De Oratione

The Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God — the Word of Reason and the Reason of the Word, and both the Spirit — that is, Jesus Christ our Lord, has marked out for us, the disciples of the New Testament, a new form of prayer. For it was fitting that in this matter too new wine should be stored in new skins, and a new patch be sewn upon a new garment. For the rest, whatever had been before has either been changed, as circumcision; or supplemented, as the rest of the Law; or fulfilled, as prophecy; or perfected, as faith itself. The new grace of God has renewed all things from the carnal into the spiritual, by bringing in over them the Gospel, the eraser of all the old past, in which our Lord Jesus Christ has been approved as the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God — Spirit, by which he was mighty; Word, by which he taught; Reason, by which he came. So the prayer constituted by Christ is constituted of three things: of the Word, by which it is uttered; of the Spirit, by which alone it has such power. John too had taught his disciples to pray; but all the things of John were preparatory steps for Christ, until, when he himself had been increased — as the same John foretold that he must be increased, but himself decrease — the whole work of the forerunner, together with the Spirit itself, might pass over with him to the Lord. For this reason it is nowhere extant in what words John taught men to pray, since earthly things gave way to heavenly. He who is of the earth, he says, speaks earthly things, and he who comes from heaven speaks the things which he has seen. And what is not heavenly that belongs to the Lord Christ, as does this discipline of prayer too? Let us therefore consider, beloved, his heavenly wisdom — first concerning the precept of praying in secret, by which he both required the faith of man, that he should trust that the sight and hearing of Almighty God are present even under roofs and in hidden places, and desired the modesty of faith, that to him alone, whom he trusted to hear and see everywhere, he should offer his worship. The wisdom that follows, in the precept that follows, likewise pertains to faith and to the modesty of faith, if we think we ought not to approach the Lord with a host of words, since we are sure that of his own accord he provides for his own. And yet this brevity — which makes for the third degree of wisdom — is supported by the substance of a great and blessed interpretation, and the more it is compressed in words, the more it is diffused in meanings. For it has embraced not only the proper offices of prayer, the veneration of God or the petition of man, but almost the whole discourse of the Lord, the whole record of his discipline, so that in truth there is comprised in the prayer an epitome of the entire Gospel.

It begins with a testimony to God and a merit of faith, when we say, FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN. For we both worship God and commend faith, whose merit this appellation is. It is written, To those who believed in him he gave power to be called sons of God. Although most frequently the Lord declared God to be a Father to us — nay, he even gave command that we should call no one on earth father, save him whom we have in heaven. And so, praying thus, we also fulfil a precept. Happy are they who acknowledge the Father! This is what is reproached to Israel, when the Spirit calls heaven and earth to witness, saying: Sons have I begotten, and they have not acknowledged me. And by saying Father we also name God. This appellation is one both of filial devotion and of power. Likewise in the Father the Son is invoked. For I, he says, and the Father are one. Nor is the Church our mother passed over. For in the Son and the Father the mother is recognized, on whom rests the name of both Father and Son. By one word, then, or appellation, we both honour God together with his own, and remember the precept, and brand those who forget the Father.

The name of God the Father had been disclosed to no one. Even Moses, who had inquired about it, had heard another name. To us it has been revealed in the Son; for now the Son is the new name of the Father. I have come, he says, in the name of the Father; and again, Father, glorify thy name; and more openly: Thy name have I made manifest to men. That name, then, we ask to be HALLOWED — not that it becomes men to wish God well, as though there were some other from whom he could be wished well, or as though he laboured unless we wished it. Plainly it is fitting that God be blessed in every place and time, for the ever-due remembrance of his benefits by every man. But this too serves in place of a blessing. For the rest, when is the name of God not holy and hallowed through itself, since it hallows others out of itself? — he, around whom that circle of angels does not cease to say: Holy, Holy, Holy. Accordingly, then, we too, candidates for the rank of angels, if we shall have deserved it, learn even now that heavenly cry to God and the office of our future glory. So much for the glory of God. As for the rest, as regards our own petition, when we say, HALLOWED BE THY NAME, we ask this, that it be hallowed in us who are in him, and at the same time in others also, whom the grace of God still awaits — that we may obey this precept too, by praying for all, even for our enemies. And therefore, by a suspended utterance, not saying, Hallowed be it in us, we say it of all.

