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| On the Lord's Prayer.
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Treatise
IV.3301
| 3301
[Written a.d. 252. Compare
Tertullian, vol. iii. p. 681.] |
On the Lord’s Prayer.
Argument.—The Treatise of Cyprian on the Lord’s Prayer
Comprises Three Portions, in Which Division He Imitates Tertullian in
His Book on Prayer. In the First Portion, He Points Out that the
Lord’s Prayer is the Most Excellent of All Prayers, Profoundly
Spiritual, and Most Effectual for Obtaining Our Petitions. In the
Second Part, He Undertakes an Explanation of the Lord’s Prayer;
And, Still Treading in the Footsteps of Tertullian, He Goes Through Its
Seven Chief Clauses. Finally, in the Third Part, He Considers the
Conditions of Prayer, and Tells Us What Prayer Ought to Be.3302
| 3302 1st,
persevering and continuous, after the example of Christ our Lord; 2dly,
watchful, and poured forth from the heart, after the example of the
priest who, in the preface which precedes the prayer, prepares the
minds of the brethren by saying Sursum Corda, to which the
people answer Habemus ad Dominum; 3dly, associated with good
works and alms, like that of Tobias and Cornelius; 4thly, at every hour
of the day, and especially at the three hours appointed by the Church
for prayer, to wit, the third, the sixth, and the ninth hour; and,
moreover, we must pray morning and evening. | —
1. The evangelical precepts, beloved brethren, are
nothing else than divine teachings,—foundations on which hope is
to be built, supports to strengthen faith, nourishments for cheering
the heart, rudders for guiding our way, guards for obtaining
salvation,—which, while they instruct the docile minds of
believers on the earth, lead them to heavenly kingdoms. God,
moreover, willed many things to be said and to be heard by means of the
prophets His servants; but how much
greater are those which the Son speaks, which the Word of God who was
in the prophets testifies with His own voice; not now bidding to
prepare the way for His coming, but Himself coming and opening and
showing to us the way, so that we who have before been wandering in the
darkness of death, without forethought and blind, being enlightened by
the light of grace, might keep the way of life, with the Lord for our
ruler and guide!
2. He, among the rest of His salutary
admonitions and divine precepts wherewith He counsels His people for
their salvation, Himself also gave a form of praying—Himself
advised and instructed us what we should pray for. He who made us
to live, taught us also to pray, with that same benignity, to wit,
wherewith He has condescended to give and confer all things else; in
order that while we speak to the Father in that prayer and supplication
which the Son has taught us, we may be the more easily heard.
Already He had foretold that the hour was coming “when the true
worshippers should worship the Father in spirit and in
truth;”3303
and He thus
fulfilled what He before promised, so that we who by His
sanctification3304
have
received the Spirit and truth, may also by His teaching worship truly
and spiritually. For what can be a more spiritual prayer than
that which was given to us by Christ, by whom also the Holy Spirit was
given to us? What praying to the Father can be more truthful than
that which was delivered to us by the Son who is the Truth, out of His
own mouth? So that to pray otherwise than He taught is not
ignorance alone, but also sin; since He Himself has established, and
said, “Ye reject the commandments of God, that ye may keep your
own traditions.”3305
| 3305
Mark vii. 9. [On the Shemoneh
Eshreh, Prideaux, I. vi. 2] |
3. Let us therefore, brethren beloved, pray
as God our Teacher has taught us. It is a loving and friendly
prayer to beseech God with His own word, to come up to His ears in the
prayer of Christ. Let the Father acknowledge the words of His Son
when we make our prayer, and let Him also who dwells within in our
breast Himself dwell in our voice. And since we have Him as an
Advocate with the Father for our sins, let us, when as sinners we
petition on behalf of our sins, put forward the words of our
Advocate. For since He says, that “whatsoever we shall ask
of the Father in His name, He will give us,”3306
how much more effectually do we obtain
what we ask in Christ’s name, if we ask for it in His own
prayer!3307
| 3307
[Compare John xiv.
