Collected Works 20

I. The Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God -- the Word of the Reason and the Reason of the Word and the Spirit of both, Jesus Christ our Lord -- determined for the new disciples of the new covenant a new form of prayer. For it was fitting that in this respect also new wine should be stored in new skins, and a new patch be sewn upon a new garment. For whatever had existed before was either changed, like circumcision, or supplemented, like the rest of the law, or fulfilled, like prophecy, or perfected, like faith itself.

All things He renewed from the carnal into the spiritual by the new grace of God, the Gospel being superinduced, the eraser of all antiquity, in which our Lord Jesus Christ has been approved both as the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, and the Reason of God -- Spirit whereby He was mighty, Word whereby He taught, Reason whereby He came. So then the prayer instituted by Christ is composed of three things: of the spirit, whereby it has such power; of the word, whereby it is uttered; of the reason, whereby it is reconciled. John too had taught his disciples to pray, but all John's things were being prepared beforehand for Christ, until, when He Himself had increased -- just as the same John foretold that He must increase but himself decrease -- the whole work of the forerunner, together with the spirit itself, might pass over to the Lord.

For this reason it is not even extant in what words John taught men to pray, because earthly things gave way to heavenly. 'He who is of the earth,' He says, 'speaks earthly things'; and, 'He who is present from the heavens speaks the things which He has seen.' And what is there not heavenly which belongs to the Lord Christ, as does this discipline of praying too? Let us consider, then, O blessed ones, His heavenly wisdom -- first as to the precept of praying in secret, whereby He both demanded man's faith, that he should be confident that the sight and hearing of Almighty God are present even beneath roofs and in secret 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 same Wisdom in the following precept likewise pertains to faith and the modesty of faith, in that we should not think we must approach the Lord with a throng of words, whom we are sure of His own accord to provide for His own. And yet this brevity -- which makes for the third degree of Wisdom -- rests upon the substance of a great and blessed interpretation, and by as much as it is restricted in words, by so much is it diffused in senses. For it has embraced not only the proper offices of prayer -- whether the veneration of God or the petition of man -- but almost the whole discourse of the Lord, the whole record of His teaching, so that in truth in the prayer there is comprised an epitome of the whole Gospel. II. It begins from a testimony to God and the merit of faith, when we say:

OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN. For we both pray to God and commend faith, whose merit this appellation is. It is written: 'To those who have believed in Him, He gave power that they should be called sons of God.' Although very frequently the Lord pronounced God to be our Father, nay even enjoined that we should call no one on earth father except the one we have in heaven. And so, worshipping thus, we also fulfil a precept. Happy they who acknowledge the Father! This is what is reproached to Israel, when the Spirit calls heaven and earth to witness, saying: 'I have begotten sons, and they have not acknowledged me.' Moreover, in saying 'Father' we also name Him God. That appellation is one both of piety and of power. Likewise in the Father the Son is invoked; for He says: 'I and the Father are one.'

Nor is even Mother Church passed over, seeing that in the Son and the Father the Mother is recognized, upon whom rests the very name of both Father and Son. By one kind, therefore, or one word, we both honour God together with His own, and are mindful of the precept, and mark out those who have forgotten the Father. III. The name of God the Father had been made known to no one. Even Moses, who had inquired about it, had indeed heard another name. To us it has been revealed in the Son. For what indeed is a Son but the name of a Father? 'I have come,' He says, 'in the name of the Father'; and again, 'Father, glorify Thy name'; and more openly, 'I have made known Thy name to men.' We ask, therefore, that it be hallowed -- not that it befits men to wish well to God, as though there were some other from whom good could be wished Him, or as though He would suffer unless we wished it;

plainly it becomes us to bless God at every place and time, on account of the ever-due remembrance of His benefits by every man: but this too serves in place of a blessing. Otherwise, when is the name of God not holy and hallowed through itself, seeing that it hallows others from itself? To whom that surrounding host of angels does not cease to say: 'Holy, holy, holy!' Accordingly, therefore, we also, if we remember that we are candidates for the fellowship of angels, even here below learn beforehand that heavenly cry unto God and that office of our future glory. This much as regards the glory of God.

