also the deceptive and plausible word of the adversary's chief general, which makes many even of those thought to have believed cower, is often cut down by the one who trusts in praise to God; for “Judith” means “praise.” And what need is there to speak of how many, having fallen into temptations hard to overcome and more burning than any flame, have suffered nothing from them but have come through entirely unharmed, without suffering even the slightest harm from the smell “of the” enemy's “fire”? And how many beasts raging against us, evil spirits and cruel men, have they often muzzled by their prayers, when they happened upon them, so that they could not fix their teeth in those of us who have become members of Christ? For often in the case of each of the saints “the Lord has broken the jaw-teeth of the lions,” and they have come to nothing “like water running away.” And we know that often those who fled from God's commands, swallowed up by death, which had first prevailed against them, were saved from so great an evil through repentance, not despairing of being able to be saved even when already held “in the belly of” death; for “death prevailed and swallowed them up, and again God took away every tear from every face.”

I think it most necessary to say these things after the list of those who have been benefited through prayer, in order to turn those who long for the spiritual life in Christ away from praying about small and earthly things, and to call those who read this treatise to the mystical things of which the things I have mentioned were types. For every prayer for the spiritual and mystical things we have set out is always accomplished by one who does not war “according to the flesh” but “by the Spirit” puts to death “the deeds of the body,” preferring what is presented by the higher sense, after examination, to the benefit that appears, according to the letter, to have come to those who prayed. For we too must strive that there be nothing barren or sterile in us, listening to the spiritual law with spiritual ears, so that, putting off barrenness or sterility, we may be heard like Hannah and Hezekiah, and may be delivered from the plotting enemies, the spiritual forces of wickedness, like Mordecai and Esther and Judith. And since Egypt is an iron furnace, a symbol of the whole earthly region, let everyone who has escaped the wickedness of human life, and has not been set on fire by sin, nor had his heart like an oven full of fire, give thanks no less than those who experienced “dew” in the fire. And let the one who has been heard when he prayed and said, “Do not deliver to the beasts a soul that confesses you,” and has suffered nothing from the asp and the basilisk because through Christ he has trodden on them, and has trampled “the lion and the dragon,” using the good authority given by Jesus “to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy,” and has been harmed by none of these, give thanks more than Daniel, since he has been delivered from more fearful and more harmful beasts. Moreover, let the one who is convinced of what sea monster the one that swallowed Jonah was a type, and has understood that it is the one of which Job said, “Let him curse it who curses that day, who is about to overcome the great sea monster,” if ever through some disobedience he comes to be “in the belly of the sea monster,” pray with repentance, and he will come out from there; and having come out, and persevering in obedience to God's commands, he will be able, in accordance with the kindness of the Spirit, to prophesy even now to the perishing Ninevites and become a cause of salvation for them, not being displeased at God's kindness nor seeking that he should persist in severity toward those who repent.

And what Samuel is said to have done, the greatest thing, through prayer, each of those truly devoted to God can accomplish even now spiritually, once he has become worthy to be heard. For it is written: “And now stand and see this great thing which the Lord does before your eyes. Is it not the wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, and he will send thunder and rain”; and then a little after: “And Samuel called upon the Lord,” it says, “and the Lord sent thunder and rain on that day.” For to every saint and true disciple of Jesus it is said by the Lord: “Lift up your eyes and see the fields, that they are white already for harvest; he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life.” In this time of harvest, then, the Lord does “a great thing” “before the eyes” of those who listen to the prophets; for when one adorned with the Holy Spirit calls “upon the Lord,” God gives from heaven “thunder and” the “rain” that waters the soul, so that he who was formerly in wickedness may greatly fear the Lord and the minister of God's benefits, who is shown to be revered and venerable through the fact that he is heard. And Elijah too by a divine word later opened the heaven that had been shut to the ungodly for three years and six months; which is always accomplished for anyone who through prayer receives the rain of the soul, of which he had formerly been deprived because of sin.

Having interpreted these things with reference to the benefits that came to the saints through prayers, let us consider the saying: “Ask for the great things, and the small will be added to you; and ask for the heavenly things, and the earthly will be added to you.” All things symbolic and typical are “small” and “earthly” in comparison with the true and intelligible things; and it is likely that the divine Word, calling us to imitate the prayers of the saints so that we may ask in truth for what they obtained in type, speaks of “the heavenly” and “great” things signified through those about earthly and small matters, saying: “You who wish to be spiritual, ask through your prayers for ‘the heavenly’ and ‘great’ things, so that, obtaining them as heavenly, you may inherit the kingdom of heaven, and, as great, may enjoy the greatest goods; while the ‘earthly’ and ‘small’ things, which you need for bodily necessities, the Father will supply to you in due measure.”

And since four names for four things akin to the subject of prayer are used by the apostle in the First Letter to Timothy, it will be useful to set out his words and see whether we rightly understand each of the four when taken in its proper sense. He says: “I urge, then, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,” and so on. I think, then, that supplication is the prayer sent up by someone who lacks something, with entreaty that he may obtain it; that prayer is that which is sent up by someone with glorification, about greater things, in a more exalted manner; that intercession is a request to God about certain things by someone who has somewhat greater boldness; and that thanksgiving is the acknowledgment, with prayers, for having obtained good things from God, when the one acknowledging has grasped the greatness of the benefit done to him, or when it appears great to the one who has received it.

Examples of the first are Gabriel's words to Zechariah, who, it seems, had prayed for the birth of John, which run thus: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your supplication has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John”; and what is recorded in Exodus at the making of the calf, in this way: “And Moses made supplication before the Lord God and said, Why, O Lord, does your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great strength?”; and in Deuteronomy: “And I made supplication before the Lord a second time, as before, forty days and forty nights (I neither ate bread nor drank water), for all your sins which you had sinned”; and in Esther: “Mordecai made supplication to God, remembering all the works of the Lord, and said: O Lord, Lord, King almighty,” and Esther herself “made supplication to the Lord God of Israel and said: O Lord, our King.”

Of the second, in Daniel: “And Azarias stood and prayed thus, and opening his mouth in the midst of the fire he said”; and in Tobit: “And I prayed in grief, saying: You are righteous, O Lord, and all your works; all your ways are mercy and truth, and you judge true and righteous judgment for ever.” But since they have marked the passage in Daniel with an obelus as not found in the Hebrew, and those of the circumcision dispute the book of Tobit as not in the canon, I will set down from the first book of Kingdoms the prayer of Hannah: “And she prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. And she vowed a vow and said: O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look upon the humiliation of your servant,” and what follows; and in Habakkuk: “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, with song. O Lord, I have heard your voice and was afraid; O Lord, I considered your works and was amazed; in the midst of two living creatures you will be known; as the years draw near you will be recognized.” This prayer shows very clearly the definition of prayer, that it is sent up with glorification by the one who prays. And also in Jonah: “Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the sea monster and said: I cried in my affliction to the Lord my God, and he heard me; out of the belly of Hades you heard my cry, my voice. You cast me into the depths of the heart of the sea, and rivers surrounded me.”

Of the third, in the apostle, who reasonably assigns prayer to us and intercession to the Spirit, as being superior and having “boldness toward” the one with whom he intercedes: “For what we should pray for as we ought,” he says, “we do not know, but the Spirit himself intercedes exceedingly with God with groanings too deep for words; and he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to God.” For the Spirit “intercedes exceedingly” and “intercedes,” but we pray. And an intercession, it seems to me, is also what Joshua said about the sun standing still at Gibeon: “Then Joshua spoke to the Lord on the day when God delivered the Amorite into the hands of Israel, when he crushed them at Gibeon, and they were crushed before the sons of Israel. And Joshua said: Let the sun stand still at Gibeon, and the moon at the valley of Elom.” And in Judges I think that Samson was interceding when he said, “Let my soul die with the Philistines,” when “he bowed with his strength, and the house fell on the lords and on all the people in it.” Even though it is not written that Joshua and Samson interceded but that they spoke, their words seem to be an intercession, which, if we take the names in their proper sense, we consider different from prayer. And an example of thanksgiving is the saying of our Lord: “I give thanks to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to infants”; for “I confess” (ἐξομολογοῦμαι) is equivalent to “I give thanks.”