According to this pattern we subjoin: THY WILL BE DONE IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH — not that anyone resists, to prevent the will of God being done, and that we pray for him a success of his own will, but we ask that in all things his will be done. For by a figurative interpretation of flesh and spirit, we are heaven and earth. Although, even if it is to be understood simply, the sense of the petition is still the same: that in us the will of God be done on earth, so that, namely, it may be able to be done in heaven also. And what does God will but that we walk according to his discipline? We ask therefore that he supply us with the substance and the means of his will, that we may be saved both in heaven and on earth, because the sum of his will is the salvation of those whom he has adopted. There is also that will of God which the Lord administered by preaching, by working, by enduring. For if he himself declared that he did not his own will, but the Father's, without doubt the things he did were the will of the Father, to which we are now summoned as to examples, that we may both preach and work and endure even unto death. And that we may be able to fulfil these, there is need of the will of God. Likewise, by saying, Thy will be done, we wish ourselves well even in this — that there is nothing of evil in the will of God, even if something is inflicted otherwise according to each man's deserts. And by this saying we forewarn ourselves to endurance. The Lord too, when by the substance of his passion he had wished now to demonstrate the weakness of the flesh in his own flesh, said, Father, take away this cup; and then, recollecting himself, Yet not my will, but thine be done. He himself was the will and the power of the Father, and yet, for the demonstration of the endurance that was due, he gave himself over to the will of the Father.

THY KINGDOM also COME has reference to the same end as Thy will be done — namely in us. For when does God not reign, in whose hand is the heart of all kings? But whatever we wish for ourselves, we draw as an omen toward him, and impute to him what we expect from him. And so, if the representation of the Lord's kingdom has reference to the will of God and to our own expectancy, how is it that some demand a certain prolonging of things in the world, when the kingdom of God, for whose coming we pray, tends toward the consummation of the world? We long to reign the sooner, and to be slaves no longer. Even if it had not been prescribed in the prayer concerning the asking for the kingdom's coming, we would of our own accord have uttered that cry, hastening to the embrace of our hope. The souls of the martyrs under the altar cry out to the Lord in the indignation of their soul: How long, O Lord, dost thou not avenge our blood upon the inhabitants of the earth? For surely their vengeance is set in order from the end of the world. Nay, how speedily may it come, O Lord — thy kingdom, the prayer of Christians, the confounding of the nations, the exultation of angels, on account of which we struggle, nay rather, on account of which we pray!

But how elegantly the divine wisdom has framed the order of the prayer, that after the heavenly things — that is, after the name of God, the will of God, and the kingdom of God — it should make room in the petition for earthly necessities too! For the Lord had also given the command: Seek first the kingdom, and then these things also shall be added unto you. Although we should rather understand GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD spiritually. For Christ is our bread, because Christ is life, and bread is life. I am, he says, the bread of life. And a little above: The bread is the word of the living God, who came down from heaven. Then, because his body too is reckoned in the bread: This is my body. And so, by asking for daily bread, we ask for perpetuity in Christ and inseparability from his body. But also, because this saying is admitted in a carnal sense, it cannot take place without the religion also of a spiritual discipline. For he bids us ask for bread, which alone is necessary to the faithful; for the rest, the nations seek after. So too he drives it home by examples and treats it again in parables, when he says: Does a father take bread from his sons and hand it to dogs? Likewise: Does he hand a stone to a son asking for bread? For he shows what sons should expect from a father. And that nocturnal knocker too was knocking for bread. Deservedly, moreover, did he add, Give us this day, as one who had sent on before, Take no thought for the morrow, what you shall eat. To which matter he also fitted the parable of that man who, when his crops came forth abundantly, thought of enlarging his barns and of long spaces of security — and dies that very night.

