The Lord's Prayer in the early church

Didache 8.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Pray the Lord's Prayer.
Didache 8.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Pray the Lord's Prayer three times a day.
Diatessaron, section 9Tatian · ca. 160-180
On Prayer 1Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Christ, the Spirit, Word, and Reason of God, gave his new disciples a new, brief form of prayer, to be offered in secret, that sums up the whole gospel.
On Prayer 2Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · In calling God “Father” we honor him, fulfill Christ's command, and acknowledge the Son and the church, our mother, while rebuking those who do not know the Father.
On Prayer 3Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · The Father's name, revealed in the Son, is already holy; in praying “hallowed be your name” we join the angels' praise and ask that it be hallowed in us and in all people, even our enemies.
On Prayer 4Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · In praying “your will be done” we ask that God's saving will be done in us, flesh and spirit, and prepare ourselves to endure as Christ submitted to the Father's will in his passion.
On Prayer 5Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Praying for God's kingdom to come means longing for the end of the world and the final vindication of the martyrs, not asking for the world to be prolonged.
On Prayer 6Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · The petition for daily bread is chiefly a prayer for Christ, the bread of life, and union with his body; taken literally it asks only for what is needed today.
On Prayer 7Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · After asking for bread we ask for forgiveness, confessing our sins and promising to forgive others, as Christ taught in the parable of the unforgiving servant.
On Prayer 8Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · “Lead us not into temptation” means “do not let us be led into it” by the devil, the true tempter; the last clause, “deliver us from evil,” explains it.
On Prayer 9Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · The Lord's Prayer, though brief, sums up the teaching of Scripture and fulfills every duty of prayer, because God himself taught it.
Against Marcion 4.26Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The Lord's Prayer, the teaching on asking and knocking, the casting out of demons “by the finger of God,” and the blessing of those who hear God's word all point to the Creator as the Father to whom Christ taught his disciples to pray.
Fragments on Luke, column 353Origen · ca. 220-254 · Martha and Mary stand for action and contemplation, or for Jewish and free believers; the Lord's Prayer and the parable of the friend at midnight are expounded.
On Prayer 18.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen sets out the Lord's Prayer as given in Matthew and in Luke.
On Prayer 18.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen suggests that the prayers in Matthew and Luke, given on different occasions, may be two different prayers with parts in common; Mark has none.
On Prayer 22.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · The Old Testament calls God Father and his people sons, but Origen finds no prayer there in which anyone addresses God as “Father.”
On Prayer 22.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · Only true children of God, whose lives and hearts agree with their words, can rightly call God “Father,” just as only a life of obedience truly says “Jesus is Lord.”
On Prayer 22.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · “Our Father in heaven” should be said by our whole life, lived as citizens of heaven, not only at set times of prayer.
On Prayer 24.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen asks how a human being can pray that God's name be made holy, and what God's “name” and its hallowing mean.
On Prayer 24.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · The Lord's Prayer uses imperatives that express wishes; Origen refutes Tatian, who wrongly took God's “Let there be light” as a prayer rather than a command.
On Prayer 25.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · The kingdom of God is within us; to pray “your kingdom come” is to ask that God's rule may grow and be perfected in our souls, displacing the rule of sin.
On Prayer 25.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · We keep praying “hallowed be your name” and “your kingdom come” because we grow toward perfection only by degrees, until God is all in all.
On Prayer 26.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · Found only in Matthew, this petition asks that we on earth may do God's will as the heavenly beings do, and so become like them.
On Prayer 26.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · “As in heaven so on earth” may apply to all three petitions: God's name, kingdom, and will are already realized in heaven and are prayed for on earth.
On Prayer 26.6Origen · ca. 233–234 · Whoever sins is “earth” and whoever does God's will is “heaven”; the petition asks that God's will transform all that is earthly until everything becomes heaven.
On Prayer 27.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen rejects the view that “daily bread” means bodily bread, since Jesus taught us to ask for heavenly and great things.