Otherwise, 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 the others also whom the grace of God still awaits, so that we may obey this precept too by praying for all, even for our enemies. And therefore, with the enunciation left in suspense, not saying 'hallowed be it in us,' we say 'in all.' IV. According to this form we subjoin, THY WILL BE DONE IN THE HEAVENS AND ON EARTH -- not that anyone resists that the will of God may be done, and that we pray Him for the success of His own will, but we ask that His will be done in all. For by the figurative interpretation of flesh and spirit, we are heaven and earth.

Although even if it is to be understood simply, still the sense of the petition is the same: that in us the will of God be done on earth, so that it may of course also be able to be done in heaven. But what does God will other than that we should walk according to His discipline? We ask, therefore, that He supply us with the substance and the capacity 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, then without doubt what He did was the will of the Father, unto which we are now summoned as unto patterns, that we should preach and work and endure even unto death. That we may be able to fulfil these things, there is need of the will of God. Likewise, in saying 'Thy will be done,' we wish well to ourselves even by this, that there is nothing evil in the will of God, even if something be inflicted otherwise according to each one's deserts. By this very saying we forewarn ourselves unto endurance. The Lord too, when under the imminence of the Passion He had willed to demonstrate the infirmity of the flesh now in His own flesh, said: 'Father, take away this cup,' and then, recollecting Himself: 'Yet not what I will, but what Thou willest, 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 delivered Himself over to the will of the Father. V. THY KINGDOM COME also pertains to that which 'Thy will be done' does -- 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 augur it in Him and impute it to Him, because we expect it from Him. And so, if the representation of the Lord's kingdom pertains to God's will and to our own suspense, how is it that some demand a certain prolongation for the age, when the kingdom of God -- which we pray may come -- tends toward the consummation of the age? We wish to reign the sooner, and not to serve the longer.

Even if it had not been prescribed in the prayer to petition for the coming of the kingdom, we should of our own accord have uttered that cry, hastening to the embrace of our hope. In envy of soul the martyrs cry out to the Lord beneath the altar: 'How long, O Lord, dost Thou not avenge our blood upon the inhabitants of the earth?' For surely their vengeance is directed from the end of the age. Nay, how quickly may Thy kingdom come, O Lord -- the vow of Christians, the confusion of the nations, the exultation of the angels, on account of which we are in conflict, nay rather, on account of which we pray! VI. But how elegantly has the divine Wisdom arranged 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 for petition for earthly necessities also!

For the Lord had also proclaimed: 'Seek first the kingdom, and then these things too 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 life is bread. ('I am,' He says, 'the bread of life'; and a little above: 'The bread is the word of the living God, which came down from the heavens.') Then, too, His body is reckoned in the bread ('This is My body'). And so, by asking for daily bread, we petition for perpetuity in Christ and inseparability from His body. But even in the sense in which this saying is admitted carnally, it cannot come to pass without religion and spiritual discipline. For He bids that bread be sought, which alone is necessary for the faithful; for the other things the nations seek after.

Thus He both impresses the lesson with examples and expounds it in parables, when He says, 'Does a father take away bread from his children and give it to dogs?' Likewise: 'Does he hand a stone to a son who asks for bread?' For He shows what sons should expect from a father. Even that nocturnal knocker was knocking for bread. Rightly did He add 'give us this day,' since He had earlier premised, 'Take no thought for the morrow what you shall eat.' To this matter He also fitted the parable of that man who, as his crops came in abundance, planned the enlargement of his barns and long spans of security, yet died that very night. Chapter VII. It followed that, having attended to the day's bread, we should also entreat His clemency. For what will nourishment profit us, if in truth we are reckoned to Him as an ox for the sacrifice?

The Lord knew that He alone was without offence. He therefore teaches us to ask, 'Forgive us our debts.' Confession is a petition for pardon, since he who asks pardon confesses his fault. Thus too repentance is shown to be acceptable to God, because He wills it rather than the death of the sinner. Now a debt, in the Scriptures, is a figure of transgression, in that it is likewise owed to judgment and is exacted by it, nor does it escape the justice of the exaction unless the exaction be remitted, just as the master remitted the debt to that servant. For to this the example of the whole parable looks.