It followed that, having observed the bounty of God, we should also pray for his clemency. For what will food profit us, if for it we are really reckoned, as it were, a bull for the victim? The Lord knew that he alone was without sin. So he teaches us to ask that there be FORGIVEN US OUR DEBTS. The petition of pardon is a confession of sins, because he who asks pardon confesses his transgression. So too repentance is shown to be acceptable to God, who prefers it to the death of the sinner. Now a debt, in the Scriptures, is a figure of transgression, because it is owed in like manner to judgement, and exacted by it, nor does it escape the justice of exaction, unless the exaction be remitted — as that lord remitted the debt to his servant. For to this points the example of the whole parable. For the fact too that the same servant, freed by his lord, does not in like manner spare his own debtor, and on that account, being reported to his lord, is handed over to the torturer to pay the very last farthing — that is, even the smallest transgression — this suits with the fact that we too profess to remit to our debtors. And elsewhere too, from this aspect of the prayer, he says: Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you. And when Peter had asked whether he must forgive his brother seven times, Nay, he said, seventy times seven — that he might reform the law for the better, since in Genesis vengeance was reckoned for Cain sevenfold, but for Lamech seventy times seven.

He added, to the completeness of so ready a prayer, that we should supplicate not only concerning the remitting, but also concerning the averting altogether, of transgressions: LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION — that is, do not suffer us to be led into it, by him, of course, who tempts. But far be it that the Lord should seem to tempt, as though either he were ignorant of each man's faith, or were eager to cast him down. Both weakness and malice belong to the devil. For God had bidden Abraham sacrifice his son, not for the sake of tempting his faith, but of proving it, that through him he might make an example for his own precept, by which he was presently to command that no man hold any pledges dearer than God. He himself, when tempted by the devil, pointed out the president and contriver of temptation. This place he confirms by later words, saying, Pray that you be not tempted. So thoroughly were they tempted by deserting the Lord, because they had indulged in sleep rather than in prayer. Therefore the closing clause answers, interpreting what Lead us not into temptation means. For this is it: BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

By the brief compass of how few words are touched the edicts of the prophets, of the gospels, of the apostles, the discourses of the Lord, his parables, his examples, his precepts! How many offices at once are discharged! The honour of God in the Father, the testimony of faith in the name, the offering of compliance in the will, the commemoration of hope in the kingdom, the petition of life in the bread, the confession of debts in the entreaty, anxiety about temptations in the asking for protection. What wonder? God alone could teach how he wished himself to be prayed to. Therefore the religion of prayer, ordained by him, and animated by his Spirit even then, when it was being uttered from the divine mouth, ascends to heaven by its own privilege, commending to the Father the things which the Son has taught.

Yet, since the Lord, the foreseer of human necessities, said separately, after the discipline of prayer had been handed down, Ask, and you shall receive — and since there are things to be asked according to each one's circumstance — when the lawful and ordinary prayer has been sent on before as a foundation, the desires that come in addition have the right of building petitions on top of it from without, with a remembrance, however, of the precepts.

That we be not as far from the ears of God as we are from his precepts, the remembrance of the precepts paves the way to heaven for our prayers — of which the chief is, that we should not ascend to the altar of God before we have resolved whatever discord or offence we have contracted with our brethren. For what is it, to approach the peace of God without peace? to come to the remission of debts with retention of them? How shall he placate the Father who is angry with his brother, since all anger is forbidden us from the beginning? For Joseph too, dismissing his brothers to bring his father, And do not, he said, fall into anger on the way. He admonished us, that is to say — for elsewhere our discipline is called the Way — that, set on the way of prayer, we should not go to the Father with anger. Thereupon the Lord, openly enlarging the law, sets anger against a brother above murder. He does not permit it to be discharged even by an evil word; and even if there is need to be angry, it is not to be carried beyond the going-down of the sun, as the Apostle admonishes. But how rash it is either to pass a day without prayer, while you delay to give satisfaction to your brother, or to lose your prayer by a persevering wrath!

And the intentness of prayer ought to be free not only from anger, but from every disturbance of mind whatsoever, sent forth from such a spirit as is the Spirit to which it is sent. For a defiled spirit cannot be recognized by the Holy Spirit, nor a sad one by a glad, nor a fettered one by a free. No one receives his adversary, no one admits any but his peer.

For the rest, what reason is there, with hands indeed washed but the spirit foul, to go about prayer — when even to the hands themselves spiritual cleanliness is necessary, that, being pure from falsehood, from murder, from cruelty, from poisonings, from idolatry, and the rest of the stains which, conceived in the spirit, are carried out by the work of the hands, they may be lifted up? These are the true cleanlinesses — not those which most people superstitiously practise, taking water at every prayer, even when they come from a bath of the whole body. When I inquired into this more scrupulously and sought the reason, I found that it was a commemoration of the delivering-up of the Lord. We worship the Lord, we do not deliver him up; nay, we ought rather to set ourselves against the example of the betrayer, and not on that account to wash the hands. Unless indeed it be for the defilement of human intercourse, for conscience' sake; for the rest, those hands are clean enough which, with the whole body, we have once washed in Christ.