On Prayer 27.7Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen notes that the word translated “daily,” epiousios, seems coined by the evangelists, and derives it from ousia, “being”: the bread that sustains our being.
On Prayer 27.12Origen · ca. 233–234 · Christ is food that makes us sons of God, while those who feed on the devil become like serpents; Peter's vision shows that the clean and unclean animals signify kinds of people, all of whom God can cleanse.
On Prayer 27.13Origen · ca. 233–234 · Origen prefers his derivation of “daily” from “being” to one from “the coming day,” and explains that in Scripture “today” can mean this whole age and “yesterday” the past age.
On Prayer 28.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · The petition on debts recalls Paul's teaching that we owe others not only money but kind words, deeds, and above all love.
On Prayer 29.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · Since all human life is a time of testing, Origen asks how we can pray not to enter into temptation.
On Prayer 30.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · Luke's shorter prayer includes “deliver us from evil”; God delivers us not by removing trials but by helping us overcome them, afflicted but not crushed.
Homilies on Ezekiel 14.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Jerome's translation in the 380s) · As certain priestly foods were eaten only in the holy place, Christ alone eats the bread of the Father’s nature, though he also invites believers to dine with him and gives them daily bread.
On the Lord's Prayer 7Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Cyprian gives the text of the Lord's Prayer.
On the Lord's Prayer 8Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · The Lord's Prayer is a common prayer for the whole church, prayed in unity like the three youths and the apostles.
On the Lord's Prayer 9Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · The reborn believer calls God 'Father' because by faith he has become God's son, and he has only one Father in heaven.
On the Lord's Prayer 10Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Our Father' is the prayer of believers made God's children, which Cyprian contrasts with those Jews who rejected Christ.
On the Lord's Prayer 12Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Hallowed be your name' asks that we, sanctified in baptism, may stay holy.
On the Lord's Prayer 13Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Your kingdom come' asks for the heavenly kingdom promised to believers; Christ himself can be understood as that kingdom.
On the Lord's Prayer 14Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Your will be done' asks for God's help to do his will, as Christ did the Father's will.
On the Lord's Prayer 15Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · God's will is the life Christ lived and taught: humility, faith, justice, mercy, peace, love, and steadfastness to death.
On the Lord's Prayer 16Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Since we are both earth (body) and heaven (spirit), we pray that God's will may bring the flesh into harmony with the spirit.
On the Lord's Prayer 18Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Our daily bread' is Christ in the Eucharist, received daily; we pray not to be cut off from it by grave sin.
On the Lord's Prayer 19Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Daily bread' also means that disciples who have renounced the world ask only for today's food.
On the Lord's Prayer 22Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Praying daily for forgiveness reminds us that we sin daily and assures us of God's faithful pardon.
On the Lord's Prayer 23Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · God forgives us only as we forgive others; the greatest sacrifice is peace and a people united in the unity of the Trinity.
On the Lord's Prayer 25Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Do not allow us to be led into temptation' teaches that the devil can do nothing unless God permits it.
On the Lord's Prayer 27Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Deliver us from evil' sums up every petition, for with God's protection nothing need be feared.
On Mortality 18Cyprian of Carthage · 252–253 · We pray daily that God's will be done and his kingdom come, so we should not resist when he calls us from this world.
Acta Archelai (Latin) 23Hegemonius · early to mid 4th century (Greek original) · The judges rule that body and soul have one maker; Archelaus argues that the Lord's Prayer is addressed to the Father in heaven, not to the maker Manes posits.
Book 1, lines 571–593Juvencus · ca. 330 · Be perfect like the Father; give and pray in secret; the Lord's Prayer begins.
Book 1, lines 594–618Juvencus · ca. 330 · The end of the Lord's Prayer; forgiveness; fasting in secret; treasure in heaven.
Demonstration 2.15Aphrahat · 337-345 · The Lord's Prayer, the command to be reconciled before offering, and the parable of the unforgiving servant all require forgiveness.
Oration I Against the Arians 34Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Athanasius argues that “Father,” given by Christ in the Lord's Prayer and the baptismal formula, is a truer name of God than the unscriptural “unoriginate.”