For the very fact that that servant, having been freed by his master, did not likewise spare his own debtor, and was on that account brought before his master and handed over to the torturer to pay the last farthing—that is, even the least transgression—accords with this, that we too profess to 'forgive our debtors.' And elsewhere, drawing on this form of the prayer, He says, 'Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you.' And when Peter had asked whether he should forgive his brother seven times: 'Nay,' He said, 'seventy times seven,' so as to reform the law for the better, since in Genesis the vengeance reckoned for Cain was sevenfold, but for Lamech seventy times sevenfold. Chapter VIII.

He added, to complete so compendious a prayer, that we should supplicate not only concerning the remitting of transgressions, but also concerning their being turned away altogether: 'Lead us not into temptation'—that is, do not suffer us to be led by him who tempts. Far be it that the Lord should seem to tempt, as though He were either ignorant of anyone's faith or eager to cast it down. That weakness and malice belongs to the devil. For even Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son, not to tempt his faith but to prove it, so that through him God might make an example for that precept which He was soon to enjoin, that no one should hold his pledges dearer than God. He Himself, being tempted by the devil, pointed out the author and contriver of temptation. This position He confirms with later words, saying, 'Pray that you enter not into temptation.'

Indeed those were tempted by forsaking the Lord, who indulged in sleep rather than in prayer. To this the closing clause responds, interpreting what 'lead us not into temptation' means; for it is this: 'But deliver us from evil.' Chapter IX. In the compendium of a very few words, how many utterances of the prophets, of the Gospels, of the apostles are touched upon—the discourses of the Lord, His parables, examples, precepts! How many duties are at once discharged! The honour of God in 'Father,' the testimony of faith in the Name, the offering of obedience in 'will,' the commemoration of hope in 'kingdom,' the petition for life in 'bread,' the confession of debts in the entreaty, the concern about temptations in the request for protection. What wonder? God alone could teach how He would wish to be prayed to.

By Him, therefore, the religion of prayer was ordained, and being animated even then by its own privilege by the Spirit of Him, when it was uttered from the divine mouth, it ascends into heaven, commending to the Father what the Son has taught. Chapter X. Yet since the Lord, the foreseer of human necessities, after delivering the discipline of prayer said separately, 'Ask, and you shall receive'—and there are things to be asked according to each one's circumstance—when the lawful and ordinary prayer has been sent before as a foundation, it is lawful to build over it, as it were from without, further petitions for our accidental desires, yet with mindfulness of the precepts, lest we be as far from the ears of God as we are from the precepts. Chapter XI.

Mindfulness of the precepts paves the way to heaven for our prayers, of which the chief is that we should not go up to God's altar 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 the remission of debts while retaining them? How shall he appease the Father who is angry with his brother, since all anger has from the beginning been forbidden us? For Joseph too, sending away his brothers to fetch their father, said, 'And be not angry on the way.' He was surely admonishing us—for elsewhere our discipline is styled 'the way'—that, set upon the way of prayer to the Father, we should not proceed with anger. Thereafter 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 if one must be angry, let it not extend beyond the setting 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 persisting in wrath. Chapter XII. Not from anger alone, but from every disturbance of soul whatsoever, must the intention of prayer be free, sent forth from such a spirit as is the Spirit unto whom it is directed. For a defiled spirit cannot be recognised by the Holy Spirit, nor a sorrowful by a joyful, nor a fettered by a free one. No one welcomes an adversary; no one admits any but his own equal. Chapter XIII.

For the rest, what reason is there to set about prayer with hands indeed washed but the spirit foul, when even for the hands themselves spiritual cleansings are needful, that from falsehood, from murder, from cruelty, from poisonings, from idolatry, and the other stains which, conceived in the spirit, are carried out by the work of the hands, they may be lifted up pure? These are the true cleansings, not those which many superstitiously practise, taking water for every prayer, even when they come from a bath of the whole body. When I inquired of the scrupulous about this and sought the reason, I found it to be a memorial of Pilate: that he washed his hands at the giving up of the Lord.