It is not absurd to offer supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving to men also, to saints; but two of them (I mean intercession and thanksgiving) not only to saints but also to other men, while supplication only to saints, if someone like Paul or Peter should be found, so that they may benefit us by making us worthy to obtain the authority given them to forgive sins. Unless indeed, even if someone is not a saint, but we have wronged him, it is permitted, when we are conscious of our sin against him, to make supplication even to such a person, that he may grant pardon to us who have wronged him. And if these things are to be offered to holy men, how much more must we give thanks to Christ, who by the Father's will has done us such great benefits? And we must also make intercession to him, as Stephen did when he said, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”; and imitating the father of the epileptic boy, we shall say, “I beg you,” “Lord, have mercy,” either on “my son,” or on myself, or on whoever it may be.

But if we understand what prayer is, perhaps we should pray to no one who is begotten, not even to Christ himself, but only to the God and Father of all, to whom our Savior himself prayed, as we have set out before, and to whom he teaches us to pray. For when he heard, “Teach us to pray,” he did not teach them to pray to himself but to the Father, saying, “Our Father in heaven,” and so on. For if, as is shown elsewhere, the Son is other than the Father in being and in subject, then we must pray either to the Son and not to the Father, or to both, or to the Father alone. That we should pray to the Son and not to the Father, anyone at all will admit would be most absurd, and would be said against the evidence. If to both, clearly we would make our requests in the plural, saying in our prayers, “Grant,” “do good,” “supply,” “save” (in the plural), and anything like these; which is plainly incongruous, and no one can show it written in the Scriptures as said by anyone. It remains, then, to pray to God alone, the Father of all, but not without the High Priest, who was appointed by the Father “with an oath,” according to the words, “He has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.”

So the saints, giving thanks in their prayers to God through Christ Jesus, acknowledge their gratitude to him. And just as one who is exact about prayer ought not to pray to the one who prays, but to the Father whom our Lord Jesus taught us to call upon in prayer, so no prayer should be offered to the Father without him, as he himself clearly shows when he says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything, he will give it to you in my name. Until now you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” For he did not say, “Ask me,” nor simply “Ask the Father,” but, “If you ask the Father for anything, he will give it to you in my name.” For until Jesus taught these things, no one had asked “the Father” “in the name” of the Son; and what Jesus said was true, “Until now you have asked nothing in my name.” And true also is, “Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

But if someone, thinking that one ought to pray to Christ himself, and confusing this with what is meant by worship, should bring against us the words, “Let all the angels of God worship him,” admittedly spoken in Deuteronomy about Christ, we must say to him that the church too, called Jerusalem by the prophet, is said to be worshiped by kings and princesses, who become her nursing fathers and nurses, in these words: “Behold, I lift up my hand to the nations, and to the islands I will raise my signal; and they will bring your sons in their bosom, and carry your daughters on their shoulders; and kings shall be your nursing fathers, and their princesses your nurses; with their faces to the earth they will worship you, and lick the dust of your feet; and you shall know that I am the Lord, and you shall not be ashamed.”

And how would he not say, like the one who said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God the Father”: “Why do you pray to me? You must pray to the Father alone, to whom I too pray; which you learn through the holy Scriptures. For you must not pray to the High Priest appointed for you by the Father, who has received from the Father the office of advocate, but through the High Priest and Advocate, who is able to sympathize ‘with your weaknesses,’ having been tempted ‘in every respect’ as you are, but, because of the Father who has granted it to me, tempted ‘without sin.’ Learn, then, how great a gift you have received from my Father, having received through your rebirth in me ‘the spirit of adoption,’ so that you may be called ‘sons of God’ and my brothers. For you have read the words spoken by me through David to the Father about you: ‘I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will sing your praise.’ And it is not reasonable for those counted worthy of one Father to pray to a brother; for you must send up prayer to the Father alone, with me and through me.”

Hearing Jesus say this, then, let us pray to God through him, all saying the same thing and not being divided about the manner of prayer. Or are we not divided, if some of us pray to the Father and some to the Son? Those who pray to the Son, whether with the Father or without the Father, commit a sin of simple people through great simplicity, because they have not tested or examined the matter. Let us pray, then, as to God; let us intercede as to a Father; let us make supplication as to a Lord; let us give thanks as to God and Father and Lord—though not by any means the Lord of a slave. For the Father might reasonably be thought both Lord of the Son and Lord of those who have become sons through him; but just as “he is not the God of the dead but of the living,” so he is not the Lord of ignoble slaves, but of those who at first, because of their infancy, are ennobled by fear, but afterwards serve with a service according to love, more blessed than that in fear. For there are clear marks in the soul, visible only to him who sees hearts, of the servants of God and of his sons.

Everyone, therefore, who asks God for “earthly” and “small” things disobeys the one who commanded us to ask for “heavenly” and “great” things from God, who knows how to grant nothing earthly or small. And if someone objects with the bodily gifts given to the saints in answer to prayer, and also with the saying of the gospel that teaches that “earthly” and “small” things are added to us, we must answer him thus. Just as, when someone gives us some body, it must not be said that so-and-so has given us the shadow of the body (for he did not intend to grant two things, a body and a shadow, when he gave the body; the intention of the giver is to give a body, but along with the gift of the body it follows that we also receive its shadow); so, if with a mind grown nobler we consider the gifts given us by God in the principal sense, we shall say that bodily things are most fittingly consequences of the great and heavenly spiritual gifts, given “to each” of the saints “for the common good,” or “in proportion to faith,” or “as” the giver “wills.” And he wills wisely, even if we cannot give, for each of the gifts, a cause and reason worthy of the giver.

So it was the soul of Hannah, changed from a kind of barrenness, that bore fruit, more than her body when it conceived Samuel; and Hezekiah begot divine children of the mind more than of the body, though these were born of his bodily seed; and Esther and Mordecai and the people were delivered more from spiritual plots than from Haman and those who conspired with him … she cut down the power of the ruler who wished to destroy her soul, more than that of the famous Holofernes. And who would not acknowledge that the spiritual blessing that reaches all the saints, spoken by Isaac to Jacob, “May God give you of the dew of heaven,” came to Ananias and his companions more than the bodily dew that overcame the flame of Nebuchadnezzar? And the invisible lions were muzzled for the prophet Daniel, unable to do anything against his soul, more than the visible ones of whom all we who read that Scripture have understood. And who has so escaped from the belly of the sea monster subdued by Jesus our Savior, which swallows every fugitive from God, as Jonah did, who as a saint became capable of receiving the Holy Spirit?

It is no wonder if, of all who receive the bodies, so to speak, that produce such shadows, the same shadow is not given to all alike, but to some alike. For to those who study the problems of sundials and the relation of shadows to the illuminating body, it is clearly shown that this happens also with bodies: for some, at a certain time, the pointers cast no shadow, for others, so to speak, short shadows, and for others longer shadows than for others. It is no great matter, then, if, since the intention of the giver grants the principal gifts according to certain secret and mystical proportions, fitting for those who receive them and for the times when the principal gifts are given, sometimes no shadows at all follow for the recipients, sometimes not for all but for a few, sometimes smaller in comparison with others, while greater follow for others. Just as, then, the presence or absence of the shadow of bodies neither pleases nor grieves one who seeks the sun's rays, since he has what is most necessary once he is illuminated, whether he is without shadow or has more or less of it; so, if spiritual things are present to us and we are illuminated by God for the complete possession of the true goods, we shall not quibble about the paltry matter of the shadow. For all material and bodily things, whatever they may be, have the character of a feeble and powerless shadow, and can in no way be compared with the saving and holy gifts of the God of all. For what comparison is there between bodily wealth and wealth “in all speech and all” wisdom? And who, unless mad, would compare health of flesh and bones with a healthy mind, a strong soul, and well-proportioned thoughts? When all these are ordered by the Word of God, bodily sufferings make only a trifling scratch, or whatever we think smaller than a scratch.

And whoever has considered what the beauty is of the bride whom the “bridegroom,” being the Word of God, loves—the soul blossoming with a beauty above heaven and above the world—will be ashamed to honor with the same name of beauty the bodily beauty of a woman or a child or a man. For flesh does not contain beauty in the proper sense, being all ugliness. For “all flesh is as grass,” and its “glory,” which appears in what is called the beauty of women and children, is compared to a flower according to the prophetic word, which says: “All flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass. The grass withered and the flower fell; but the word of the Lord abides for ever.” And who will still properly call nobility what is commonly so called among men, when he has understood the nobility of the sons of God? And how will the mind that has contemplated the “unshakable kingdom” of Christ not despise every earthly kingdom as worth nothing? And having seen clearly, as far as a human mind still bound to a body can, and grasped the army of angels, and among them the chief captains of the Lord's hosts, and archangels and thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities above the heavens, and that it is possible to obtain from the Father equal honor with them, how will he not despise these things admired by the foolish as most obscure and worth nothing in comparison, even if he is feebler than a shadow, and, even if all these were given, disregard them so as not to fail to obtain the true rulers and more divine authorities? We must pray, then, we must pray for the things that are principally and truly great and heavenly; and the matter of the shadows that follow the principal things must be entrusted to God, who knows “what” we “need” because of our perishable body “before” we “ask him.”