Catechetical Lecture 23.11Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The Lord's Prayer follows; God's love lets sinners call him Father, and those who bear the heavenly image are themselves "heavens".
Catechetical Lecture 23.12Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · God's name is holy by nature; the petition asks that it be hallowed in us.
Catechetical Lecture 23.13Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Only a soul cleansed from the reign of sin can pray "Your kingdom come" with boldness.
Catechetical Lecture 23.14Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The petition asks that God's will be done in us as it is among the angels.
Catechetical Lecture 23.15Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The "epiousios" bread of the Lord's Prayer is the holy bread that nourishes the substance of the soul.
Catechetical Lecture 23.16Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Since our sins against God are great and others' against us small, we must forgive in order to be forgiven.
Catechetical Lecture 23.17Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · "Lead us not into temptation" means not being overwhelmed by temptation, as Judas was and Peter was not.
Catechetical Lecture 23.18Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The evil one is the devil; the "Amen" seals the Lord's Prayer.
On the Decrees of Nicaea 30Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 350–356 · Calling God “Father,” as Christ taught in prayer and baptism, is truer than calling him “unoriginate,” because it names the Son as well.
Against Arius 2.8Marius Victorinus · ca. 357–362 · Victorinus traces the scriptural roots of ousia in epiousios bread (Matt 6:11) and the people periousios (Titus 2:14), arguing that homoousion is formed in the same way and rightly excludes heretics.
Tractates on the Psalms 134.22Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Like the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, 'your name is for ever' is a prayer for our sake, that God's name, kingdom, and will may abide in us.
Against Parmenian the Donatist 4.2Optatus of Milevis · ca. 366–385 · Catholics and Donatists remain brothers, born of one mother church through the same sacraments, and the Lord's Prayer, spoken in the plural, makes each pray for the other.
Letter 13.3Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome laments that their estrangement has made both their offerings and the Lord's Prayer insincere.
Letter 106.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · On Ps 5:8 Jerome shows from the Hebrew that 'direct your way in my sight' is correct, explaining it by analogy with 'hallowed be your name' in the Lord's Prayer.
Apostolic Constitutions 3.18.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · The Lord’s Prayer with its doxology.
Apostolic Constitutions 7.24.1Anonymous · ca. 380 · The Lord's Prayer is to be prayed as Christ taught.
Apostolic Constitutions 7.24.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · The Lord's Prayer is said three times a day by those worthy to call God Father.
Apostolic Constitutions 7.45.1Anonymous · ca. 380 · The newly baptized stands to pray the Lord's Prayer as one risen with Christ.
On the Lord's Prayer 1137Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Unlike Moses at Sinai, Christ leads all believers up to heaven itself, makes them sharers in God, shows God’s glory to the pure in heart, and asks for purification not from marriage but from every passion.
On the Lord's Prayer 1139Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · One must first vow and offer something to God before asking; Christ bids us say “Father,” but to call God Father one would need wings to rise above all changing things to the unchanging One, and a soul and conscience like his, for the Good cannot be father of evil.
On the Lord's Prayer 1145Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Calling on the Father in heaven recalls our heavenly fatherland; the road back is likeness to God, which lies within our choice, for God is not distant in place; whoever is joined to God is already in heaven, but whoever bears the marks of the evil one cannot be God’s son.
On the Lord's Prayer 1147Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Homily 2 ends: the sinner’s prayer calls on the devil, so we must examine our lives before saying “Father,” setting our hearts on heaven, and then God will receive us like the prodigal son. Homily 3 opens with the priest’s preparation for entering the sanctuary.
On the Lord's Prayer 1151Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Whoever can rightly call God Father wears the spiritual priestly robe of virtues and enters the heavenly sanctuary; Gregory now turns to the petitions themselves.
On the Lord's Prayer 1153Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · “Hallowed be thy name” asks that God’s name be glorified in our lives rather than blasphemed by the bad conduct of Christians; a pure and virtuous life makes even outsiders glorify God.