We adore the Lord; we did not give Him up—nay, we ought even to oppose ourselves to the example of the betrayer, and not on that account wash our hands, save on account of some defilement of human intercourse, for conscience' sake. Otherwise, those hands are clean enough which we once washed together with our whole body in Christ. Chapter XIV. Though Israel wash all its members daily, yet it is never clean. Certainly its hands are always unclean, encrusted forever with the blood of the prophets and of the Lord Himself; and therefore, being heirs of guilt through the conscience of their fathers, they dare not lift them up to the Lord, lest some Isaiah cry out, lest Christ shudder. But we not only lift them up, but also spread them out, and modelling ourselves on the Lord's passion, even in praying we make confession to Christ. Chapter XV.

But since we have touched on one instance of empty observance, it will not be irksome to note also the rest, which deserve to be reproached with vanity, seeing that they are done without the authority of any precept, whether of the Lord or of an apostle. For such things are reckoned to belong not to religion but to superstition, being affected and forced, the mark of a curious rather than a rational service, and certainly to be checked at least on this ground, that they put us on a level with the heathen—as is the custom of some to make their prayer with their cloaks laid aside; for so the nations approach their idols. And surely, if this ought to be done, the apostles, who teach about the manner of praying, would have included it—unless indeed some suppose that Paul left his cloak behind with Carpus during prayer.

As if, forsooth, God would not hear men wearing cloaks—He who heard the three saints praying in the furnace of the Babylonian king with their trousers and turbans on. Chapter XVI. Likewise, that after the appointed prayer some have the custom of sitting down, I do not perceive the reason, unless it be such as children fancy. For what? If that Hermas, whose writing is entitled almost 'the Shepherd,' had, after finishing his prayer, not sat down upon his couch but done something else, should we claim that too as a thing to be observed? Surely not. For it is set down simply, and even now: 'When I had prayed and had sat down upon the couch,' for the sake of the order of the narrative, not as a pattern of discipline. Otherwise there will be nowhere to adore, save where there is a couch.

Nay, one would even act against Scripture, were he to sit down in a chair or on a bench. Moreover, since the nations do the like, by sitting down after adoring their little images, therefore it deserves to be censured in us because it is practised before idols. To this is added also the charge of irreverence—intelligible even to the very nations themselves, if they had any sense: since if it is irreverent to sit down in the sight and over against the countenance of one whom above all you would revere and venerate, how much more is that deed most irreligious in the sight of the living God, while the angel of prayer is still standing by! Unless we are reproaching God that prayer has wearied us. Chapter XVII.

But rather, adoring with modesty and humility, we shall the more commend our prayers to God—not even with our hands too loftily raised, but raised temperately and becomingly, not even with the countenance uplifted in boldness. For that publican too, who prayed humbled and cast down not only in supplication but also in countenance, went away more justified than the most insolent Pharisee. In the sound of the voice also it behoves us to be subdued; else what mighty lungs we should need, if we are to be heard according to loudness! But God is a hearer not of the voice but of the heart, even as He is its beholder. The demon of the Pythian oracle says, 'I understand even the mute, and I hear him that speaks not.' Do God's ears wait for sound?

How then could the prayer of Jonah from the very belly of the whale, through the entrails of so great a beast, from the very depths, through so vast a mass of sea, make its way up to heaven? What more shall those gain who adore more loudly, save that they are a nuisance to their neighbours? Nay, by publishing their petitions, what less do they do than if they prayed in public? Chapter XVIII. Now another custom has grown strong: those who fast, when they have kept prayer with the brethren, withhold the kiss of peace, which is the seal of prayer. But when is peace more fittingly exchanged with the brethren than when prayer, made the more commendable by a work, ascends—so that the very ones who have helped forward our work may themselves partake of it through the peace to be conveyed to the brother? What prayer is complete when divorced from the holy kiss?

Whom does the peace hinder in rendering his service to the Lord? What sort of sacrifice is that from which one departs without peace? Whatever the reason, it will not be weightier than the observance of the precept by which we are bidden to conceal our fasts; for by abstaining from the kiss we are already recognised as fasting. But even if there be some reason, yet lest you be guilty against this precept, you may at home, perchance, among those from whom it cannot be wholly hidden that you fast, defer the peace. But wherever else you can conceal your work, you ought to remember the precept: thus you will satisfy both the discipline abroad and the custom at home. So also on the day of the Passover, on which there is a common and, as it were, public religious observance of fasting, we rightly lay aside the kiss, taking no care to conceal what we do with all. Chapter XIX.