Having said enough on these matters, according to the grace given us by God through his Christ, as far as we were able (and would that it were also in the Holy Spirit; whether it is so, you will judge when you read this treatise), and having examined the problem of prayer, we shall now come to the next contest, wishing to consider the prayer outlined by the Lord and with how much power it is filled.

And first of all it must be observed that Matthew and Luke would seem to most people to have recorded the same prayer, given as a pattern of how we ought to pray. Matthew's words run thus: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come; your will be done, as in heaven so also on earth; give us today our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors; and do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Luke's thus: “Father, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come; give us each day our daily bread; and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us; and do not bring us into temptation.”

To those who suppose this it must be said, first, that the words, even if some of them are close to each other, appear to differ in others, as we shall show when we examine them; and second, that it is not possible for the same prayer to have been spoken both on the mountain, where “seeing the crowds he went up,” when “after he sat down his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them” (for in Matthew it is found recorded in the sequence of the account of the beatitudes and the commandments that follow), and also “as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased,” to one “of his disciples” who asked to be taught “to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” For how could the same words have been spoken as a continuous discourse without any previous question, and also have been given at a disciple's request? But perhaps someone might say to this that the prayers are equivalent, spoken as one, sometimes in a continuous discourse and sometimes to another of the disciples who asked, who was probably not present when he said what is in Matthew, or had not retained what was said long before. But perhaps it is better to consider the prayers different, having some parts in common. And having searched in Mark too, in case such an equivalent prayer recorded there should escape us, we found not a trace of a prayer in it.

Since, as we have said above, the one who prays must first be settled and disposed in a certain way and then pray, let us look, before the prayer found in Matthew, at the words spoken about it by our Savior, which run thus: “When you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room and shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees you in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not babble as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, then; for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this.”

In many places, then, our Savior is seen opposing love of glory as a destructive passion; and he has done so here too, turning us away from doing the work of hypocrites at the time of prayer. For it is the work of hypocrites to wish to show off before men their piety or their generosity. We ought rather, remembering the words, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from men and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”, to despise all glory from men, even if it is thought to come for something good, and to seek the proper and true glory from him who alone glorifies the one worthy of glory in a manner befitting himself, beyond the worth of the one glorified. So even what would have been thought good and praiseworthy is defiled, when we do it “that” we may be glorified “by men” or “that” we may be seen “by men”; and therefore no reward from God follows for us for it. For every word of Jesus is free of falsehood, and, if one must speak forcibly, becomes still freer of falsehood when it is spoken with his customary oath. And he says the same about those who seem to do good to their neighbor for human glory, or who pray “in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by men”: “Truly I say to you, they have their reward.” For just as the rich man in Luke received “good things” “in his” human “life,” and because he had received them was no longer able to obtain them after the present life; so the one who has received his “reward,” if he gives anything to anyone or in prayers, since he sowed not “to the Spirit” but “to the flesh,” “will reap” “corruption” but will not “reap” “eternal life.” And he sows “to the flesh” who gives “alms” “in the synagogues and in the streets, that” he may be glorified “by men,” with a trumpet “before” him, or who loves to stand and “pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that,” being seen “by men,” he may be thought pious and holy by those who have seen him.

But also everyone who travels the broad and spacious way that leads to “destruction,” which has nothing straight or direct but is altogether crooked and full of corners (for the straight line is very much broken on it), stands in it not well, praying “at the street corners”; through love of pleasure he comes to be not in one but in several streets, in which those who die “like men,” because they have fallen from divinity, glorify and call blessed those who are held among them to act impiously in the streets. And there are always many who appear in prayer to be “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,” who in the midst of banquets and drinking bouts insult prayer in their drunkenness, truly “standing at the street corners” and praying. For everyone who lives for pleasure, having loved the spacious way, has fallen from the narrow and hard way of Jesus Christ, which has not the slightest bend and no corners at all.

And if there is a difference between church and synagogue (the church in the proper sense having no “spot or wrinkle or any such thing,” but being holy and without blemish, into which neither the one “born of a prostitute” enters, nor the one “crushed” or “cut off,” nor even the Egyptian or the Edomite, unless sons are born to them and by the third generation they can barely be fitted into the church; nor the “Moabite” and “Ammonite,” unless the tenth generation is completed and the age is ended; while the synagogue was built by a centurion, who did this in the times before Jesus' coming, when he had not yet been testified to have such “faith” as the Son of God had not found “even in Israel”), then the one who loves “to pray” “in the synagogues” is not far from “the street corners.” But the saint is not such; for he does not love to pray (φιλεῖ) but loves (ἀγαπᾷ) to pray, and not “in synagogues” but in churches, and not “at the street corners” but on the straightness of the narrow and hard way, and not to be seen “by men” but to appear “before the Lord God.” For he is a male who understands “the acceptable year of the Lord” and keeps the commandment that says, “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord God.”

The word “be seen” must be listened to carefully, since nothing that merely appears is good, being as it were in seeming and not in truth, deceiving the imagination and not reproducing things accurately and truly. Just as actors of certain plays in the theaters are not what they say, nor are they the character whose mask they wear and are seen to be; so all who put on the appearance of the good in seeming are not righteous but actors of righteousness, and they too play their parts in their own theater, “the synagogues and the street corners.” But the one who is not an actor, but has put off everything alien, and prepares himself to please in a theater exceedingly greater than all those mentioned, enters into his own “inner room,” shutting himself in with the treasure “of wisdom and knowledge” in the riches stored up there; and not leaning outward at all, nor gaping at the things outside, and having shut every “door” of the senses, so that he may not be drawn by the senses nor their images intrude into his mind, he prays to the Father who does not flee nor forsake such a secret place but dwells in it, with the Only-begotten present with him. “I,” he says, “and the Father will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” And it is clear that if we pray in this way, we shall make intercession with the righteous one not only as God but as Father, who does not abandon his sons but is present in our “secret place” and watches over it and increases what is in the inner room, if we shut its “door.”

But when we pray, let us not babble (battologein) but speak of God (theologein). We babble when, without examining ourselves or the words of prayer we send up for blemishes, we speak of corrupt deeds or words or thoughts, which are base and blameworthy, foreign to the incorruption of the Lord. The one who babbles in prayer is already in the worse of the synagogue conditions we have described, and on a way harder than that of the street corners, keeping not even a trace of the pretence of good. For according to the words of the gospel only “the Gentiles” babble, who have not even an idea of great or heavenly requests, sending up every prayer about bodily and external things. So the one who asks for things below from the Lord who dwells in heaven and above the heights of the heavens is like a babbling Gentile.

And it seems that the one who uses many words babbles, and the one who babbles uses many words. For nothing material and bodily is one; but each of the things thought to be one is split, cut up, and divided into many, having lost its unity. For the good is one, but shameful things are many; the truth is one, but falsehoods are many; true righteousness is one, but many dispositions imitate it; the wisdom of God is one, but many are the wisdoms “of this age” and “of the rulers of this age,” which are coming to nothing. And the Word of God is one, but many are the words foreign to God. For this reason no one will escape “sin” “in a multitude of words,” and no one who thinks he will be heard “for his many words” can be heard. Therefore our prayers must not be like those of the Gentiles who babble, or use many words, or do whatever they do “after the likeness of the serpent.” For the God of the saints, being “Father,” “knows what” his sons “need,” since these things are worthy of the Father's knowledge. But if someone does not know God, he does not know the things of God either, and he does not know “what” he “needs”; for what he thinks he needs is mistaken. But the one who has contemplated the better and more divine things he lacks, which are known to God, will obtain what he has contemplated, things known to the Father even before he asks. Having said these things about what is said before the prayer in Matthew, let us now look at what is shown in the prayer itself.