6. How can we come to
the Father by the Son more effectually than by using the words which
the Son has taught? Dr. Johnson thought extemporaneous prayers
very good if the Lord’s Prayer were not omitted.] |
4. But let our speech and petition when we
pray be under discipline, observing quietness and modesty. Let us
consider that we are standing in God’s sight. We must
please the divine eyes both with the habit of body and with the measure
of voice. For as it is characteristic of a shameless man to be
noisy with his cries, so, on the other hand, it is fitting to the
modest man to pray with moderated petitions. Moreover, in His
teaching the Lord has bidden us to pray in secret—in hidden and
remote places, in our very bed-chambers—which is best suited to
faith, that we may know that God is everywhere present, and hears and
sees all, and in the plenitude of His majesty penetrates even into
hidden and secret places, as it is written, “I am a God at hand,
and not a God afar off. If a man shall hide himself in secret
places, shall I not then see him? Do not I fill heaven and
earth?”3308
And
again: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding
the evil and the good.”3309
And when we meet together with
the brethren in one place, and celebrate divine sacrifices with
God’s priest, we ought to be mindful of modesty and
discipline—not to throw abroad our prayers indiscriminately, with
unsubdued voices, nor to cast to God with tumultuous wordiness a
petition that ought to be commended to God by modesty; for God is the
hearer, not of the voice, but of the heart. Nor need He be
clamorously reminded, since He sees men’s thoughts, as the Lord
proves to us when He says, “Why think ye evil in your
hearts?”3310
And in
another place: “And all the churches shall know that I am
He that searcheth the hearts and reins.”3311
5. And this Hannah in the first book of
Kings, who was a type of the Church, maintains and observes, in that
she prayed to God not with clamorous petition, but silently and
modestly, within the very recesses of her heart. She spoke with
hidden prayer, but with manifest faith. She spoke not with her
voice, but with her heart, because she knew that thus God hears; and
she effectually obtained what she sought, because she asked it with
belief. Divine Scripture asserts this, when it says, “She
spake in her heart, and her lips moved, and her voice was not heard;
and God did hear her.”3312
We read also in the Psalms,
“Speak in your hearts, and in your beds, and be ye
pierced.”3313
The
Holy Spirit, moreover, suggests these same things by Jeremiah, and
teaches, saying, “But in the heart ought God to be adored by
thee.”3314
6. And
let not the worshipper, beloved brethren, be ignorant in what manner
the publican prayed with the Pharisee in the temple. Not with
eyes lifted up boldly to heaven, nor with hands proudly raised; but
beating his breast, and testifying to the sins shut up within, he
implored the help of the divine mercy. And while the Pharisee was
pleased with himself, this man who thus asked, the rather deserved to
be sanctified, since he placed the hope of salvation not in the
confidence of his innocence, because there is none who is innocent; but
confessing his sinfulness he humbly prayed, and He who pardons the
humble heard the petitioner. And these things the Lord records in
His Gospel, saying, “Two men went up into the temple to pray; the
one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood, and
prayed thus with himself: God, I thank Thee that I am not as
other men are, unjust, extortioners, adulterers, even as this
publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I
possess. But the publican stood afar off, and would not so much
as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying,
God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say unto you, this man went
down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee: for every
one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and whosoever humbleth
himself shall be exalted.”3315
7. These things, beloved brethren, when we have
learnt from the sacred reading, and have gathered in what way we ought
to approach to prayer, let us know also from the Lord’s teaching
what we should pray. “Thus,” says He, “pray
ye:—
“Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed
be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in
heaven so in earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And
forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And suffer us
not to be led into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
Amen.”3316
8. Before all things, the Teacher of peace
and the Master of unity would not have prayer to be made singly and
individually, as for one who prays to pray for himself alone. For
we say not “My Father, which art in heaven,” nor
“Give me this day my daily bread;” nor does each one ask
that only his own debt should be forgiven him; nor does he request for
himself alone that he may not be led into temptation, and delivered
from evil. Our prayer is public and common; and when we pray, we
pray not for one, but for the whole people, because we the whole people
are one. The God of peace and the Teacher of concord, who taught
unity, willed that one should thus pray for all, even as He Himself
bore us all in one.3317
This law of prayer the three
children observed when they were shut up in the fiery furnace, speaking
together in prayer, and being of one heart in the agreement of the
spirit; and this the faith of the sacred Scripture assures us, and in
telling us how such as these prayed, gives an example which we ought to
follow in our prayers, in order that we may be such as they were:
“Then these three,” it says, “as if from one mouth
sang an hymn, and blessed the Lord.”3318
They spoke as if from one mouth,
although Christ had not yet taught them how to pray. And
therefore, as they prayed, their speech was availing and effectual,
because a peaceful, and sincere, and spiritual prayer deserved well of
the Lord. Thus also we find that the apostles, with the
disciples, prayed after the Lord’s ascension: “They
all,” says the Scripture, “continued with one accord in
prayer, with the women, and Mary who was the mother of Jesus, and with
His brethren.”3319
They continued with one accord
in prayer, declaring both by the urgency and by the agreement3320
of their
praying, that God, “who maketh men to dwell of one mind in a
house,”3321
only admits
into the divine and eternal home those among whom prayer is
unanimous.
9. But what matters of deep moment3322
are contained
in the Lord’s prayer! How many and how great, briefly
collected in the words, but spiritually abundant in virtue! so that
there is absolutely nothing passed over that is not comprehended in
these our prayers and petitions, as in a compendium of heavenly
doctrine. “After this manner,” says He, “pray
ye: Our Father, which art in heaven.” The new man,
born again and restored to his God by His grace, says
“Father,” in the first place because he has now begun to be
a son. “He came,” He says, “to His own, and His
own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave
He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in His
name.”3323
The
man, therefore, who has believed in His name, and has become
God’s son, ought from this point to begin both to give thanks and
to profess himself God’s son, by declaring that God is his Father
in heaven; and also to bear witness, among the very first words of his
new birth, that he has renounced an earthly and carnal father, and that
he has begun to know as well as to have as a father Him only who is in
heaven, as it is written: “They who say unto their father
and their mother, I have not known thee, and who have not acknowledged
their own children; these have observed Thy precepts and have kept Thy
covenant.”3324
Also the Lord in His
Gospel has bidden us to call “no man our father upon earth,
because there is to us one Father, who is in heaven.”3325
And to
the disciple who had made mention of his dead father, He replied,
“Let the dead bury their dead;”3326
for he had said that his father was
dead, while the Father of believers is living.