Though Israel wash all its members daily, yet it is never clean. Certainly its hands are always unclean, stained for ever with the blood of the prophets and of the Lord himself; and therefore, being heirs by their fathers' conscience to that guilt, they do not dare to lift them up to the Lord, lest some Isaiah cry out, lest Christ shudder. But we lift them up not only, but even spread them out, and, taking our measure from the Lord's passion, even in praying we confess to Christ.

But since we have touched on one particular instance of empty observance, it will not be irksome to note the others too, which deserve to be reproached with vanity, since indeed they are done without the authority of any precept, whether of the Lord or of the apostles. For such things are reckoned not to religion but to superstition, being affected and constrained and the work of a curious rather than a rational service — to be checked, at any rate, even on this ground, that they put us on a level with the heathen. As is the custom of certain people, of making prayer with their cloaks laid aside; for thus the nations approach their idols. But surely, if this ought to be done, the apostles, who teach concerning the dress for prayer, would have included it — unless some suppose that Paul left his cloak behind with Carpus during prayer. God, forsooth, will not hear men in their cloaks — he who heard the three saints, praying in the furnace of the king of Babylon, with their trousers and their turbans!

Likewise the custom which some have, of sitting down when the prayer is finished, I do not see the reason for, except such as children might allege. For what if that Hermas, whose writing is generally entitled the Shepherd, when his prayer was finished, had not sat down upon the bed, but had done something else — should we vindicate that too for observance? Surely not. For it is set down even now quite simply, When I had prayed and had sat down upon the bed, by way of the order of the narrative, not as a model of discipline. Otherwise there will be nowhere to pray, except where there is a bed. Nay, one will act against Scripture, if he sit upon a chair or a bench. Moreover, since the nations do the like, sitting down after worshipping their little images, on this very ground it deserves to be censured in us, because it is practised among idols. To this is added the charge of irreverence too, which the nations themselves, if they had any sense, ought to understand. For if it is irreverent to sit down in the sight, and over against the sight, of one whom you most reverence and venerate, how much more, in the sight of the living God, while the angel of prayer is still standing by, is this deed most irreligious — unless we are reproaching God that prayer has wearied us?

But when we worship with modesty and humility we commend our prayers the more to God, with not even the hands themselves too loftily raised, but moderately and properly raised, nor even with the countenance lifted up in boldness. For that publican, who prayed humbled and cast down not only in his prayer but in his countenance too, went away more justified than the most insolent Pharisee. The very sounds of the voice too ought to be subdued — or what great windpipes are needed, if we are heard according to our loudness? But God is a hearer not of the voice, but of the heart, even as he is a beholder of it. The demon of the Pythian oracle says: I understand even the dumb, and I hear him that does not speak. Do the ears of God wait for sound? How then could the prayer of Jonah, from the depths of the whale's belly, through the bowels of so great a beast, from the very abysses, through so great a mass of sea, make its way out to heaven? What more shall those gain who pray more loudly, except that they disturb their neighbours? Nay, by betraying their petitions, what less do they do than if they prayed in public?

Another custom has now grown strong. Those who are fasting, when the prayer has been held with the brethren, withhold the kiss of peace, which is the seal of prayer. But when ought peace more to be shared with the brethren than when, at the time of a religious exercise, prayer ascends the more commendably, so that they themselves may partake of our exercise, since they have been softened by transacting peace with a brother out of their own? What prayer is whole, with a divorce of the holy kiss? Whom does peace hinder in doing his office to the Lord? What kind of sacrifice is it from which one departs without peace? Whatever the prayer be, it will not be of more weight than the observance of the precept, by which we are bidden to conceal our fastings. For by the abstaining from the kiss we are already recognized as fasting. But even if there is some reason for it — that you may yet not be guilty against this precept — you can at home, perhaps, among those from whom it is not given to conceal the fasting entirely, defer the peace. But wherever else you can hide your exercise, you ought to remember the precept; thus you will satisfy both discipline abroad and custom at home. So too on the day of the Passover, on which there is a common and, as it were, public observance of the fast, we rightly lay aside the kiss, caring nothing about concealing what we do along with all.