Similarly, on the days of the Stations, most think that the prayers of the sacrifices are not to be attended, because the Station must be dissolved on receiving the body of the Lord. Does the Eucharist, then, dissolve a service devoted to God, or bind us the more to God? Will not your Station be the more solemn, if you also have stood at the altar of God? On receiving the body of the Lord and reserving it, both things are safe—both the participation in the sacrifice and the discharge of the duty. If the 'Station' takes its name from the military example—for we too are the soldiery of God—then surely no joy or sorrow befalling the camp cancels the stations of the soldiers. For joy will carry out the discipline more gladly, sorrow more anxiously. Chapter XX.

As for the dress of women in particular, the variety of observance has made it necessary for us—men of no standing whatever—after the most holy apostle to handle the matter, yet not impudently, though we handle it, if we handle it according to the apostle: not impudently, that is. Concerning modesty of attire and adornment there is indeed a plain injunction of Peter also, who with the same mouth (because with the same Spirit as Paul) restrains both the glory of garments, and the pride of gold, and the meretricious elaboration of the hair. Chapter XXI. But that which is observed indiscriminately throughout the churches as though uncertain must be handled—whether virgins ought to be veiled or not.

For those who allow virgins immunity for the head seem to rely on this, that the apostle designated not virgins by name, but women, as to be veiled; and named not the sex, so as to say 'females,' but the grade of the sex, by saying 'women.' For if he had named the sex, saying 'females,' he would have defined absolutely concerning every female; but when he names one grade of the sex, he sets apart the other by his silence. For he could, they say, either have named virgins specially, or comprehensively named females in general. Chapter XXII. Those who thus concede ought to reconsider the very standing of the term—what a 'woman' is, from the very first letters of the holy commentaries.

For they find it to be a name of the sex, not of the grade of the sex, since God called Eve, who had not yet known a man, both 'woman' and 'female.' (A 'female' inasmuch as it is the sex generally, a 'woman' inasmuch as it is the grade of the sex specifically.) Thus, because even then Eve, while still unwed, bore the appellation of 'woman,' that appellation became common to the virgin also. Nor is it any wonder if the apostle, moved surely by the same Spirit by which both all divine Scripture and that book of Genesis was set in order, used the same word in putting 'woman,' which by the example of the unwed Eve suits the virgin also. And the rest, in fine, agrees.

For by this very thing, that he did not name virgins—as in another place where he teaches about marrying—he sufficiently declares that it was spoken of every woman and of the whole sex, and that no distinction is drawn between woman and virgin, whom he does not name at all. For he who elsewhere remembers to distinguish—where, that is, the difference demands it, and distinguishes both kinds by designating them with their own terms—where he does not distinguish, since he names neither by itself, wills that no difference be understood. What of this, that in the Greek tongue, in which the apostle wrote his letters, it is the usage to call them 'women' rather than 'females,' that is, gynaikas rather than thēleias? Therefore, if this term is employed for the name of the sex, which by interpretation stands for that which is 'female,' he named the sex in saying gynaika.

Now in the sex the virgin also is comprehended. But there is also a plain pronouncement: 'Every woman,' he says, 'praying and prophesying with head uncovered dishonours her own head.' What is 'every woman' but of every age, of every rank, of every condition? He excepts no woman by saying 'every,' just as neither any man from being veiled; for likewise he says 'Every man.' As therefore in the male sex, under the name of 'man,' even the beardless youth is forbidden to be veiled, so also in the female, under the name of 'woman,' even the virgin is bidden to be veiled. Equally in each sex let the lesser age follow the discipline of the greater; either let the male virgins too be veiled, if the female virgins are not veiled, since these too are not held by name.

Let 'man' and 'beardless youth' be different, if 'woman' and 'virgin' are different. Indeed, he says they ought to be veiled 'because of the angels,' since the angels revolted from God because of the daughters of men. Who then would contend that only women—that is, those already wedded and done with virginity—are objects of concupiscence, unless indeed it be not permitted that virgins too excel in beauty and find lovers? Nay, let us see that they did not lust after virgins alone, since the Scripture says 'daughters of men,' whereas it could have named 'wives of men,' or 'females' indifferently. Even that it says 'and they took to themselves wives' has this force, that those are taken as wives who are unengaged; of the not unengaged it would have spoken otherwise. And so they are unengaged, both by widowhood and by virginity.