On the Lord's Prayer 1155Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · To pray “Hallowed be thy name” is to ask to become virtuous so that God is glorified in us; “Thy kingdom come” cannot ask God to become king, but asks that his free and life-giving rule replace the tyranny of sin, passion, and death in us.
On the Lord's Prayer 1157Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · When God’s kingdom comes, the passions vanish like smoke and melt like wax, as darkness before light; the soul prays that God’s angelic forces may overthrow the enemy, so that grief gives way to life and peace.
On the Lord's Prayer 1161Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Homily 3 ends with a prayer for the Spirit’s cleansing. Homily 4 opens on “Thy will be done” and “our daily bread” with a physician’s account of health as the balance of the elements, to be applied to the soul.
On the Lord's Prayer 1163Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Christ, the true physician, heals our sickness, which came from separation from God’s will, by union with that will; to pray “Thy will be done” is to confess the past and ask that virtue, above all love, drive out the vices; we need God’s help because it is harder to recover than to fall.
On the Lord's Prayer 1165Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Because human nature, weakened by sin, cannot return to the good unaided, we pray “Thy will be done”; “as in heaven, so on earth” refers to the two kinds of rational beings, angels in heaven and humans on earth, perhaps so joined that the human body may share at last in heaven.
On the Lord's Prayer 1167Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · In heaven God’s will is done without hindrance because the angels are free of vice; we pray that our life be cleansed so that his will may be done in us too; and the next petition, for daily bread, shows how embodied people can approach angelic freedom from need by contentment with little.
On the Lord's Prayer 1169Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · “Give us bread” asks for necessities, not for the long list of luxuries for which people mine, trade, and sail; what nature owes the body is only bread, and luxury is the enemy’s weed among the wheat.
On the Lord's Prayer 1173Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Gluttony ends in licentiousness; bread is enough, seasoned by a good conscience and by hunger, and earned by the toil of keeping the commandments.
On the Lord's Prayer 1175Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · “Today” teaches that life lasts a day and forbids anxiety about tomorrow: God who gives the day gives what it needs, as he feeds ravens and eagles, while the rich fool lost all in one night; we should ask today for bread and seek above all the kingdom.
On the Lord's Prayer 1177Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Homily 4 ends: seek the kingdom first. Homily 5 opens on “Forgive us our debts”: forgiving belongs to God alone, so one who forgives imitates and in a way becomes like God, while one who exacts his debts harshly cuts himself off from God’s mercy.
On the Lord's Prayer 1191Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · We must be able to say truly that we have forgiven; “temptation” and “the evil one” are names for the same enemy, who rules the world, so to pray against temptation is to ask to be kept apart from the world, as one who fears war or the sea keeps away from them.
On the Lord's Prayer 1193Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Gregory closes the fifth homily and the series with the prayer to be kept from the evils of life and delivered from the evil one, and a Trinitarian doxology.
Second Apology of David 74Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · The Lord’s Prayer shows that the Father forgives, and the Son’s teaching it shows their one power.
Letter 130.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains each petition of the Lord's Prayer as a reminder to ourselves of what we should desire, the bread meaning either sufficiency or the sacrament.
Letter 130.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · All rightful prayers, including those of Scripture, say in other words what the Lord's Prayer contains; to ask for what it cannot include is to pray carnally.
Letter 153.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The Lord's Prayer, prayed by the baptized, shows that God's adopted sons are good by grace yet still sinners needing daily forgiveness.
Letter 176.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The council describes the Pelagian denial that prayer and grace are needed against sin and that unbaptized infants are lost.
Letter 177.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The claim that one can be sinless in this life is refuted from Zechariah's priestly sacrifices for his own sins and the Lord's Prayer.
Letter 178.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · The heresy empties the Lord's Prayer, claiming one can become sinless and overcome temptation by nature alone.
Letter 217.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine cites Cyprian's interpretation of "Thy will be done on earth as in heaven" as a prayer for the conversion of unbelievers, which would be empty if God did not convert their wills.