“Our Father in heaven.” It is worth examining the so-called Old Testament more carefully, to see whether one can find in it anywhere a prayer of someone calling God “Father”; for we have examined it as far as we could for the present and have not found one. We do not say that God is not called Father, or that those thought to have believed in God were not named sons of God; but that we have not yet found in prayer the boldness proclaimed by the Savior to name God “Father.” That God is called Father, and those who have come to the Word of God sons, can be seen in many places, as in Deuteronomy: “You forsook God who begot you, and forgot God who nourishes you,” and again, “Is not he himself your father, who acquired you and made you and created you?”, and again, “Sons in whom there is no faith”; and in Isaiah, “I begot sons and raised them up, but they rejected me”; and in Malachi, “A son will honor his father, and a servant his master. And if I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear?”

And even if God is called Father, and those begotten by the word of faith in him are called sons, the firmness and unchangeableness of sonship is not to be seen among the ancients. At any rate the very passages we have cited show that those called sons were blameworthy; since, according to the apostle, as long as “the heir is a child, he differs in nothing from a slave, though he is lord of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.” And “the fullness of time” is present in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when those who wish receive adoption as sons, as Paul teaches in these words: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption, in which we cry, Abba, Father”; and in the Gospel according to John: “But to all who received him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name.” And because of this “spirit of adoption” we have learned in the catholic letter of John about those born of God that “everyone who is born of God does not commit sin, because his seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”

If, however, we understand what is meant by “When you pray, say: Father,” as it is written in Luke, we shall hesitate to address this word to him unless we have become true sons, lest besides our other sins we also become liable to a charge of impiety. What I mean is this. Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians: “No one can say, Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit; and no one speaking in the Spirit of God says, Jesus is accursed,” calling the same Spirit both Holy Spirit and Spirit “of God.” But what it means to say “Jesus is Lord” “in the Holy Spirit” is not at all clear, since countless hypocrites utter these words, and still more heterodox people, and sometimes even demons, overcome by the power in the name. No one, then, will dare to declare that any of these says “Jesus is Lord” “in the Holy Spirit.” Therefore they could not even be shown to say “Jesus is Lord”; only those say “Jesus is Lord” who say it from their disposition, in serving the Word of God and proclaiming no other as lord besides him in whatever they do. And if such are those who say “Jesus is Lord,” perhaps everyone who sins, cursing the divine Word by breaking the law, has cried out by his works, “Jesus is accursed.” Just as, then, such a person says “Jesus is Lord,” and the one disposed in the opposite way “Jesus is accursed,” so “everyone who has been born of God” and does not commit “sin,” because he shares in the seed of God, which turns him from every sin, says by what he does, “Our Father in heaven,” the Spirit himself bearing witness “with their spirit” “that” they are “children of God” “and heirs” of him and “fellow heirs” of “Christ,” since, suffering with him, they reasonably hope also to be glorified with him. And so that such people may not say “Our Father” by halves, together with their works their heart too, the source and beginning of good works, believes “unto righteousness,” and in harmony with these their mouth confesses “unto salvation.”

Every deed, then, and word and thought of theirs, formed by the only-begotten Word according to himself, imitates the image “of the invisible God” and has come to be “after the image of the Creator,” who makes “his sun rise on the evil and the good” and sends rain “on the just and the unjust,” so that there is in them “the image of the heavenly,” who is himself the image of God. The saints, then, being an image of an image, the image being the Son, receive the imprint of sonship, becoming conformed not only to the “body of glory” of Christ but also to him who is in “the body.” And they become conformed to him who is in “the body of glory” by being transformed “by the renewal of the mind.” If such people say with their whole being, “Our Father in heaven,” clearly “he who commits sin,” as John says in the catholic letter, “is of the devil, because the devil has sinned from the beginning.” And just as the “seed” of God, abiding in the one who has been born “of God,” is the cause of his being unable to “sin,” for one formed according to the only-begotten Word, so in everyone who commits “sin” there is the “seed” of the devil, as long as it is present in the soul, not allowing the one who has it to do right. But since “for this purpose the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil,” it is possible, by the coming of the Word of God into our soul, when the works “of the devil” have been destroyed, for the evil “seed” planted in us to be wiped out, and for us to become “children of God.”

Let us not think, then, that we are taught to say words at some time set apart for prayer; but if we understand what we examined earlier about praying “without ceasing,” let our whole life, as we pray “without ceasing,” say, “Our Father in heaven,” having its “citizenship” not at all on earth but in every way “in heaven,” which are the thrones of God, because the kingdom of God is established in all who bear “the image of the heavenly” and for this reason have become heavenly.

When the Father of the saints is said to be “in heaven,” we must not suppose that he is circumscribed by a bodily shape and dwells “in heaven”; for then God would be found to be contained, and less than the heavens, since the heavens would contain him. We must be persuaded rather that by the ineffable power of his divinity all things are contained and held together by him. And in general, the expressions that, taken literally, seem to simpler people to say that God is in a place, must be reinterpreted in a way fitting to great and spiritual conceptions of God, such as these in the Gospel according to John: “Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end”; and a little after, “knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God”; and after other things, “You heard me say to you, I am going away, and I am coming to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father”; and again after other things, “But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, Where are you going?” For if these are to be taken in a local sense, clearly so too must this: “Jesus answered and said to them, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”

But these things do not happen through a local movement of the Father and the Son to the one who loves Jesus' word; so neither are the former to be taken in a local sense. Rather, the Word of God, condescending to us and humbled, as regards his own dignity, when he is among men, is said to pass “out of this world to the Father,” so that we too may behold him there in his perfection, returning from the emptiness among us, in which “he emptied himself,” to his own “fullness”; where we too, using him as our guide, shall be filled and set free from all emptiness. Let the Word of God, then, leave the world and go away “to him who sent” him, and let him go “to the Father.” And let us seek to understand in a more mystical way also the words at the end of the Gospel according to John, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father,” when we understand the Son's ascent “to the Father” in a manner more worthy of God, with holy clarity, as an ascent in which the mind ascends rather than the body.

I think I have examined these things together with “Our Father in heaven” in order to remove the base conception of God held by those who think he is “in heaven” in a local sense, and to allow no one to say that God is in a bodily place (for it follows from this that he is also a body), from which follow most impious doctrines: to suppose that he is divisible, material, and corruptible; for every body is divisible, material, and corruptible. Or let them tell us, not with empty imaginings but claiming to understand clearly, how it is possible for it to be of a nature other than material. And since many passages of the Scriptures written before Christ's bodily coming also seem to say that God is in a bodily place, it does not seem out of place to me to set out a few of them too, in order to remove every distraction from those who, through simplicity, confine the God over all, as far as they can, in a small and narrow place. First, in Genesis, it says, “Adam” and Eve “heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the paradise in the evening; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the tree of the paradise.” We shall say to those who do not wish to enter the treasures of the text, and do not even knock at its “door” at all, whether they can show that the Lord God, who fills “heaven and earth,” who, as they suppose, in a rather bodily way uses “heaven” as a throne and “the earth” as a footstool “for his feet,” is contained by a place so small in comparison with the whole heaven and earth that the paradise they suppose to be bodily is not filled by God but is so much greater than he in size that it holds him even as he walks, his “voice” being heard from the tread of his feet. And still more absurd, on their view, is that Adam and Eve, ashamed before God because of the transgression, hid “from the face of God in the midst of the tree of the paradise.” For it is not said that they wished to hide in this way, but that they actually “hid.” And how, on their view, does God ask Adam, “Where are you?”

We have discussed these matters more fully in examining the passages in Genesis; but now too, so as not to pass over so great a problem entirely in silence, it will be enough to recall the words, “I will dwell among them and walk among them,” said by God in Deuteronomy. For such as is his walking among the saints, such also is his walking in paradise; every sinner hides from God, flees his visitation, and withdraws from boldness; for so also “Cain went out from the face of God and dwelt in the land of Naid opposite Eden.” As, then, he dwells in the saints, so also in heaven: either in every saint who bears “the image of the heavenly,” or in Christ, in whom are all who are being saved, the “lights” and stars of heaven; or he dwells there because of the saints in heaven, according to the words, “To you I have lifted up my eyes, you who dwell in heaven.” And the saying in Ecclesiastes, “Do not hasten to bring out a word before the face of God; for God is in heaven above, and you on earth below,” means to show the distance between those who are in the body “of humiliation” and the one who is with the angels and holy powers exalted by benefit and by the Word, or with Christ himself. For it is not absurd that he himself should properly be the throne of the Father, called heaven in a more allegorical sense, and that his church, called earth, should be “the footstool of his feet.”