10. Nor ought we, beloved brethren, only to
observe and understand that we should call Him Father who is in
heaven; but we add to it, and say our Father, that is, the
Father of those who believe—of those who, being sanctified by
Him, and restored by the nativity of spiritual grace, have begun to be
sons of God. A word this, moreover, which rebukes and condemns
the Jews, who not only unbelievingly despised Christ, who had been
announced to them by the prophets, and sent first to them, but also
cruelly put Him to death; and these cannot now call God their Father,
since the Lord confounds and confutes them, saying, “Ye are born
of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will
do. For he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in
the truth, because there is no truth in him.”3327
And by Isaiah the prophet God
cries in wrath, “I have begotten and brought up children; but
they have despised me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his
master’s crib; but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath
not understood me. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with sins, a
wicked seed, corrupt children!3328
Ye have forsaken the Lord; ye
have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger.”3329
In repudiation of these, we
Christians, when we pray, say Our Father; because He has begun to be
ours, and has ceased to be the Father of the Jews, who have forsaken
Him. Nor can a sinful people be a son; but the name of sons is
attributed to those to whom remission of sins is granted, and to them
immortality is promised anew, in the words of our Lord Himself:
“Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the
servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the son abideth
ever.”3330
11. But how great is the Lord’s
indulgence! how great His condescension and plenteousness of goodness
towards us, seeing that He has wished us to pray in the sight of God in
such a way as to call God Father, and to call ourselves sons of God,
even as Christ is the Son of God,—a name which none of us would
dare to venture on in prayer, unless He Himself had allowed us thus to
pray! We ought then, beloved brethren, to remember and to know,
that when we call God Father, we ought to act as God’s children;
so that in the measure in which we find pleasure in considering God as
a Father, He might also be able to find pleasure in us. Let us
converse as temples of God, that it may be plain that God dwells in
us. Let not our doings be degenerate from the Spirit; so that we
who have begun to be heavenly and spiritual, may consider and do
nothing but spiritual and heavenly things; since the Lord God Himself
has said, “Them that honour me I will honour; and he that
despiseth me shall be despised.”3331
The blessed apostle also has laid
down in his epistle: “Ye are not your own; for ye are
bought with a great price. Glorify and bear about God in your
body.”3332
12. After this we say, “Hallowed be
Thy name;” not that we wish for God that He may be hallowed by
our prayers, but that we beseech of Him that His name may be hallowed
in us. But by whom is God sanctified, since He Himself
sanctifies? Well, because He says, “Be ye holy, even as I
am holy,”3333
we ask
and entreat, that we who were sanctified in baptism may continue in
that which we have begun to be. And this we daily pray for; for
we have need of daily sanctification, that we who daily fall away may
wash out our sins by continual sanctification. And what the
sanctification is which is conferred upon us by the condescension of
God, the apostle declares, when he says, “neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor deceivers, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And
such indeed were you; but ye are washed; but ye are justified; but ye
are sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit
of our God.”3334
He says that we are sanctified
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our
God. We pray that this sanctification may abide in us and because
our Lord and Judge warns the man that was healed and quickened by Him,
to sin no more lest a worse thing happen unto him, we make this
supplication in our constant prayers, we ask this day and night, that
the sanctification and quickening which is received from the grace of
God may be preserved by His protection.
13. There follows in the prayer, Thy kingdom
come. We ask that the kingdom of God may be set forth to us, even
as we also ask that His name may be sanctified in us. For when
does God not reign, or when does that begin with Him which both always
has been, and never ceases to be? We pray that our kingdom, which
has been promised us by God, may come, which was acquired by the blood
and passion of Christ; that we who first are His subjects in the
world, may hereafter reign with Christ when He reigns, as He Himself
promises and says, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the
kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning of the
world.”3335
Christ
Himself, dearest brethren, however, may be the kingdom of God, whom we
day by day desire to come, whose advent we crave to be quickly
manifested to us. For since He is Himself the
Resurrection,3336
| 3336
Or, “our resurrection.” | since in Him
we rise again, so also the kingdom of God may be understood to be
Himself, since in Him we shall reign. But we do well in seeking
the kingdom of God, that is, the heavenly kingdom, because there is
also an earthly kingdom. But he who has already renounced the
world, is moreover greater than its honours and its kingdom. And
therefore he who dedicates himself to God and Christ, desires not
earthly, but heavenly kingdoms. But there is need of continual
prayer and supplication, that we fall not away from the heavenly
kingdom, as the Jews, to whom this promise had first been given, fell
away; even as the Lord sets forth and proves: “Many,”
says He, “shall come from the east and from the west, and shall
recline with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of
heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into
outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.”3337
He
shows that the Jews were previously children of the kingdom, so long as
they continued also to be children of God; but after the name of Father
ceased to be recognised among them, the kingdom also ceased; and
therefore we Christians, who in our prayer begin to call God our
Father, pray also that God’s kingdom may come to us.
14. We add, also, and say, “Thy will
be done, as in heaven so in earth;” not that God should do what
He wills, but that we may be able to do what God wills. For who
resists God, that He may not do what He wills? But since we are
hindered by the devil from obeying with our thought and deed
God’s will in all things, we pray and ask that God’s will
may be done in us; and that it may be done in us we have need of
God’s good will, that is, of His help and protection, since no
one is strong in his own strength, but he is safe by the grace and
mercy of God. And further, the Lord, setting forth the infirmity
of the humanity which He bore, says, “Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me;” and affording an example to His
disciples that they should do not their own will, but God’s, He
went on to say, “Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou
wilt.”3338
And
in another place He says, “I came down from heaven not to do my
own will, but the will of Him that sent me.”3339
Now if the Son was obedient
to do His Father’s will, how much more should the servant be
obedient to do his Master’s will! as in his epistle John also
exhorts and instructs us to do the will of God, saying, “Love not
the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man
love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all
that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the
eyes, and the ambition of life, which is not of the Father, but of the
lust of the world. And the world shall pass away, and the lust
thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever, even
as God also abideth for ever.”3340
We who desire to abide for ever
should do the will of God, who is everlasting.