So far, indeed, by naming 'daughters' generally as to the sex, he mingled the species in the genus. Likewise, when he says that nature herself teaches that women must be veiled, having assigned the hair to women for a covering and an ornament, is not the same covering and the same honour of the head ascribed to virgins also? If it is shameful for a woman to be shorn, so also for a virgin. In those, therefore, in whom one condition of the head is reckoned, one discipline of the head is also exacted—even upon those virgins whom their childhood shields; for from the first she was named 'female.' So finally does Israel also observe it. But even if it did not observe it, our law, enlarged and supplemented, would claim the addition for itself, imposing the veil upon virgins too.

Let the age be now excused which is ignorant of its own sex—let it hold the privilege of simplicity; for Eve and Adam too, when it befell them to have knowledge, at once covered what they had recognised. Certainly in those in whom childhood has already changed, the age ought, as of nature, so also of discipline, to be bountiful; for both by their members and by their functions they are unsealed as women. There is no virgin from the time she can marry, since her age has already, as it were, married in her to its own husband, that is, to time. 'But some woman has vowed herself to God.' Yet from that time she also transforms her hair and turns her whole appearance to that of women. Let her, then, assert herself wholly, and present herself wholly as a virgin; what she conceals for God's sake, let her plainly overshadow.

It concerns us to commend to the conscience of God alone whatever is exercised by God's grace, lest what we hope for from God we recompense ourselves with from man. Why do you lay bare before God what you veil before men? Will you be more modest in public than in the church? If it is God's grace, and you have received it, 'why do you glory,' he says, 'as though you had not received?' Why by ostentation of yourself do you judge others? Or do you invite others to good by your glorying? Nay, you yourself are in peril of losing it if you glory, and you compel others to the same perils. Easily is that dashed to pieces which is assumed for the sake of the glory of vainglory. Veil yourself, virgin, if virgin you are; for you ought to blush. If you are a virgin, be unwilling to endure many eyes upon you. Let no one marvel at your face; let no one perceive your falsehood. You feign a bride well enough, if you veil your head.

Nay, you do not seem to lie; for you have wedded Christ. To Him you have given over your flesh: act according to the discipline of your husband. If He bids other men's brides be veiled, His own surely much more. 'But let no one suppose that the institution of a predecessor is to be disturbed.' Many surrender their prudence and its constancy to another's custom. That they be not compelled to be veiled, certainly the willing ought not to be forbidden; let those who cannot even deny themselves to be virgins be content to abuse the reputation of their conscience in security before God. Yet concerning those who are betrothed to bridegrooms I can, beyond my own measure, steadfastly pronounce and testify that they must be veiled from that day on which they first shuddered at a man's body by a kiss and clasp of the right hand;

for in these all things have wedded beforehand—both the age by maturity, and the flesh by age, and the spirit by consciousness, and modesty by the experience of the kiss, and hope by expectation, and the mind by the will. And Rebecca is example enough for us, who, when her bridegroom was pointed out, was veiled merely by acquaintance with him, as one about to marry. Chapter XXIII. Concerning the placing of the knee also, prayer suffers a variety of observance through a certain few who abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath—which dissension is even now pleading its cause before the churches. The Lord will give His grace, that they may either yield, or use their own opinion without offence to others.

But we, as we have received, ought on the day of the Lord's resurrection alone to guard not only against this, but against every posture and office of anxiety, deferring even our business, lest we give any place to the devil. The same holds for the space of Pentecost, which is distinguished by 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 performed without kneeling and the rest of the demeanour of humility. For we do not merely pray, but also make deprecation and give satisfaction to God, our Lord. Chapter XXIV. Concerning the times of prayer nothing at all is prescribed, save 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 may bring. For it is not reckoned contrary to the precept, that thing done by the apostles, who in prison, while the guards were listening, prayed and sang to God—as with Paul, who in the ship, before all, made the Eucharist. Chapter XXV. But concerning time, the outward observance even of certain hours will not be idle—those common ones, I mean, which mark off the intervals of the day: the third, the sixth, the ninth, which one may find to be the more solemn in the Scriptures. First, the Holy Spirit was poured upon the assembled disciples at the third hour. Peter, on the day when he experienced the vision of the community of all in that little vessel, had gone up to the upper parts at the sixth hour for the sake of praying.