Similarly, concerning the days of the stations, most people think that the prayers of the sacrifices are not to be attended, because the station is to be broken on receiving the body of the Lord. Does then the Eucharist dissolve a service devoted to God, or rather bind us more to God? Will not your station be more solemn if you have also stood at the altar of God? When the body of the Lord has been received and reserved, both are secured — both the participation in the sacrifice and the discharge of the duty. If the station took its name from a military example — for we are the soldiery of God too — surely no gladness or sadness befalling the camp cancels the stations of the soldiers. For gladness will administer the discipline the more willingly, sadness the more anxiously.

As regards the dress of women, at any rate, the variety of observance makes us, though by no means men of any standing, retract it, after the most holy Apostle, not without impudence — except that it is not impudent, if we retract it according to the Apostle. Concerning the modesty of dress and adornment there is an open prescription even of Peter, restraining with the same mouth — because with the same Spirit as Paul — both the gloriousness of garments, and the pride of gold, and the meretricious elaboration of the hair.

But what is observed indiscriminately throughout the churches, as though uncertain — that is to be retracted: whether virgins ought to be veiled, or not. For those who indulge virgins with the immunity of the head seem to rest on this, that the Apostle designated, not virgins by name, but women, as to be veiled, and not the sex, so as to say females, but the grade of the sex, by saying women. For if he had named the sex by saying females, he would have defined absolutely concerning every female; but when he names one grade of the sex, he separates off the other by his silence. For he could, they say, either have named virgins specifically too, or, by way of summary, females in general.