15. Now that is the will of God which Christ both
did and taught. Humility in conversation; stedfastness in faith;
modesty in words; justice in deeds; mercifulness in works; discipline
in morals; to be unable to do a wrong, and to be able to bear a wrong
when done; to keep peace with the brethren; to love God with all
one’s heart; to love Him in that He is a Father; to fear Him in
that He is God; to prefer nothing whatever to Christ, because He did
not prefer anything to us; to adhere inseparably to His love; to stand
by His cross bravely and faithfully; when there is any contest on
behalf of His name and honour, to exhibit in discourse that constancy
wherewith we make confession; in torture, that confidence wherewith we
do battle; in death, that patience whereby we are crowned;—this
is to desire to be fellow-heirs with Christ; this is to do the
commandment of God; this is to fulfil the will of the Father.
16. Moreover, we ask that the will of God
may be done both in heaven and in earth, each of which things pertains
to the fulfilment of our safety and salvation. For since we
possess the body from the earth and the spirit from heaven, we
ourselves are earth and heaven; and in both—that is, both in body
and spirit—we pray that God’s will may be done. For
between the flesh and spirit there is a struggle; and there is a daily
strife as they disagree one with the other, so that we cannot do those
very things that we would, in that the spirit seeks heavenly and divine
things, while the flesh lusts after earthly and temporal things; and
therefore we ask3341
| 3341 Some
add “earnestly.” | that, by the
help and assistance of God, agreement may be made between these two
natures, so that while the will of God is done both in the spirit and
in the flesh, the soul which is new-born by Him may be preserved.
This is what the Apostle Paul openly and manifestly declares by
his words: “The flesh,” says he, “lusteth
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: for these
are contrary the one to the other; so that ye cannot do the things that
ye would. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are
these; adulteries, fornications, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry,
witchcraft, murders, hatred, variance, emulations, wraths, strife,
seditions, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revellings,
and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also
told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love,
joy, peace, magnanimity, goodness, faith, gentleness, continence,
chastity.”3342
And
therefore we make it our prayer in daily, yea, in continual
supplications, that the will of God concerning us should be done both
in heaven and in earth; because this is the will of God, that earthly
things should give place to heavenly, and that spiritual and divine
things should prevail.
17. And it may be thus understood, beloved
brethren, that since the Lord commands and admonishes us even to love
our enemies, and to pray even for those who persecute us, we should
ask, moreover, for those who are still earth, and have not yet begun to
be heavenly, that even in respect of these God’s will should be
done, which Christ accomplished in preserving and renewing
humanity. For since the disciples are not now called by Him
earth, but the salt of the earth, and the apostle designates the first
man as being from the dust of the earth, but the second from heaven, we
reasonably, who ought to be like God our Father, who maketh His sun to
rise upon the good and bad, and sends rain upon the just and the
unjust, so pray and ask by the admonition of Christ as to make our
prayer for the salvation of all men; that as in heaven—that is,
in us by our faith—the will of God has been done, so that we
might be of heaven; so also in earth3343
| 3343
[See Hooker (a beautiful passage) in Walton’s Life,
“on the angels in heaven;” also, E. P., book
v. cap. xxxv. at close.] | —that is, in those who believe
not3344
| 3344
Some editions omit this “not.” | —God’s will may be done,
that they who as yet are by their first birth of earth, may, being born
of water and of the Spirit, begin to be of heaven.
18. As the prayer goes forward, we ask and
say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” And this may
be understood both spiritually and literally, because either way of
understanding it is rich in divine usefulness to our salvation.