Homilies on Matthew 19.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Prayer in church must also be free of display and noise, joining the angels’ worship; then the Lord’s Prayer is expounded: God as common Father, the hallowing of his name by our lives, the longing for his kingdom, his will done on earth as in heaven, bread for the day, and the forgiveness of sins after baptism.
Homilies on Matthew 19.6John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Forgiveness of others is singled out after the prayer because it makes us masters of our own judgment; the last petitions are expounded, the devil being the evil one and God the King to whom all power belongs; and the hearers are made aware of the many sins they commit even in church.
Tractates on Matthew 14.1Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius begins his exposition of the Lord's Prayer: by calling God 'Father', believers reborn in baptism are made sons of God and must live accordingly.
Tractates on Matthew 14.2Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains that in praying 'hallowed be your name' we ask that God's name be made holy in us.
Tractates on Matthew 14.3Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains that in praying 'your kingdom come' we ask for the coming of the heavenly kingdom promised to us, for which we must make ourselves worthy.
Tractates on Matthew 14.4Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains that in praying 'your will be done' we ask that God's will be done in us as by the angels, or that unbelievers may come to faith.
Tractates on Matthew 14.5Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains 'daily bread' as the food needed for today and, spiritually, the Eucharistic bread of the Lord's body, received daily.
Tractates on Matthew 14.6Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains that we must forgive others as we ask God to forgive us, or our own prayer condemns us, as in the parable of the unforgiving servant.
Tractates on Matthew 14.7Chromatius of Aquileia · ca. 388–407 · Chromatius explains the petitions against temptation and evil, sums up the Lord's Prayer, and stresses that forgiveness depends on forgiving others.
Sermon 17.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God, now silent, will rebuke the sinner by setting him before his own face at the judgment; now is the time of mercy, when daily sins are washed by the Lord's Prayer before communion.
Sermon 47.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Because God himself judges and cannot be deceived, the good may long for his judgment; the Lord’s Prayer is the medicine for sin, if we forgive others.
Sermon 49.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Before the faithful pray “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive,” they must forgive from the heart; the hater should look on Christ on the cross, who prayed for his executioners.
Sermon 56.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Prayer needs devotion, not many words; God knows our needs, but wants us to pray so that we may desire his gifts, and the Lord’s Prayer is the pattern of our desires.
Sermon 56.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The candidates, already conceived in the Church’s womb, will be born of God the Father in baptism; asking that God’s name be hallowed means asking that it be held holy in us.
Sermon 56.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Praying “Your kingdom come” is asking that we may live so as to be found in God’s coming kingdom on the right hand.
Sermon 56.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God’s almighty will is done in everyone, in reward or condemnation; we pray that it may also be done by us, which he himself works in us.
Sermon 56.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “As in heaven, so on earth” can mean the mind and the flesh, the spiritual and the carnal in the Church, or the Church and its enemies, for whom we pray.
Sermon 56.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · From the fourth petition on we plainly pray for ourselves; asking for daily bread makes everyone, even the rich, God’s beggar.
Sermon 56.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Bodily bread God gives to good and bad alike; the children’s daily bread is the word of God, and also the eucharist the baptized receive, from whose altar we pray not to be separated.
Sermon 56.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Besides grave sins that exclude from the altar, countless small sins of eye, ear, tongue, and thought accumulate like sand, so the daily cleansing of the Lord’s Prayer is needed by all.
Sermon 56.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The petition is a pact with God; the candidates must forgive everyone from the heart before baptism, in which all their sins, original and personal, will be forgiven.
Sermon 56.14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · We must love our enemies, who share our nature and are our brothers; pray, as the Church prayed for Saul, against their malice but for themselves, so that an enemy becomes a friend.
Sermon 56.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Few love their enemies, yet all who receive the eucharist pray “as we forgive”; Augustine cannot tell them not to pray, so they must both say it and do it.