We have added, then, a few passages of the Old Testament that are thought to present God as in a place, in order to persuade the reader in every way, according to the power given us, to understand the divine Scripture in a loftier and more spiritual way when it seems to teach that God is in a place. It was fitting to examine these together with “Our Father in heaven,” which as it were separates the being of God from all created things; for on those in which he does not share, a certain glory of God and his power, and, so to speak, an emanation of the divinity, comes to be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Give us today our daily bread,” or as Luke has it, “Give us each day our daily bread.” Since some suppose that we are told to pray for bodily bread, it is right to remove their false opinion by the following and to set forth the truth about the daily bread. We must say to them: how can he who says we must ask for heavenly and great things, as though, on their view, he had forgotten what he taught, command us to offer a petition to the Father about something earthly and small, since neither is the bread that is distributed into our flesh heavenly, nor is it a great request to ask for it?

But we, following him as teacher, who teaches about the bread, shall set these things out at greater length. In the Gospel according to John he says to those who had come to Capernaum seeking him: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” For the one who has eaten “of the loaves” blessed by Jesus and been filled with them seeks more to understand the Son of God more exactly, and hastens to him. Therefore he rightly commands, saying: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” And when those who heard asked about this, saying, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” And God “sent his word and healed them,” as is written in the Psalms, clearly those who were sick; by this Word those who believe do “the works of God,” which are “food that endures to eternal life.” “And my Father,” he says, “gives you the true bread from heaven; for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” And the true “bread” is that which nourishes the “true” “man,” the one made “in the image of God,” by which the one nourished comes to be also “in the likeness” “of the Creator.” And what is more nourishing to the soul than the Word, or what more precious to the mind that receives it than the wisdom of God? And what is more suited to rational nature than truth?

And if someone objects to this, saying that he would not teach us to ask for the daily bread as though it were something other than himself, let him hear that in the Gospel according to John he speaks sometimes as of something other than himself, and sometimes as being himself the bread. As of another, in these words: “Moses gave you the bread from heaven,” “not” “the true bread,” “but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.” But as of himself he says to those who said to him, “Give us this bread always”: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” And a little after: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

And since all food is called “bread” in Scripture, as is clear from what is written about Moses, that he ate “no bread” for “forty days and drank no water,” and since the nourishing word is varied and diverse, not all being able to be nourished by the solidity and vigor of the divine teachings, for this reason, wishing to present athletic food suited to the more perfect, he says: “The bread which I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world”; and a little after: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will also live because of me.” This is the “true” “food,” the “flesh” of Christ, which, being “Word,” has become “flesh,” according to the saying, “And the Word became flesh.” And when we eat and drink him, “he also dwelt among us”; and when he is distributed, the words are fulfilled, “We beheld his glory.” “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.”

And Paul, speaking to the Corinthians as “infants” who walk “in a human way,” says: “I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not yet able. Nor even now are you able; for you are still fleshly”; and in the Letter to the Hebrews: “And you have come to need milk, not solid food. For everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant; but solid food is for the mature, who by practice have their faculties trained to distinguish good from evil.” And I think that the words, “One believes he may eat anything, while the weak eats vegetables,” are not spoken by him primarily about bodily food, but about the words of God that nourish the soul: the most faithful and most perfect can partake of all, whom he indicates by “one believes he may eat anything”; while the weaker and less perfect is content with simpler teachings that do not produce much vigor, whom he wishes to indicate when he says, “the weak eats vegetables.”

And I think that what is said by Solomon in Proverbs teaches that one who, because of his simplicity, cannot receive the more vigorous and greater doctrines (though his opinions are not mistaken) is better than one who is quicker and sharper and grasps things more largely but does not make clear the account of the peace and harmony of the universe. His words run thus: “Better is a meal of vegetables with friendship and grace than a calf from the stall with enmity.” Often, at any rate, we have preferred a plain and simple entertainment with a good conscience, being received by those who could not provide us more, to the loftiness of words exalted “against the knowledge of God,” which with much persuasiveness proclaims a doctrine foreign to the Father of our Lord Jesus, who gave “the law and the prophets.” So that we may neither fall sick in soul through lack of food nor die to God through “a famine of the word of the Lord,” let us ask of the Father the living bread, which is the same as the daily bread, obeying our teacher and Savior, believing and living more rightly.

Now we must consider what “daily” (epiousios) means. First, it must be known that the word epiousios is used by no Greek writer, whether among the learned, nor is it current in the everyday speech of ordinary people, but it seems to have been coined by the evangelists. At any rate Matthew and Luke agreed in using it, without any difference. The translators of the Hebrew Scriptures did the same in other cases. For what Greek ever used the word enōtizou (“give ear”) or akoutisthēti (“be made to hear”) instead of “receive into your ears” and “cause yourself to hear”? A word similar to epiousios is written by Moses, spoken by God: “But you shall be to me” “a people for my own possession (periousios).” And it seems to me that each word is formed from ousia (“being”): the one showing the bread that contributes to our being, the other signifying the people that is occupied with being and shares in it.

Being (ousia) in the proper sense, according to those who say that the existence of incorporeal things is primary, is understood to belong to incorporeal things, which possess being firmly and neither admit addition nor suffer subtraction (for this belongs to bodies, in which growth and decay occur because they are in flux and need something that comes in to support and nourish them; if at any time more comes in than flows away, there is increase, and if less, decrease; and perhaps some things that receive nothing at all coming in are, so to speak, in unmixed decrease). But according to those who think that incorporeal existence is secondary and that of bodies primary, its definitions are these: being is either the primary matter of existing things, from which existing things come; or the matter of bodies, from which bodies come; or of things named, from which things named come; or the first substrate without quality; or that which underlies existing things; or that which receives all changes and alterations while itself unaltered in its own nature; or that which endures every alteration and change. According to these, being is in its own nature without quality and without shape, and does not even have a determined size, but lies ready for every quality like a prepared place. And by qualities, in their technical sense, they mean activities and productions in general, in which motions and states happen to exist; for they say that being in its own nature participates in none of these, but is always inseparable from one of them by being affected, and nonetheless is receptive of all the activities of the agent, as it acts and changes it; for the tension that is with it and has passed through all of it would be the cause of every quality and of the dispositions concerning it. And they say that it is changeable throughout and divisible throughout, and that every being can be mingled with every other, while remaining united.

Since we have said these things in inquiring about being, because of “the daily” “bread” and the “people for his own possession,” in order to distinguish the meanings of “being,” and since in what went before the bread we ought to ask for was intelligible bread, it is necessary to understand being as akin to the bread; so that, just as bodily bread, distributed into the body of the one nourished, passes into his being, so “the living” “bread” that came down “from heaven,” distributed into the mind and soul, imparts its own power to the one who has given himself to the nourishment that comes from it; and so the “bread” we ask for will be “daily” (epiousios). And again, just as the one nourished comes to have different strength according to the quality of the “food,” whether “solid” and suited to athletes, or like milk or vegetables, so it follows that, as the Word of God is given either as milk suitably to children, or as vegetables fittingly to the sick, or as meat seasonably to those who contend, each of those nourished, in proportion to the Word to which he has given himself, is able to do this or that and to become this kind or that. There is, however, some supposed food that is poisonous, another that causes disease, and another that cannot even be digested; all of which must be transferred by analogy to the differences among the teachings thought to be nourishing. The daily bread, then, is the one most suited to rational nature and akin to being itself, bringing health, good condition, and strength to the soul, and imparting its own immortality (for the Word of God is immortal) to the one who eats it.

This daily bread seems to me to be called by another name in Scripture, “the tree of life”: whoever stretches out “his hand” to it and takes from it “will live for ever.” And by a third name this “tree” is called the “wisdom” of God by Solomon, in these words: “She is a tree of life to all who lay hold of her, and to those who lean upon her as upon the Lord she is secure.” And since the angels too are nourished by the wisdom of God, being strengthened by the contemplation of truth with wisdom to accomplish their own works, it is said in the Psalms that the angels too are nourished, the men of God, who are called Hebrews, sharing with the angels and becoming as it were their table companions. Such is the meaning of “Man ate the bread of angels.” For let our mind not be so impoverished as to think that the angels are always nourished by partaking of some bodily bread, the one recorded to have come down from heaven for those who had come out of Egypt, and that the Hebrews shared this very bread with the angels, the ministering spirits of God.