For Christ is the bread of life; and this bread does not belong to all
men, but it is ours. And according as we say, “Our
Father,” because He is the Father of those who understand and
believe; so also we call it “our bread,” because Christ is
the bread of those who are in union with His body.3345
| 3345
This passage is differently read as follows: “And according
as we say Our Father, so also we call Christ our bread, because He is
ours as we come in contact with His body.” | And we ask that this bread
should be given to us daily, that we who are in Christ, and
daily3346
| 3346
[Probably in times of persecution. See Freeman,
Principles of Divine Service.] | receive the
Eucharist for the food of salvation, may not, by the interposition of
some heinous sin, by being prevented, as withheld and not
communicating, from partaking of the heavenly bread, be separated from
Christ’s body, as He Himself predicts, and warns, “I am the
bread of life which came down from heaven. If any man eat of my
bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread which I will give is
my flesh, for the life of the world.”3347
When, therefore, He says, that
whoever shall eat of His bread shall live for ever; as it is manifest
that those who partake of His body and receive the Eucharist by the
right of communion are living, so, on the other hand, we must fear and
pray lest any one who, being withheld from communion, is separate from
Christ’s body should remain at a distance from salvation; as He
Himself threatens, and says, “Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son
of man, and drink His blood, ye shall have no life in
you.”3348
And
therefore we ask that our bread—that is, Christ—may be
given to us daily, that we who abide and live in Christ may not depart
from His sanctification and body.3349
| 3349
[Not tied to actual daily reception, however. See the figure,
1 Kings xix. 7, 8. But see valuable note on
(ἐπιούσιος)
the supersubstantial bread. Cyril of Jerusalem, p. 277, Oxford
trans. of the Mystagogic Lectures.] |
19. But it may also be thus understood, that
we who have renounced the world, and have cast away its riches and
pomps in the faith of spiritual grace, should only ask for ourselves
food and support, since the Lord instructs us, and says,
“Whosoever forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my
disciple.”3350
But
he who has begun to be Christ’s disciple, renouncing all things
according to the word of his Master, ought to ask for his daily food,
and not to extend the desires of his petition to a long period, as the
Lord again prescribes, and says, “Take no thought for the morrow,
for the morrow itself shall take thought for itself. Sufficient
for the day is the evil thereof.”3351
With reason, then, does
Christ’s disciple ask food for himself for the day, since he is
prohibited from thinking of the morrow; because it becomes a
contradiction and a repugnant thing for us to seek to live long in this
world, since we ask that the kingdom of God should come quickly.
Thus also the blessed apostle admonishes us, giving substance and
strength to the stedfastness of our hope and faith: “We
brought nothing,” says he, “into this world, nor
indeed can we carry
anything out. Having therefore food and raiment, let us be
herewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation
and a snare, and into many and hurtful lusts, which drown men in
perdition and destruction. For the love of money is the root of
all evil; which while some coveted after, they have made shipwreck from
the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many
sorrows.”3352
20. He teaches us that riches are not only
to be contemned, but that they are also full of peril; that in them is
the root of seducing evils, that deceive the blindness of the human
mind by a hidden deception. Whence also God rebukes the rich
fool, who thinks of his earthly wealth, and boasts himself in the
abundance of his overflowing harvests, saying, “Thou fool, this
night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things
be which thou hast provided?”3353
The fool who was to die that very
night was rejoicing in his stores, and he to whom life already was
failing, was thinking of the abundance of his food. But, on the
other hand, the Lord tells us that he becomes perfect and complete who
sells all his goods, and distributes them for the use of the poor, and
so lays up for himself treasure in heaven. He says that that man
is able to follow Him, and to imitate the glory of the Lord’s
passion, who, free from hindrance, and with his loins girded, is
involved in no entanglements of worldly estate, but, at large and free
himself, accompanies his possessions, which before have been sent to
God. For which result, that every one of us may be able to
prepare himself, let him thus learn to pray, and know, from the
character of the prayer, what he ought to be.
21. For daily bread cannot be wanting to the
righteous man, since it is written, “The Lord will not slay the
soul of the righteous by hunger;”3354
and again “I have been young and
now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed
begging their bread.”3355
And the Lord moreover promises
and says, “Take no thought, saying, ‘What shall we eat, or
what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?’
For after all these things do the nations seek. And your Father
knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Seek ye first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you.”3356
To those who seek God’s
kingdom and righteousness, He promises that all things shall be
added.3357
For
since all things are God’s, nothing will be wanting to him who
possesses God, if God Himself be not wanting to him. Thus a meal
was divinely provided for Daniel: when he was shut up by the
king’s command in the den of lions, and in the midst of wild
beasts who were hungry, and yet spared him, the man of God was
fed. Thus Elijah in his flight was nourished both by ravens
ministering to him in his solitude, and by birds bringing him food in
his persecution. And—oh detestable cruelty of the malice of
man!—the wild beasts spare, the birds feed, while men lay snares,
and rage!
22. After this we also entreat for our sins,
saying, “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our
debtors.” After the supply of food, pardon of sin is also
asked for, that he who is fed by God may live in God, and that not only
the present and temporal life may be provided for, but the eternal
also, to which we may come if our sins are forgiven; and these the Lord
calls debts, as He says in His Gospel, “I forgave thee all that
debt, because thou desiredst me.”3358
And how necessarily, how
providently and salutarily, are we admonished that we are sinners,
since we are compelled to entreat for our sins, and while pardon is
asked for from God, the soul recalls its own consciousness of
sin! Lest any one should flatter himself that he is
innocent,3359
| 3359
“Although none is innocent” is here added by some. | and by
exalting himself should more deeply perish, he is instructed and taught
that he sins daily, in that he is bidden to entreat daily for his
sins. Thus, moreover, John also in his epistle warns us, and
says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, the Lord is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins.”3360
In his epistle he has combined
both, that we should entreat for our sins, and that we should obtain
pardon when we ask. Therefore he said that the Lord was faithful
to forgive sins, keeping the faith of His promise; because He who
taught us to pray for our debts and sins, has promised that His
fatherly mercy and pardon shall follow.
23. He has clearly joined herewith and added
the law, and has bound us by a certain condition and engagement, that
we should ask that our debts be forgiven us in such a manner as we
ourselves forgive our debtors, knowing that that which we seek for our
sins cannot be obtained unless we ourselves have acted in a similar way
in respect of our debtors. Therefore also He says in another
place, “With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you
again.”3361
And the
servant who, after having had all his debt forgiven him by his master,
would not forgive his fellow-servant, is cast back into prison;
because he would not
forgive his fellow-servant, he lost the indulgence that had been shown
to himself by his lord. And these things Christ still more
urgently sets forth in His precepts with yet greater power of His
rebuke. “When ye stand praying,” says He,
“forgive if ye have aught against any, that your Father which is
in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not
forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive you your
trespasses.”3362
There remains no ground of excuse
in the day of judgment, when you will be judged according to your own
sentence; and whatever you have done, that you also will suffer.