Sermon 56.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The petition for forgiveness covers past sins, which cannot be undone; the petitions against temptation and evil guard against future ones.
Sermon 56.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The first three petitions concern eternal life; the last four the needs of this life, which will cease when we are equal to the angels.
Sermon 57.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The candidates first learned the Creed, what to believe; now they learn the Prayer, how to call on him in whom they believe.
Sermon 57.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The only Son of God willed to have countless brothers, so that we too call his Father “our Father”; with God as Father and the Church as Mother we are born to eternal life.
Sermon 57.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “Your will be done” has many senses: angels and us, saints and sinners, Church and enemies, spirit and flesh; the first three petitions concern eternity. Daily bread is bodily food, and also the eucharist, the word preached, the readings, and the hymns, needed for this pilgrimage.
Sermon 57.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Baptism blots out all sins, yet the Prayer teaches that sins follow in life; the candidates must forgive all their enemies, as God, who owes nothing, forgives them.
Sermon 57.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “Lead us not into temptation” and “deliver us from evil,” joined by “but,” form one petition.
Sermon 57.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Of all the petitions Christ singled out only the one about forgiving others for comment, because if it is lost there is no remedy for our many daily faults.
Sermon 57.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Pray for victory over your own anger, which God wants more than you want rain; seek first his kingdom, and trust the God who loves us so much that he gave his Son for creatures of dust.
Sermon 58.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Having recited the Creed, the candidates receive the Lord’s Prayer, dictated by Christ, their advocate and judge; they will recite it in eight days and the Creed again on the Saturday of their baptism.
Sermon 58.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Emperor and beggar, slave and master all say “Our Father,” and so are brothers; masters should not disdain slaves whom Christ calls brothers.
Sermon 58.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · God’s name is hallowed when we are made holy; praying for his kingdom to come is asking to be made good, so that it comes to us and not only to others.
Sermon 58.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “Your will be done” asks that we obey as the angels do, that our flesh agree with our spirit, and that unbelievers, the earth, become heaven like the Church.
Sermon 58.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Daily bread means all bodily necessities, the eucharist received by the faithful, from whose altar we pray not to be separated, and the word of God broken daily.
Sermon 58.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · No one lives without sin; even the apostles, the rams of the flock, were taught to ask forgiveness; sins are forgiven once in baptism and daily through the Lord’s Prayer.
Sermon 58.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The first three petitions concern eternity, the last four this life; the Lord’s Prayer is said daily at the altar, so the newly baptized will learn it by hearing it.
Sermon 59.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · After the Creed, short in words and great in meaning, the candidates receive the Lord’s Prayer, given by Christ to the apostles and handed on to us.
Sermon 59.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Under one heavenly Father all Christians, master and slave, rich and poor, are brothers, heirs of a Father who does not die but remains for us to come to him.
Sermon 59.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Daily bread is bodily food, the eucharist, and the word preached, all needed only in this life; daily sins are washed away by the Lord’s Prayer, provided we forgive those who ask our pardon.
Sermon 83.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to forgive all our debts as we forgive our debtors, binding ourselves to forgive all.
Sermon 114.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · In the Lord’s Prayer we bind ourselves to forgive as we ask to be forgiven, a condition set by the heavenly lawyer who will judge us; to pray it without forgiving is to lie to God.
Sermon 155.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Law's righteousness is fulfilled now in those who, helped by grace, refuse the flesh's desires; Baptism blotted out past sins, and daily slips are forgiven through the Lord's Prayer.
Sermon 181.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The whole Church, apostles included, prays daily “Forgive us our debts,” and Christ explains the debts as sins; whoever will not say it is outside the Church even if present in body.
Sermon 181.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Lord's Prayer belongs to baptized sons, and the whole Church prays it; the Church is made without spot or wrinkle by confession and forgiveness here, stretched like cloth on the fuller's frame of the cross, and is presented spotless in heaven.
Sermon 211.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Lent calls for reconciliation; the Lord's Prayer binds us to forgive as we hope to be forgiven, and anger must not be allowed to grow into hatred.