The same one, with John, went up to the temple at the ninth hour, where he restored the paralytic to health. Although these things stand simply, without the precept of any observance, yet it is good to establish some presumption which may both bind the admonition to pray, and, as if by a law, wrest us at times from our business to such a duty—so that, as we read was observed by Daniel too, doubtless from the discipline of Israel, we should adore at least not less than three times a day, being debtors to the Three, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—excepting, of course, the lawful prayers which are due, without any admonition, at the coming in of the light and of the night. But it also becomes the faithful not to take food, nor to approach the bath, before a prayer has been interposed.

For the refreshments and nourishments of the spirit are to be held prior to those of the flesh, since the heavenly things are prior to the earthly. Chapter XXVI. When a brother has entered your house, do not dismiss him without prayer—'You have seen,' he says, 'your brother, you have seen your Lord'—especially a stranger, lest perchance he be an angel. But neither, when you yourself have been received by brethren, should you set earthly refreshments before the heavenly; for at once your faith will be judged. Or how, according to the precept, will you say, 'Peace to this house,' unless you also render mutual peace to those who are in the house? Chapter XXVII. Those who are more diligent in praying are wont to subjoin in their prayers the 'Alleluia' and psalms of this kind, to whose closing clauses those present may respond.

And it is indeed a most excellent practice, in all that befits the setting-before and honouring of God, to bring a prayer saturated therewith as the best of victims. Chapter XXVIII. For this is the spiritual victim which has abolished the former sacrifices. 'To what purpose,' He says, 'the multitude of your sacrifices to Me? I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and I desire not the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and of goats. For who has required these things at your hands?' What therefore God has required, the Gospel teaches. 'The hour comes,' He says, 'when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For God is a Spirit, and so requires such worshippers.'

We are the true worshippers and the true priests, who, praying in spirit, sacrifice in spirit the prayer that is a victim proper and acceptable to God, which indeed He has required, which He has provided for Himself. This victim, devoted from the whole heart, fed by faith, tended by truth, entire in innocence, clean in chastity, crowned with love, we ought to escort with a train of good works, amid psalms and hymns, to the altar of God, and it will obtain for us all things from God. Chapter XXIX. For what has God ever denied to prayer coming from spirit and truth, seeing He requires it? How many documents of its efficacy do we read and hear and believe! The prayer of old, indeed, delivered from fires and from beasts and from famine, and yet it had not received its form from Christ.

But how much more does Christian prayer work! It does not station an angel of dew in the midst of the fires, nor stop the mouths of lions, nor transfer to the hungry the meal of countrymen; it turns away no sense of suffering by grace committed to it, but it arms with endurance those who suffer and feel and grieve; it enlarges grace by virtue, that faith may know what it obtains from the Lord, understanding what it suffers for God's name. But of old, too, prayer inflicted plagues, routed the armies of enemies, withheld the benefits of showers. Now, however, the prayer of righteousness turns away all the wrath of God, keeps watch for enemies, entreats for persecutors. Is it any wonder that it knows how to wring out heavenly waters, which was able even to procure 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 journey of death, to restore the weak, to heal the sick, to cleanse the demoniacs, 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 fainthearted, delights the magnanimous, escorts travellers, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, governs the rich, raises up the fallen, sustains those who are collapsing, upholds those who stand. Prayer is the wall of faith, our arms and weapons against the foe who watches us on every side. Therefore let us never go forth unarmed. By day let us be mindful of the Station, by night of the vigil.

Under the arms of prayer let us guard the standard of our Commander; let us await, in prayer, the trumpet of the angel. All the angels also pray; every creature prays; the cattle and the wild beasts pray and bend their knees, and coming forth from stalls and caves look up to heaven with no idle mouth, making their breath vibrate after their own manner. The birds too, now rising, are lifted up to heaven, and instead of hands spread out the cross of their wings, and utter something which may seem a prayer. What more, then, concerning the office of prayer? Even the Lord Himself prayed, to whom be honour and power unto the ages of ages. Edited by Dom. E. Dekkers, 1954, Transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2001.