For God commands us to be peacemakers, and in agreement, and of one
mind in His house;3363
and such as He makes us by a second
birth, such He wishes us when new-born to continue, that we who have
begun to be sons of God may abide in God’s peace, and that,
having one spirit, we should also have one heart and one mind.
Thus God does not receive the sacrifice of a person who is in
disagreement, but commands him to go back from the altar and first be
reconciled to his brother, that so God also may be appeased by the
prayers of a peace-maker. Our peace and brotherly
agreement3364
| 3364
[Cyprian was very mild in his position against the accusations of
Stephen. Sec. 26, p. 386, supra; also Treatise ix.,
infra.] | is the
greater sacrifice to God,—and a people united in one in the unity
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
24. For even in the sacrifices which Abel
and Cain first offered, God looked not at their gifts, but at their
hearts, so that he was acceptable in his gift who was acceptable in his
heart. Abel, peaceable and righteous in sacrificing in innocence
to God, taught others also, when they bring their gift to the altar,
thus to come with the fear of God, with a simple heart, with the law of
righteousness, with the peace of concord. With reason did he, who
was such in respect of God’s sacrifice, become subsequently
himself a sacrifice to God; so that he who first set forth martyrdom,
and initiated the Lord’s passion by the glory of his blood, had
both the Lord’s righteousness and His peace. Finally, such
are crowned by the Lord, such will be avenged3365
with the Lord in the day of judgment;
but the quarrelsome and disunited, and he who has not peace with his
brethren, in accordance with what the blessed apostle and the Holy
Scripture testifies, even if he have been slain for the name of Christ,
shall not be able to escape the crime of fraternal dissension, because,
as it is written, “He who hateth his brother is a
murderer,”3366
and no
murderer attains to the kingdom of heaven, nor does he live with
God. He cannot be with Christ, who had rather be an imitator of
Judas than of Christ. How great is the sin which cannot even be
washed away by a baptism of blood—how heinous the crime which
cannot be expiated by martyrdom!
25. Moreover, the Lord of necessity
admonishes us to say in prayer, “And suffer us not to be led into
temptation.” In which words it is shown that the adversary
can do nothing against us except God shall have previously permitted
it; so that all our fear, and devotion, and obedience may be turned
towards God, since in our temptations nothing is permitted to evil
unless power is given from Him. This is proved by divine
Scripture, which says, “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to
Jerusalem, and besieged it; and the Lord delivered it into his
hand.”3367
But
power is given to evil against us according to our sins, as it is
written, “Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to those who
make a prey of Him? Did not the Lord, against whom they sinned,
and would not walk in His ways, nor hear His law? and He has brought
upon them the anger of His wrath.”3368
And again, when Solomon sinned,
and departed from the Lord’s commandments and ways, it is
recorded, “And the Lord stirred up Satan against Solomon
himself.”3369
26. Now power is given against us in two
modes: either for punishment when we sin, or for glory when we
are proved, as we see was done with respect to Job; as God Himself sets
forth, saying, “Behold, all that he hath I give unto thy hands;
but be careful not to touch himself.”3370
And the Lord in His Gospel says,
in the time of His passion, “Thou couldest have no power against
me unless it were given thee from above.”3371
But when we ask that we may not
come into temptation, we are reminded of our infirmity and weakness in
that we thus ask, lest any should insolently vaunt himself, lest any
should proudly and arrogantly assume anything to himself, lest any
should take to himself the glory either of confession or of suffering
as his own, when the Lord Himself, teaching humility, said,
“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak;”3372
so that while a humble and submissive
confession comes first, and all is attributed to God, whatever is
sought for suppliantly with fear and honour of God, may be granted by
His own loving-kindness.
27. After all these things, in the conclusion of
the prayer comes a brief clause, which shortly and comprehensively sums up all our petitions
and our prayers. For we conclude by saying, “But deliver us
from evil,” comprehending all adverse things which the enemy
attempts against us in this world, from which there may be a faithful
and sure protection if God deliver us, if He afford His help to us who
pray for and implore it. And when we say, Deliver us from evil,
there remains nothing further which ought to be asked. When we
have once asked for God’s protection against evil, and have
obtained it, then against everything which the devil and the world work
against us we stand secure and safe. For what fear is there in
this life, to the man whose guardian in this life is God?
