Collected Works 20 part 2/2

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.