It is not out of place, as we inquire into “the daily” “bread,” and “the tree of life,” and the wisdom of God, the common food of holy men and angels, to consider also what is written in Genesis about the three men who lodged with Abraham and partook of three measures of “fine flour” kneaded to make cakes baked in the ashes: whether perhaps this is said purely figuratively, since the saints can sometimes impart spiritual and rational food not only to men but also to more divine powers, either for their benefit or to show what very nourishing things they have been able to acquire for themselves; the angels being gladdened and nourished by such a display, and becoming more ready to work with them in every way and in future to join in helping them to a grasp of more and greater things, the man who had been prepared with the former nourishing teachings having gladdened and, so to speak, nourished them. And it is no wonder if a man feeds angels, when even Christ confesses that he stands at “the door” and knocks, so that, entering in to the one who opens to him, he may dine “with him” from what is his, and afterwards himself impart of his own to the one who first, according to his own power, entertained the Son of God.

The one who partakes of the daily bread, then, strengthened in his “heart,” becomes a son of God; but the one who partakes “of the dragon” is none other than the spiritual Ethiopian, changing into a serpent himself through the nets of “the dragon,” so that, reproached by the Word, even if he says he wishes to be baptized, he hears: “Serpents, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” And David says this about the dragon's body feasted on by the Ethiopians: “You crushed the heads of the dragons on the water; you broke the head of the dragon; you gave him as food to the peoples, the Ethiopians.” And if it is not incongruous, since the Son of God subsists in his own being and the adversary also subsists, that each of them should become food for this person or that, why do we hesitate to accept, of all the powers, better and worse, and of men, that each one of us can be nourished by all of these? Peter at any rate, when he was about to have fellowship with the centurion Cornelius and those gathered with him at Caesarea, and afterwards to impart the words of God to the Gentiles too, sees the “vessel” “let down by four corners” from heaven, “in which were all kinds of four-footed animals and reptiles and beasts of the earth”; when he is commanded to “rise,” kill, and eat, and, after he had declined and said, You know “that nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth,” he is commanded “to call no man common or unclean,” because what has been cleansed by God must not be made common by Peter; for the text says, “What God has cleansed, do not call common.” So the clean and unclean food distinguished by the law of Moses under the names of many animals, referring to the different characters of rational beings, teaches that some are nourishing to us and others the opposite, until God has cleansed all and made them nourishing, or those “of every kind.”

This being so, and there being such a difference of foods, one bread, beyond all those mentioned, is the daily bread, for which we must pray, so that we may be counted worthy of it and, nourished by God the Word who was “in the beginning” “with God,” may be made divine. But someone will say that epiousios is formed from epienai (“to come”), so that we are commanded to ask for the bread belonging to the age to come, so that God may anticipate it and give it to us now; so that what will be given as it were tomorrow may be given us “today,” “today” being taken as the present age and tomorrow as the age to come. But since the former interpretation is better, in my judgment at least, let us examine “today,” added to these words in Matthew, or “each day,” written in Luke. It is customary in many places of Scripture for the whole age to be called “today,” as in “He is the father of the Moabites to this day,” and “He is the father of the Ammonites to this day,” and “This story has been spread among the Jews to this day,” and in the Psalms, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” And in Joshua it is said most clearly thus: “Do not depart from the Lord in the days of today.” And if this whole age is “today,” perhaps “yesterday” is the past age. We have supposed that this is said in the Psalms and by Paul in the Letter to the Hebrews; in the Psalms thus: “A thousand years in your eyes are like yesterday, which has passed” (whatever is the famous millennium, which is likened to the day “yesterday,” as distinct from “today”); and in the apostle it is written: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.” And it is no wonder that for God the whole age has the proportion of the length of one of our days; indeed I think even less.

And we must examine whether the principles of the feasts or festivals recorded according to “days” or “months” or “seasons” or “years” refer to ages. For if “the law has a shadow of the things to come,” the many sabbaths must be a “shadow” of many days, and the new moons must come round at intervals of time, accomplished by I know not what moon in conjunction with what sun. And if the “first” “month,” and the tenth day “until the fourteenth,” and the feast of unleavened bread from the fourteenth “until the twenty-first,” contain a “shadow” “of things to come,” “who is wise and” so much a “friend” of God as to see the first of many months, and its tenth day, and what follows? And why need I speak of the feast of seven weeks of days, and of the seventh month (whose new moon is a day “of trumpets,” and “on the tenth” “a day of atonement”), known only to God, who gave these laws? And who has so received the mind of Christ as to understand the seventh years of the release of Hebrew servants and of “the remission” of debts, and of rest from cultivating the holy land? And there is also something higher than the seven-year feast, the one called the Jubilee, of which no one can form even a slight clear idea, or of the true laws to be fulfilled in it, except the one who has contemplated the Father's counsel about the ordering of all the ages according to “his” “unsearchable” “judgments” and his untraceable ways.

I have often been perplexed, when I compare two sayings of the apostle, how there is a consummation “of the ages,” at which Jesus “has appeared” “once for all” “to put away sins,” if there are to be ages coming after this one. His words run thus, in the Letter to the Hebrews: “But now once for all at the consummation of the ages he has appeared to put away sins by the sacrifice of himself”; and in the Letter to the Ephesians: “so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us.” And conjecturing about such great matters, I think that, just as the last month is the consummation of the year, after which the beginning of another month comes, so perhaps, since many ages complete as it were a year of ages, the present age is a consummation, after which certain ages to come will arrive, whose beginning is the age to come; and in those ages to come God will show the riches “of his grace in kindness”; while the greatest sinner, who has blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, is held by sin in the whole present age, and from beginning to end in the age to come, and after that will be dealt with I know not how.

Whoever, then, has seen these things, and has conceived in his understanding a week of ages, so as to contemplate a holy sabbath rest; and a month of ages, so as to see the holy new moon of God; and a year of ages, so as to understand the feasts of the year, when “every male” must appear before “the Lord God”; and the corresponding years of such great ages, so as to grasp the seventh holy year; and seven weeks of ages, so as to praise him who gave such great laws—how can he, having examined these things, quibble about the smallest fraction of an hour of a day of so great an age, and not do everything so that, having become worthy through his preparation here to obtain the daily bread, he may receive it on the day “today” and “each day,” the meaning of “each day” now being clear from what has been said? For the one who prays to God, who is from infinity to infinity, not only for “today” but also in some way for “each day,” will be able to receive from him who can give “far more abundantly than all we ask or think,” to speak hyperbolically, even things beyond what “eye has not seen, and” beyond what “ear has not heard, and” beyond what “has not entered into the heart of man.”

These things seemed to me most necessary to examine, so that both “today” and “each day” might be understood, when we pray that “the daily” “bread” be given “to us” by his Father. And if, according to the last book, we examine “our” first—since it is said not, “Give us today our daily bread,” but, “Give us each day our daily bread”—still we must examine how this bread is “ours.” The apostle teaches that “whether life or death or things present or things to come, all” belong to the saints; about which it is not necessary to speak at present.

“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,” or as Luke has it, “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves have also forgiven everyone who is indebted to us.” The apostle too speaks about debts: “Pay to all what is owed: tribute to whom tribute is due, fear to whom fear, custom to whom custom, honor to whom honor. Owe no one anything, except to love one another.” We are debtors, then, having certain duties, not only in giving but also in kindly speech and in certain deeds; and we also owe a certain disposition toward others. Owing these things, we either pay them by accomplishing what is commanded by the divine law, or, by despising sound reason and not paying them, we remain in debt.

The like must be understood of our debts to the brothers, both those born again with us in Christ according to the word of piety, and those born of the same mother or the same father as we. There is also a debt toward fellow citizens, and another common one toward all men, especially toward strangers and those who are of an age to be our fathers, and another toward some whom it is reasonable to honor as sons or as brothers. The one, then, who does not do what is owed to his brothers remains a debtor for what he has not done. So too, if we fall short in what the loving spirit of wisdom lays upon us toward men, the debt becomes greater. And also in what concerns ourselves, we owe it to use the body in a certain way, not wearing away the flesh of the body through love of pleasure; and we owe it to the soul to give it a certain care, and to take thought for the sharpness of the mind and for our speech, that it may be without sting, beneficial, and never idle. And when we do not do what we owe to ourselves, the debt becomes heavier for us.