28. What wonder is it, beloved brethren, if
such is the prayer which God taught, seeing that He condensed in His
teaching all our prayer in one saving sentence? This had already
been before foretold by Isaiah the prophet, when, being filled with the
Holy Spirit, he spoke of the majesty and loving-kindness of God,
“consummating and shortening His word,”3373
He says, “in righteousness,
because a shortened word3374
will the Lord make in the whole
earth.”3375
For
when the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came unto all, and
gathering alike the learned and unlearned, published to every sex and
every age the precepts of salvation, He made a large compendium of His
precepts, that the memory of the scholars might not be burdened in the
celestial learning, but might quickly learn what was necessary to a
simple faith. Thus, when He taught what is life eternal, He
embraced the sacrament of life in a large and divine brevity, saying,
“And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only
and true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.”3376
Also,
when He would gather from the law and the prophets the first and
greatest commandments, He said, “Hear, O Israel; the Lord thy God
is one God: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is
the first commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself.”3377
“On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”3378
And
again: “Whatsoever good things ye would that men should do
unto you, do ye even so to them. For this is the law and the
prophets.”3379
29. Nor was it only in words, but in deeds
also, that the Lord taught us to pray, Himself praying frequently and
beseeching, and thus showing us, by the testimony of His example, what
it behoved us to do, as it is written, “But Himself departed into
a solitary place, and there prayed.”3380
And again: “He went
out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to
God.”3381
But if
He prayed who was without sin, how much more ought sinners to pray; and
if He prayed continually, watching through the whole night in
uninterrupted petitions, how much more ought we to watch3382
| 3382
[Such was the example of Cotton Mather. Magnalia, i.
35.] | nightly in
constantly repeated prayer!
30. But the Lord prayed and besought not for
Himself—for why should He who was guiltless pray on His own
behalf?—but for our sins, as He Himself declared, when He said to
Peter, “Behold, Satan hath desired that he might sift you as
wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail
not.”3383
And
subsequently He beseeches the Father for all, saying, “Neither
pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me
through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in
me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us.”3384
The
Lord’s loving-kindness, no less than His mercy, is great in
respect of our salvation, in that, not content to redeem us with His
blood, He in addition also prayed for us. Behold now what was the
desire of His petition, that like as the Father and Son are one, so
also we should abide in absolute unity; so that from this it may be
understood how greatly he sins who divides unity and peace, since for
this same thing even the Lord besought, desirous doubtless that His
people should thus be saved and live in peace, since He knew that
discord cannot come into the kingdom of God.3385
| 3385
[Unity again enforced.] |
31. Moreover, when we stand praying, beloved
brethren, we ought to be watchful and earnest with our whole heart,
intent on our prayers. Let all carnal and worldly thoughts pass
away, nor let the soul at that time think on anything but the object
only of its prayer. For this reason also the priest, by way of
preface before his prayer, prepares the minds of the brethren by
saying, “Lift up your hearts,” that so upon the
people’s response, “We lift them up unto the Lord,”
he may be reminded that he himself ought to think of nothing but the
Lord.3386
| 3386
[The antiquity of the Sursum Corda is here shown.
Elucidation IV.] | Let
the breast be closed against the adversary, and be open to God alone;
nor let it suffer God’s enemy to approach to it at the time of
prayer. For frequently he steals upon us, and penetrates within,
and by crafty deceit calls away our prayers from God, that we may have
one thing in our heart and another in our voice, when not the sound of the voice, but the
soul and mind, ought to be praying to the Lord with a simple
intention. But what carelessness it is, to be distracted and
carried away by foolish and profane thoughts when you are praying to
the Lord, as if there were anything which you should rather be thinking
of than that you are speaking with God! How can you ask to be
heard of God, when you yourself do not hear yourself? Do you wish
that God should remember you when you ask, if you yourself do not
remember yourself? This is absolutely to take no precaution
against the enemy; this is, when you pray to God, to offend the majesty
of God by the carelessness of your prayer; this is to be watchful with
your eyes, and to be asleep with your heart, while the Christian, even
though he is asleep with his eyes, ought to be awake with his heart, as
it is written in the person of the Church speaking in the Song of
Songs, “I sleep, yet my heart waketh.”3387
Wherefore the apostle
anxiously and carefully warns us, saying, “Continue in prayer,
and watch in the same;”3388
teaching, that is, and showing that
those are able to obtain from God what they ask, whom God sees to be
watchful in their prayer.
32. Moreover, those who pray should not come
to God with fruitless or naked prayers. Petition is ineffectual
when it is a barren entreaty that beseeches God.3389
| 3389 [Should not this principle be more
effectually taught?] | For as every tree that
bringeth not forth fruit is cut down and cast into the fire; assuredly
also, words that do not bear fruit cannot deserve anything of God,
because they are fruitful in no result. And thus Holy Scripture
instructs us, saying, “Prayer is good with fasting and
almsgiving.”3390
For He who will give us in the
day of judgment a reward for our labours and alms, is even in this life
a merciful hearer of one who comes to Him in prayer associated with
good works. Thus, for instance, Cornelius the centurion, when he
prayed, had a claim to be heard. For he was in the habit of doing
many alms-deeds towards the people, and of ever praying to God.
To this man, when he prayed about the ninth hour, appeared an angel
bearing testimony to his labours, and saying, “Cornelius, thy
prayers and thine alms are gone up in remembrance before
God.”3391
33. Those prayers quickly ascend to God
which the merits of our labours urge upon God. Thus also Raphael
the angel was a witness to the constant prayer and the constant good
works of Tobias, saying, “It is honourable to reveal and confess
the works of God. For when thou didst pray, and Sarah, I did
bring the remembrance of your prayers before the holiness of God.