Sermon 211.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Whoever refuses to forgive cannot honestly say the Lord's Prayer, since he must either omit “forgive us” or say “as we forgive” falsely.
Sermon 213.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The forgiveness of sins in the Church is given in baptism, pictured by the Red Sea in which the pursuing Egyptians drowned, and daily through the Lord's Prayer.
Sermon 256.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Alleluia must be sung with life as well as voice; here we sing it anxiously, praying daily for forgiveness and deliverance from evil, the evil being ourselves, the law of sin in our members.
Sermon 261.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · After baptism God gives daily remedies, the Lord’s Prayer and almsgiving, by which the judge will separate right from left; minor sins overwhelm by their number, as raindrops fill rivers.
Sermon 278.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Lord’s Prayer petition for forgiveness is the antidote against all sins, of which there are two kinds, against God and against neighbor, matching the two great commandments.
Sermon 278.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · “Forgive us as we forgive” is like the bucket that bails a leaking ship: daily sins seep in through our frailty, and we must keep bailing until we reach the homeland.
Sermon 315.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Anger is the enemy within that blocks the Lord's Prayer at “as we forgive our debtors”; it cannot be killed but can be restrained, and conquering it is greater than taking a city.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine introduces the Lord’s Prayer and explains its opening address: Israel knew God as Lord, but Christians by grace call him “Our Father,” which stirs love, confidence, reverence, and brotherhood between rich and poor.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains “who are in heaven” as God dwelling in the righteous, explains why Christians face east to pray, and reads “hallowed be your name” as a prayer that God’s name be held holy among the nations.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains “your kingdom come” as the manifestation of God’s reign at the judgment, and gives several readings of “your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth”: angels and men, righteous and sinners, spirit and flesh, Christ and the church.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine weighs three meanings of “daily bread” (bodily needs, the Eucharist, the spiritual food of God’s precepts), prefers the spiritual, and allows all three to be taken together.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains the debts of the fifth petition as sins, discusses forgiving money debts, and concludes that all sins against us must be forgiven if we wish to be forgiven.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine explains the sixth petition as a prayer not to be led into temptation, not to escape all testing, answers the heretics’ objections from God’s testing and from Job, and explains the seventh petition as deliverance from the evil we are already in.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine distinguishes the first three petitions, which begin in this life but last forever, from the last four, which belong only to this temporal life.
The Lord's Sermon on the Mount 2.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 393–396 · Augustine matches the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer to the seven gifts and beatitudes, and stresses the petition for forgiveness as a pact with God.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 7.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · As petitioners to the emperor have a lawyer draft their petition, Christ composed the Lord's Prayer for us with its condition of forgiving others; one who prays it falsely obtains nothing from God, who cannot be deceived.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 21.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · We may call Christ's Father “our Father,” but Christ always distinguished “my Father” from “your Father,” since he is Son by nature and we by adoption.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 73.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · To ask "in the name" of Jesus, the Savior, is to ask for what serves salvation, as taught in the Lord's Prayer; what harms salvation he grants by refusing.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 81.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Those who abide in Christ, whose words abide in them, ask only what serves salvation, as taught in the Lord's Prayer, and receive it.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 98.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The spiritual do not hide the faith from the carnal but do not overload them; the milk of the faith is the basic teaching handed on in the Creed and the Lord's Prayer.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.4Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Concupiscence remains after baptism without guilt, harming only those who consent to it; the Lord's Prayer asks forgiveness for past consent, help against present temptation, and final deliverance from concupiscence.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 2.18Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · There are truly righteous people on earth, but none is without sin, and all need the Lord's Prayer.
On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins 3.23Augustine of Hippo · 411–412 · Sinlessness is to be desired, sought, and prayed for, but no one should believe it achieved; all need the Lord's Prayer, and God leaves death and some weakness to keep the righteous humble.
On Nature and Grace 20Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine observes that Pelagius asks God only for pardon of past sins, never for help not to sin, though the Lord's Prayer asks for both.