Those who concede thus ought to reconsider the standing of the very word — what woman is, from the very first letters indeed of the holy commentaries. For they find that it is a name of the sex, not a grade of the sex; since indeed God named Eve, not yet having known a man, woman and female — female, in respect of the sex generally, woman, in respect of the grade of the sex specifically. So, since at that time Eve, still unwedded, was called by the term woman, that term became common to the virgin too. Nor is it wonderful if the Apostle, moved assuredly by the same Spirit by which all divine Scripture, and that book of Genesis too, was set forth, used the same word in putting woman, which by the example of the unwedded Eve suits the virgin too. And finally, the rest agrees. For by this very thing, that he did not name virgins — as in another place, where he teaches concerning marrying — he sufficiently proclaims that it was said of every woman and of the whole sex, and that no distinction was made as to the virgin, since he does not name her at all. For he who elsewhere remembers to distinguish, where, that is, the difference demands it — and he does distinguish, designating each kind by its own words — where he does not distinguish, but does not name either, wishes no difference to be understood. What of this — that in the Greek tongue, in which the Apostle composed his letters, it is usual to call them women rather than females, that is, gynaikas rather than thēleias? Therefore, if this word is used in place of the name of the sex — which is in interpretation equivalent to female — he named the sex, by saying gynē. And in the sex the virgin too is included. But there is also a plain pronouncement: Every woman, he says, praying and prophesying with head uncovered dishonours her head. What is every woman, but of every age, of every order, of every condition? He excepts nothing of woman by saying Every — just as nothing of man either, nor of veiling; for likewise he says Every man. As therefore in the male sex, under the name of man, even the beardless is forbidden to be veiled, so in the female, under the name of woman, even the virgin is bidden to be veiled. Equally in either sex let the lesser age follow the discipline of the greater — or let male virgins too be veiled, if female virgins are not veiled, because neither are these held by name; let man and beardless boy be different things, if woman and virgin are different. He says, of course, that they ought to be veiled on account of the angels, because the angels fell away from God on account of the daughters of men. Who then would contend that it is only women — that is, those already married and who have done with virginity — who are objects of concupiscence, unless it be that virgins too cannot excel in beauty and find lovers? Nay, let us consider whether it was not virgins alone whom they desired, since the Scripture says daughters of men, whereas it could have named wives of men, or females indifferently. Even what it says, And they took to themselves for wives, it does for this reason — that those are taken for wives who are free, that is, unattached. But of those not free it would have spoken otherwise. And so they are free, by widowhood as well as by virginity. So thoroughly, by naming the sex generally as daughters, did it mingle the kinds in the genus. Likewise, when he says that nature itself teaches that females must be veiled — nature, which assigned the hair to women for a covering and an ornament — has not the same covering and the same honour of the head been ascribed to virgins too? If it is shameful for a woman to be shorn, it is so for a virgin likewise. In whom, then, one condition of the head is reckoned, of them one discipline of the head is exacted — even of those virgins whom childhood defends; for from the first she was named female. So, in short, Israel too observes it. But even if it did not observe it, our law, enlarged and supplemented, would defend its own addition. Let it be excused for laying a veil upon virgins too. Let the age that does not yet know its own sex hold the privilege of simplicity. For Eve and Adam too, when it befell them to know, straightway covered what they had recognized. Certainly, in those in whom childhood has now changed, age ought to be as bountiful in discipline as in nature. For they are unsealed both in their members and in their womanly offices. There is no virgin from the time she can marry, since her age has already married its own husband — that is, time. But some woman has vowed herself to God. From that time she both transfigures her hair, and turns her whole dress to that of a woman. Let her, then, assert the whole, and present the whole of the virgin: what for God's sake she conceals, let her plainly cover over. It is to our interest to commend what we exercise by the grace of God to the conscience of God alone, lest what we hope for from God we make up for from man. Why do you lay bare before God what you cover before men? Will you be more modest in public than in church? If it is the grace of God, and you have received it, why do you boast, he says, as though you had not received it? Why, by the display of yourself, do you pass judgement on others? Or do you, by your glory, invite others to good? But you yourself too are in peril of losing it, if you boast, and you drive others into the same perils. That is easily struck away which is taken up out of a fondness for glory. Veil yourself, virgin, if you are a virgin; for you ought to blush. If you are a virgin, do not wish to endure many eyes. Let no one wonder at your face; let no one perceive your falsehood. You feign yourself married well, if you veil your head. Nay, you do not seem to feign; for you have married Christ. To him you have given your flesh; act according to the discipline of your husband. If he bids other men's wives be veiled, surely much more his own. But let no one think that the institution of a predecessor is to be disturbed. Many subject their own prudence and its steadfastness to another's custom. That they be not compelled to be veiled, at least the voluntary ought not to be forbidden — those who cannot even deny themselves to be virgins, content to misuse their reputation by the security of a conscience before God. Concerning those, however, who are betrothed to husbands, I steadfastly, beyond my own measure, pronounce and protest that they ought to be veiled from that day on which they shuddered at the first kiss and right hand of a man. For in these all things have married beforehand — the age by maturity, the flesh by the age, the spirit by consciousness, the modesty by the experience of the kiss, the hope by expectation, the mind by will. And Rebecca is example enough for us, who, when her bridegroom was pointed out, veiled herself for marriage merely on knowing him.

Concerning the bending of the knee too, prayer suffers a variety of observance through a few who abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath. Since this dissension is just now pleading its cause before the churches, the Lord will give his grace, that they may either yield, or use their own opinion without scandal to others. But we, as we have received, ought, on the sole day of the Lord's resurrection, to refrain not from this only, but from every posture and office of anxiety, deferring even our business, lest we give any place to the devil. Just so much also during the space of Pentecost, which we mark with the same solemnity of exultation. For the rest, on every day who would doubt to prostrate himself before God, at least in the first prayer with which we enter upon the light? But on fasts and stations no prayer is to be celebrated without the knee and the rest of the custom of humility. For we do not only pray, but also entreat, and make satisfaction to God our Lord. Concerning the times of prayer nothing at all has been prescribed, except plainly to pray at every time and place.

But how at every place, when we are forbidden to pray in public? At every place, he says, which opportunity or even necessity has brought about. For neither is it reckoned against the precept that was done by the apostles, who in prison, with the guards listening, prayed and sang to God; nor by Paul, who in the ship, in the presence of all, made the Eucharist.