And when thou didst bury the dead in simplicity, and because thou didst
not delay to rise up and to leave thy dinner, but didst go out and
cover the dead, I was sent to prove thee; and again God has sent me to
heal thee, and Sarah thy daughter-in-law. For I am Raphael, one
of the seven holy angels which stand and go in and out before the glory
of God.”3392
By
Isaiah also the Lord reminds us, and teaches similar things, saying,
“Loosen every knot of iniquity, release the oppressions of
contracts which have no power, let the troubled go into peace, and
break every unjust engagement. Break thy bread to the hungry, and
bring the poor that are without shelter into thy house. When thou
seest the naked, clothe him; and despise not those of the same family
and race as thyself. Then shall thy light break forth in season,
and thy raiment shall spring forth speedily; and righteousness shall go
before thee, and the glory of God shall surround thee. Then shalt
thou call, and God shall hear thee; and while thou shalt yet speak, He
shall say, Here I am.”3393
He promises that He will be at
hand, and says that He will hear and protect those who, loosening the
knots of unrighteousness from their heart, and giving alms among the
members of God’s household according to His commands, even in
hearing what God commands to be done, do themselves also deserve to be
heard by God. The blessed Apostle Paul, when aided in the
necessity of affliction by his brethren, said that good works which are
performed are sacrifices to God. “I am full,” saith
he, “having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent
from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well
pleasing to God.”3394
For when one has pity on the
poor, he lends to God; and he who gives to the least gives to
God—sacrifices spiritually to God an odour of a sweet
smell.
34. And in discharging the duties of prayer, we
find that the three children with Daniel, being strong in faith and
victorious in captivity, observed the third, sixth, and ninth hour, as
it were, for a sacrament of the Trinity, which in the last times had to
be manifested. For both the first hour in its progress to the
third shows forth the consummated number of the Trinity, and also the
fourth proceeding to the sixth declares another Trinity; and when from
the seventh the ninth is completed, the perfect Trinity is numbered
every three hours, which spaces of hours the worshippers of God in time
past having spiritually decided on, made use of for determined and
lawful times for prayer. And subsequently the thing was
manifested, that these things were
of old Sacraments, in that anciently righteous men prayed in this
manner. For upon the disciples at the third hour the Holy Spirit
descended, who fulfilled the grace of the Lord’s promise.
Moreover, at the sixth hour, Peter, going up unto the house-top, was
instructed as well by the sign as by the word of God admonishing him to
receive all to the grace of salvation, whereas he was previously
doubtful of the receiving of the Gentiles to baptism. And from
the sixth hour to the ninth, the Lord, being crucified, washed away our
sins by His blood; and that He might redeem and quicken us, He then
accomplished His victory by His passion.
35. But for us, beloved brethren, besides
the hours of prayer observed of old,3395
both the times and the sacraments have
now increased in number. For we must also pray in the morning,
that the Lord’s resurrection may be celebrated by morning
prayer. And this formerly the Holy Spirit pointed out in the
Psalms, saying, “My King, and my God, because unto Thee will I
cry; O Lord, in the morning shalt Thou hear my voice; in the morning
will I stand before Thee, and will look up to Thee.”3396
And
again, the Lord speaks by the mouth of the prophet: “Early
in the morning shall they watch for me, saying, Let us go, and return
unto the Lord our God.”3397
Also at the sunsetting and at
the decline of day, of necessity we must pray again. For since
Christ is the true sun and the true day, as the worldly sun and worldly
day depart, when we pray and ask that light may return to us again, we
pray for the advent of Christ, which shall give us the grace of
everlasting light. Moreover, the Holy Spirit in the Psalms
manifests that Christ is called the day. “The stone,”
says He, “which the builders rejected, is become the head of the
corner. This is the Lord’s doing; and it is marvellous in
our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us walk
and rejoice in it.”3398
Also the prophet Malachi
testifies that He is called the Sun, when he says, “But to you
that fear the name of the Lord shall the Sun of righteousness arise,
and there is healing in His wings.”3399
But if in the Holy Scriptures
the true sun and the true day is Christ, there is no hour excepted for
Christians wherein God ought not frequently and always to be
worshipped; so that we who are in Christ—that is, in the true Sun
and the true Day—should be instant throughout the entire day in
petitions, and should pray; and when, by the law of the world, the
revolving night, recurring in its alternate changes, succeeds, there
can be no harm arising from the darkness of night to those who pray,
because the children of light have the day even in the night. For
when is he without light who has light in his heart? or when has not he
the sun and the day, whose Sun and Day is Christ?
36. Let not us, then, who are in
Christ—that is, always in the light—cease from praying even
during night. Thus the widow Anna, without intermission praying
and watching, persevered in deserving well of God, as it is written in
the Gospel: “She departed not,” it says, “from
the temple, serving with fastings and prayers night and
day.”3400
Let the
Gentiles look to this, who are not yet enlightened, or the Jews who
have remained in darkness by having forsaken the light. Let us,
beloved brethren, who are always in the light of the Lord, who remember
and hold fast what by grace received we have begun to be, reckon night
for day; let us believe that we always walk in the light, and let us
not be hindered by the darkness which we have escaped. Let there
be no failure of prayers in the hours of night—no idle and
reckless waste of the occasions of prayer. New-created and
newborn of the Spirit by the mercy of God, let us imitate what we shall
one day be. Since in the kingdom we shall possess day alone,
without intervention of night, let us so watch in the night as if in
the daylight. Since we are to pray and give thanks to God for
ever, let us not cease in this life also to pray and give
thanks.3401
| 3401
[On the Amen see Elucidation V. See vol. i. p.
186.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