And above all these, being God's “workmanship” and creation beyond all, we owe it to keep a certain disposition toward him, and love “with all the heart” “and with all the strength” “and with all the mind”; and if we do not accomplish these things, we remain debtors to God, sinning against the Lord. And who will pray for us then? For “if a man sins against a man, they will pray for him; but if he sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?”, as Eli says in the first book of Kingdoms. And since Christ has bought us with his own blood, we are debtors, as every servant is a debtor to the one who bought him for the sum paid for him. There is a debt also toward “the Holy Spirit,” paid when we do not grieve him, “by whom” we were sealed “for the day of redemption,” and, not grieving him, bear the fruits required of us, while he is with us and gives life to our soul. And even if we do not know exactly who is the angel of each of us who beholds “the face” of the “Father” “in heaven,” yet it becomes clear to each of us who considers it that we are debtors to him too for certain things. And if we are in a theater of the world and of angels and of men, we must know that, just as the one in a theater is a debtor to say or do certain things in the sight of the spectators, and if he does not do them is punished as having insulted the whole theater, so we too owe “to the” whole “world” “and” to all the “angels” and to the human race these things, which, if we are willing, we shall learn from wisdom.

Besides these, which are more general, there is a debt of a widow provided for by the church, another of a deacon, and another of a presbyter; and the debt of a bishop is the heaviest, being required by the Savior of the whole church and avenged if it is not paid. And the apostle has named a certain debt common to husband and wife, saying, “Let the husband render to his wife her due, and likewise also the wife to her husband”; and he adds, “Do not deprive one another.” And why need I speak further, when those who read this treatise can gather for themselves from what has been said how many things we owe, and either will be held fast for not paying them, or will be set free by paying them? But it is not possible for one in this life not to be in debt at every hour of night and day.

But being in debt, one either pays the debt or withholds it; and it is possible in this life to pay, and possible also to withhold. And some owe no one anything; some, paying most, owe little; some, paying little, owe more; and perhaps there is one who pays nothing but owes everything. And the one who pays everything, so as to owe nothing, achieves this at some time, needing forgiveness for his former debts; and this forgiveness can reasonably be obtained by one who has striven from some point in time to become such that he owes nothing of what falls to him as unpaid. These lawless acts, imprinted on the ruling faculty, become “the bond against us” by which we shall be judged, like books written, so to speak, in the hand of all, which will be brought forward when “we shall all stand before the judgment seat” “of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or bad.” With reference to these debts it is also said in Proverbs: “Do not give yourself as surety, if you are ashamed before a face; for if he has nothing with which to repay, they will take the bed from under your ribs.”

And if we owe so many, certainly some also owe us: some owe us as men, some as fellow citizens, others as fathers, and some as sons, and besides these wives to us as husbands, or friends to us as friends. When, then, some of our many debtors are rather slack in paying the duties owed to us, we shall act more humanely if we bear with them without grudges and remember our own debts, how many we have often neglected, not only toward men but toward God himself. For remembering the debts we owed and did not pay but withheld, when the time passed in which we ought to have done certain things for our neighbor, we shall be gentler toward those who owe us and have not paid their debt; especially if we do not forget our transgressions against the Deity, and the unrighteousness we have spoken “against the height,” whether through ignorance of the truth or through discontent with the circumstances that befell us.

But if we are unwilling to become gentler toward those who owe us, we shall suffer what befell the one who did not forgive his fellow servant the “hundred denarii.” According to the parable in the gospel, though he had been forgiven before, the master arrested him and exacted what had been forgiven, saying to him, “You wicked and slothful servant,” “should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” Throw him “into” the “prison,” “until he pays all that is owed.” And the Lord adds to this: “So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if you do not forgive each his brother from your hearts.” They say, however, that we must forgive those who sin against us when they repent, even if our debtor does this many times; for “if your brother sins against you seven times in the day,” he says, “and turns to you seven times saying, I repent, you shall forgive him.” It is not we who are harsh toward those who do not repent, but such people are evil to themselves; for “he who rejects discipline hates himself.” Yet even with such people we must seek in every way that healing may come to one who has become so perverse in everything that he is not even aware of his own evils, but is drunk with a drunkenness more destructive than that “from wine,” the drunkenness that comes from the darkness of wickedness.

And Luke, in saying, “Forgive us our sins” (since sins consist in our owing and not paying), says the same as Matthew; and he seems not to give room to anyone who wishes to forgive only debtors who repent, since he says that the Savior laid down that we must add in the prayer, “for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” All of us, indeed, have power to forgive the sins committed against us; which is clear both from “as we also forgive our debtors” and from “for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” But the one who has been breathed upon by Jesus, as the apostles were, and can be known “by his fruits,” as one who has received the Holy Spirit and become spiritual by being led by the Spirit, like a son of God, in each thing that is to be done according to reason, forgives whatever God forgives and retains the incurable sins, serving God, who alone has power to forgive, just as the prophets served him in speaking not their own words but those of the divine will.

In the Gospel according to John the words about the forgiveness given by the apostles run thus: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” If someone takes these words without examination, he might blame the apostles for not forgiving all, so that all might be forgiven, but retaining “the sins” “of some,” so that because of them they are retained with God too. But it is useful to take an example from the law in order to understand the forgiveness of sins given to men by God through men. The priests under the law are forbidden to offer sacrifice for certain sins, so that the offenses of those for whom the sacrifices are made may be forgiven. And certainly the priest, who has authority to offer for certain involuntary sins or offenses, does not on that account offer “a whole burnt offering and a sin offering” for adultery or voluntary murder or any other graver fault. So too, then, the apostles and those who have become like the apostles, being priests after the “great” “High Priest,” having received knowledge of the service of God, know, being taught by the Spirit, for which sins sacrifices should be offered, and when, and in what way, and they know for which this should not be done. The priest Eli, at any rate, knowing that his sons Hophni and Phinehas were sinning, and being unable to help them toward the forgiveness of their sins, confesses that he despairs of it in these words: “If a man sins against a man, they will pray for him; but if he sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?”

I do not know how some, taking upon themselves what is beyond the priestly dignity, perhaps not even having exact priestly knowledge, boast that they can pardon even idolatry, and forgive adultery and sexual immorality, as though through their prayer for those who have dared these things even the sin “unto death” were loosed. For they do not read, “There is a sin unto death; I do not say that one should ask about that.” Nor must we pass over in silence the most courageous Job, who offered sacrifice for his sons, saying, “Perhaps my sons have thought evil against God in their minds”; for he offers the sacrifice about doubtful cases, whether a sin had been committed, and one that had not even reached as far as the lips.

“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.

After this it seems to me not out of place, in order to complete the question of prayer, to discuss in a more introductory way the disposition and posture the one who prays should have, the place where one should pray, the direction to which one should look, apart from any special circumstance, and the time suitable and set apart for prayer, and anything similar. The disposition must be referred to the soul, the posture to the body. Paul, then, as we said above, describes the disposition when he says one must “pray” “without anger or disputing,” and the posture in “lifting up holy hands,” which he seems to me to have taken from the Psalms, which say, “The lifting up of my hands, an evening sacrifice.” About place: “I wish, then, that the men pray in every place.” About direction, in the Wisdom of Solomon: “that it may be known that one must rise before the sun to give you thanks, and meet you before the dawn of light.”

It seems to me, then, that one who is about to come to prayer should pause a little and prepare himself, and so become more attentive and more intent for the whole of his prayer; having cast off every temptation and disturbance of thoughts, and having reminded himself as far as possible of the greatness of him whom he approaches, and that it is impious to approach him slackly, carelessly, and as it were contemptuously; having put away everything foreign, he should so come to pray, stretching out, as it were, his soul before his hands, and straining his mind toward God before his eyes, and raising his ruling faculty from the ground before he stands, and setting it before the Lord of all; having put away every grudge against any of those thought to have wronged him, as far as he wishes God not to bear a grudge against him, who has wronged and sinned against many of his neighbors, or is conscious of having done whatever things contrary to right reason. Nor must we doubt that, among countless positions of the body, the position with hands outstretched and eyes raised is to be preferred to all, as bearing in the body too the image of the qualities that befit the soul in prayer. We say that this should be done in the first place when there is no special circumstance; for when there is such a circumstance, it is allowed properly to pray sometimes sitting, because of some not negligible disease of the feet, or even lying down because of fevers or similar illnesses; and because of circumstances, for example if we are on a ship, or if our affairs do not allow us to withdraw and pay the prayer we owe, it is possible to pray without even appearing to do so.