As to time, indeed, it will not be idle to observe also, in addition, certain hours — those common ones, I mean, which mark the divisions of the day: the third, the sixth, the ninth — which one may find to be the more solemn in the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit was first poured out upon the assembled disciples at the third hour. Peter, on the day he had the vision of the universal community in that vessel, had gone up to the upper parts at the sixth hour for the sake of prayer. The same, with John, was going up to the temple at the ninth hour, where he restored the paralytic to his health. Even though these things stand simply, without any precept of observance, yet it would be good to establish some presumption, which may both bind us to the admonition of prayer, and, as it were by a law, wrest us from our business at times to such a duty — so that, as we read was observed by Daniel too, surely out of the discipline of Israel, we may pray not less than three times at least in the day, being debtors to three — the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit — besides, of course, the lawful prayers, which are due, without any admonition, at the coming-in of day and of night. But also it becomes the faithful not to take food, and not to go to the bath, before prayer has been interposed. For the refreshments and the foods of the spirit are to be reckoned before those of the flesh, and the heavenly before the earthly.

Do not dismiss a brother who has entered your house without prayer — You have seen, he says, a brother, you have seen your Lord — especially a stranger, lest perchance he be an angel. But neither, when you yourself are received by brethren, prefer earthly refreshments to heavenly. For your faith will straightway be judged. Or how, according to the precept, will you say Peace to this house, unless you render mutual peace to those also who are in the house?

The more diligent in praying are wont to subjoin in their prayers Alleluia, and such kind of psalms, to the closing clauses of which those who are present together respond. And it is, at all events, an excellent institution to bring near to God, in honouring and setting him before all, a prayer made full, as a rich victim.

For this is the spiritual victim which has abolished the former sacrifices. To what end, he says, the multitude of your sacrifices to me? I am full of the whole burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and of goats I do not wish. For who has required these things at your hands? What, then, God has required, the Gospel teaches. The hour shall come, he says, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For God is a Spirit, and therefore he requires such worshippers. We are the true worshippers and the true priests, who, praying in spirit, sacrifice in spirit prayer — a victim proper to God and acceptable, which, namely, he has required, which he has provided for himself. This victim, devoted with the whole heart, fed by faith, tended by truth, whole in innocence, pure in chastity, crowned with love, we ought to lead, amid the pomp of good works, amid psalms and hymns, to the altar of God — and it will obtain for us all things from God.

For what has God denied to prayer coming from spirit and truth, when he himself demands it? We read and hear and believe how great are the proofs of its efficacy. The old prayer, indeed, both delivered from fires and from beasts and from famine, and yet had not received its form from Christ. But how much more does Christian prayer effect! It does not station the angel of dew in the midst of fires, nor stop the mouths of lions, nor transfer to the hungry the rustics' meal; it averts no sense of suffering by a delegated grace, but it equips with endurance those who suffer and feel and grieve, and by its power enlarges grace, so that faith may know what it obtains from the Lord, understanding what it suffers for the name of God. But the prayer of old also inflicted plagues, routed the armies of enemies, prevented the useful effects of showers. Now, however, the prayer of righteousness averts all the wrath of God, keeps watch for enemies, supplicates for persecutors. Is it a wonder if it knows how to wring out the waters of heaven, which has been able to obtain even fires? Prayer alone it is that conquers God; but Christ has willed it to work no evil. He has conferred on it all its power for good. And so it knows nothing but to recall the souls of the departed from the very road of death, to make whole the feeble, to heal the sick, to cleanse the demoniac, to open the bars of the prison, to loose the bonds of the innocent. The same washes away transgressions, repels temptations, extinguishes persecutions, consoles the faint-hearted, delights the great-hearted, escorts travellers, soothes the waves, strikes robbers dumb, feeds the poor, rules the rich, raises the fallen, holds up those who are falling, sustains those who stand. Prayer is the wall of faith, our arms and weapons against the enemy who watches us on every side. And so let us never go forth unarmed. Of the station by day, of the vigil by night, let us be mindful. Under the arms of prayer let us guard the standard of our Emperor; let us await, praying, the trumpet of the angel. Even all the angels pray; all creation prays; the cattle and the wild beasts pray and bend the knee, and, coming forth from their stalls and dens, look up to heaven with no idle mouth, vibrating the breath after their own fashion. The birds too, rising from the nest, lift themselves up to heaven, and spread out the cross of their wings instead of hands, and say something that may seem a prayer. What more, then, concerning the office of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed — to whom be honour and power for ever and ever.