On Nature and Grace 41Augustine of Hippo · 415 · Augustine answers Pelagius' question whether the saints died with or without sin: though they did not live without sin, they could die without it through daily forgiveness sought in the Lord's Prayer.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.38Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Baptism, given once, is the ground for the forgiveness of all later sins and will finally cleanse the church of every spot, including concupiscence itself.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.27Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine explains that concupiscence remaining after baptism is called sin only because it came from sin and inclines to sin, and that its guilt is forgiven in baptism.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 4.25Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine quotes Cyprian on the Lord's Prayer, the Testimonies, and On Patience to show that Cyprian ascribed every good to God's grace.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · The Creed and the Lord's Prayer contain faith, hope, and love: faith believes, hope and love pray.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 71Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · The Lord's Prayer daily removes light sins, and also forsaken sins, provided we truly forgive others.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 115Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Matthew's Lord's Prayer has seven petitions: three for eternal things, begun here and perfected hereafter, and four for the needs of this life.
Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 116Augustine of Hippo · ca. 421–423 · Luke's five petitions show how Matthew's seven are to be understood: the third repeats the first two, and deliverance from evil belongs with not being led into temptation.
On Grace and Free Will 13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 426 · Grace is neither the law nor human nature, nor merely the forgiveness of past sins; the Lord's Prayer and Cyprian's treatise on it show that we must pray for help to avoid and overcome sin.
The Conferences 9.18John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Above the four kinds of prayer is the loving, familiar converse of sons with their Father, taught in the opening of the Lord’s Prayer, whose first petition seeks the Father’s glory above one’s own, as Paul, Micah, and Moses did.
The Conferences 9.19John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The petition “Thy kingdom come” asks either for Christ’s present reign in the soul through the virtues or for the future kingdom promised to the saints, which only a good conscience can desire.
The Conferences 9.20John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · “Thy will be done” asks that people on earth may do God’s will as the angels do, trusting his providence in all things, or that all may be saved, since that is God’s will.
The Conferences 9.21John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · “Our supersubstantial” or “daily” bread is spiritual food above all creatures, needed every day, and it must be received in this life if one is to share it in the next.
The Conferences 9.22John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The petition for forgiveness lets us set the measure of God’s judgment on ourselves, so whoever will not forgive others asks for his own condemnation, and it is vain to skip these words when the prayer is said in church.
The Conferences 9.23John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · “Lead us not into temptation” asks not to be spared all testing but not to be overcome in it, as Job, Abraham, and Joseph were tested without consenting.
The Conferences 9.24John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The Lord’s Prayer asks for nothing temporal, and to ask God for perishable things instead of eternal ones insults his generosity.
The Conferences 9.25John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The Lord’s Prayer leads the soul beyond words to a rare, fiery, wordless prayer poured out in a moment, of which Christ’s solitary and agonized prayers are the pattern.
The Conferences 23.18John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The Lord’s Prayer, given to the saints, requires all to ask forgiveness daily; so no one is sinless, yet the righteous remain righteous.
On the Gift of Perseverance 2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Perseverance, like suffering for Christ, is God's gift; it is asked for in prayer, as Cyprian's exposition of the Lord's Prayer (“Hallowed be your name”, “Your kingdom come”) shows, and Cyprian refuted the Pelagians in advance.
On the Gift of Perseverance 3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Commenting on “Your will be done on earth as in heaven” with Cyprian, Augustine shows that the church prays both for the beginning of faith in unbelievers and for perseverance in the saints.
On the Gift of Perseverance 4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Cyprian's exposition of “Give us this day our daily bread”, received daily in the Eucharist, shows that the petition also asks for perseverance, so as not to be separated from Christ's body.
On the Gift of Perseverance 5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 428/429 · Only the petition for forgiveness does not ask for perseverance, yet Cyprian's exposition of it refutes the Pelagian claim of sinlessness; “Lead us not into temptation” asks for perseverance.