And one must know that kneeling is necessary when one is about to accuse oneself of one's own sins before God, entreating for healing from them and for their forgiveness, since it is a symbol of one who has fallen down and submitted, as Paul says: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.” And spiritual kneeling, so called because every being has fallen down before God “in the name of Jesus” and humbled itself before him, the apostle seems to me to indicate in the words, “that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” For we must certainly not suppose that the bodies of the heavenly beings are so shaped as to have bodily knees, since their bodies have been shown to be spherical by those who have treated these matters exactly. And whoever does not wish to accept this will also accept, unless he is shameless against reason, the uses of each of the members, so that nothing may have been made for them by God in vain; stumbling either way, whether he says that members of the body were made for them by God in vain and not for their proper function, or says that the entrails and the rectum perform their proper functions even in the heavenly beings. And he will behave very foolishly if he thinks that, like statues, only the surface is human in shape, but not what is within. These things I say as I examine kneeling and see that “in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” And what is written in the prophet, “To me every knee shall bow,” is the same.

And about place, we must know that every place becomes suitable for prayer through the one who prays well; for “in every place offer incense to me,” “says the Lord,” and, “I wish, then, that the men pray in every place.” But everyone has also a set place, so that he may perform his prayers in quiet without distraction: choosing, if possible, the most venerable spot, so to speak, in his own house, and so praying; examining, besides the general examination of himself, whether any lawless deed has ever been done in this place in which he prays, or anything contrary to right reason; for then he has made, as it were, not only himself but also the place of his prayer such that God's visitation flees from it. And as I consider this further, something must be said also about this place which might seem harsh, but which perhaps will not be despised by one who examines it carefully. For we must examine whether it is holy and pure to intercede with God in the place of intercourse that is not unlawful but permitted by the apostle's word “by way of concession, not of command.” For if it is not possible to devote oneself “to prayer” as one ought unless one gives oneself to this “by agreement for a time,” perhaps the place too must be considered, if possible.

A place of prayer has a certain grace that brings benefit, namely the place where believers assemble together, as is likely; since angelic powers stand over the gatherings of believers, and the power of our Lord and Savior himself, and also the spirits of saints—I think even of those who have already fallen asleep, and clearly of those still alive, even if it is not easy to say how. About angels we must reason thus. If “the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them,” and Jacob speaks truly, not only about himself but about all who are devoted to God who understands, when he says, “the angel who delivers me from all evils,” it is likely that, when many have genuinely gathered for the glory of Christ, the angel of each, who is “around” each of “those who fear” him, encamps with the man he has been entrusted to guard and direct; so that, when the saints are gathered, there is a twofold church, one of men and one of angels. And if Raphael says that he brought up the prayer of Tobit alone, and after him of Sarah, who later became his daughter-in-law by marrying Tobias, for a “memorial,” what must be said when many journey together in the same mind and the same judgment and are formed into one body in Christ? And about the power of the Lord present with the church Paul says, “When you are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus,” as though the power “of the Lord Jesus” were joined not only with the Ephesians but also with the Corinthians. And if Paul, while still clothed with the body, thought that he helped by his own spirit in Corinth, we must not despair that the blessed who have departed also reach the churches in spirit, perhaps more than one who is in the body. Therefore we must not despise the prayers in the churches, since they have something exceptional for the one who genuinely joins in them.

And just as the power of Jesus, the spirit of Paul and those like him, and the angels “of the Lord” who encamp “around” each of the saints journey with and come together with those who gather genuinely, so we must conjecture that, if someone is unworthy of a holy angel and gives himself to an angel of the devil through his sins and his contempt of God in breaking the law—such a person, as long as those like him are few, will not long escape the notice of the providence of the angels, who, serving the divine will, oversee the church and bring the faults of such a one to the knowledge of the many. But if such people become numerous and come together in human factions, busying themselves with something rather worldly, they will not be watched over. This is shown in Isaiah when the Lord says, “Not even if you come to appear before me”; for “I will turn away my eyes from you,” he says, “and even if you multiply your supplication, I will not hear you.” For perhaps instead of the twofold company of holy men and blessed angels mentioned before, there comes to be in the same place a twofold assembly of impious men and evil angels; and of the gathering of such people it might be said by the holy angels and by holy men: “I have not sat with the council of vanity, and I will not go in with transgressors; I have hated the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the impious.”

For this reason I think also that those in Jerusalem and all Judea who had fallen into many sins were made subject to their enemies, because the peoples who had abandoned the law were abandoned by God, by the angels who protected them, and by the saving help of holy men. So too whole gatherings are sometimes left to fall into temptations, so that “even what” they seem “to have” may be taken from them; like the fig tree that was cursed and withered “from the roots” because it did not give fruit to the hungry Jesus, they wither and lose whatever little life-giving power they had in faith. These things seemed to me necessary to say as I examined the place of prayer and set forth what is exceptional, as regards place, in the gathering of the saints who come together devoutly in the church.

Now a few words must be said about the direction to which one should look when praying. There are four directions, north and south, west and east; who would not at once admit that the east clearly indicates that we should turn that way and make our prayers symbolically, as the soul looks toward the rising of the true light? And if someone prefers to offer his petitions toward the open part of the house, wherever the doors of the house face, saying that the view of the sky has something that invites one more than looking at a wall, if the eastern side of the house happens not to be open, we must say to him that since the buildings of men open toward these or those directions by convention, while the east is by nature preferred to the other directions, what is by nature must be put before what is by convention. Moreover, according to this reasoning, why should one who wishes to pray in a plain pray toward the east rather than the west? And if there the east is reasonably to be preferred, why should this not be done everywhere? So much for this.

It seems good to me, having also treated the topics of prayer, to end the treatise thus. Four topics seem to me to be outlined, which I have found scattered in the Scriptures, and each person should give body to his prayer according to them. These are the topics. At the beginning and preface of the prayer one should, as far as one can, speak glorification of God, through Christ, who is glorified with him, in the Holy Spirit, who is praised with him. After this each should place thanksgivings, both general ones, bringing into the thanksgiving the benefits given to many, and for what he has received from God in particular. After the thanksgiving it seems to me that one should become a bitter accuser of one's own sins before God and ask, first, for healing, so as to be freed from the habit that leads to sinning, and second, for forgiveness of past sins. After the confession, it seems to me that one should add, fourth, the request for great and heavenly things, both one's own and general ones, and for one's household and dearest friends. And after all these, one should end the prayer with glorification of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

These topics, as we said, we have found scattered in the Scriptures: that of glorification in these words in the hundred and third psalm: “O Lord my God, how greatly you are magnified! You have clothed yourself with praise and majesty, who wraps himself in light as in a garment, who stretches out the heaven like a skin, who roofs his upper chambers with waters, who makes the clouds his chariot, who walks on the wings of the winds, who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire, who founded the earth on its sure foundation; it shall not be moved for ever and ever. The deep, like a garment, is his covering; the waters will stand upon the mountains; at your rebuke they will flee, at the voice of your thunder they will be afraid.” And most of this psalm contains glorification of the Father. One can gather more for oneself and see how the topic of glorification is scattered in many places.

Of thanksgiving let this example be set out, found in the second book of Kingdoms, spoken by David after the promises made to him through Nathan, when he was amazed at God's gifts and gave thanks for them in these words: “Who am I, O Lord my Lord, and what is my house, that you have loved me thus far? And I was made small in your sight, my Lord, and you have spoken concerning the house of your servant for a long time to come; and this is the law of man, O Lord my Lord. And what more can David say to you? And now you know your servant, O Lord; for your servant's sake you have done it, and according to your heart you have done all this greatness, to make it known to your servant, so as to magnify you, O Lord my Lord.”

An example of confession: “Deliver me from all my transgressions”; and elsewhere: “My wounds have grown foul and festered because of my folly; I have been wretched and bowed down utterly; all the day I went about mourning.”

Of requests, in the twenty-seventh psalm: “Do not drag me away with sinners, and do not destroy me with those who work iniquity,” and anything like these.

And it is reasonable, having begun with glorification, to end the prayer by concluding with glorification, hymning and glorifying the Father of all “through Jesus Christ” in the Holy Spirit, “to whom be glory for ever.”

These are the things I have struggled through, as far as I was able, on the question of prayer, and on the prayer in the Gospels and what is said before it in Matthew, most studious and most genuine brother and sister in piety, Ambrose and Tatiana. I do not despair that, as you strain forward “to what lies ahead” and forget what lies behind, and pray for me in these matters, I may be able to receive from God who gives more and more divine things about all these, and, having received them, treat the same subjects again in a nobler, loftier, and clearer way. But for the present, read this with indulgence.