On Prayer

It begins with a testimony to God, and with the merit of faith, when we say Our father who art in heaven. For we both pray to God, and commend our faith, of whose merit this appellation is the reward. It is written: To those who believed in him, he gave them power to be called sons of God. Although the Lord very frequently declared God to be our Father; nay, he even commanded that we call no one on earth father, save him whom we have in heaven. Thus by worshipping in this way we also fulfil the commandment. Blessed are they who acknowledge the Father. This is what is reproached against Israel, what the Spirit calls heaven and earth to witness: Sons, he says, I have begotten, and they have not acknowledged me. But by saying Father, we also name God. This appellation belongs to both piety and power. Likewise in the Father the Son is invoked. For I, he says, and the Father are one. Neither is Mother Church passed over.

For in the Son and the Father the Mother is recognized, from whom both the name of Father and of Son is established. In one word or name therefore we both honor God together with his own, and are mindful of the commandment, and mark those who have forgotten the Father.

The name of God the Father has been revealed to no one. Even Moses, who had asked concerning him, heard a different name. To us it has been revealed in the Son. For now the Son is the new name of the Father. I came, he says, in the name of the Father. And again, Father, glorify thy name. And more openly: I have manifested thy name to men. We therefore ask that it be SANCTIFIED: not that it is fitting for men to wish God well, as though there were some other state in which something could be wished for him, or as though he were in difficulty unless we make the wish. Plainly it is altogether fitting that God be blessed in every place and at every time, on account of the memory of his benefits, always owed by every man. But this also serves in place of a blessing. For when is the name of God not holy and sanctified through itself, since it sanctifies all others from itself?

To whom that surrounding company of Angels ceases not to say: Holy, Holy, Holy. Likewise therefore we also, as candidates of the Angels, if we are mindful, even from here have proclaimed that heavenly voice toward God, and the duty of our future glory. This as regards the glory of God. But as regards our own petition, when we say: Hallowed be thy name, we ask that it be hallowed in us, who are in him: and at the same time in others, whom the grace of God still awaits, so that we may also obey this commandment, by praying for all, even for our enemies. And therefore, with a suspended enunciation, not saying: Hallowed be it in us, we say: in all.

According to this form we add Thy will be done in heaven and on earth, not because anyone resists the doing of God's will, and we pray for the success of his will; but we ask that his will be done in all things. For by the figurative interpretation of flesh and spirit, we are heaven and earth. Although even if it is to be understood simply, the meaning of the petition is the same, that the will of God be done in us on earth, so that it may also be done in heaven. But what does God will, except that we walk according to his discipline? We ask therefore that he supply us with the substance and 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 thus he himself declared that he did not his own will but the Father's. Without doubt the things he did were the will of the Father, to which we now provoke ourselves as to examples, that we may preach, and work, and endure even unto death. That we may be able to fulfil these things, the will of God is necessary. Thus by saying: Thy will be done, we even wish ourselves well in this, that there is nothing evil in the will of God, even if something contrary is inflicted according to the merits of each. Already by this saying we forewarn ourselves unto endurance. The Lord also, when under the imminence of the Passion he had willed to demonstrate the weakness of the flesh already in his own flesh, said: Father, remove this cup. And remembering, save that not my will, but thine be done. He himself was the will and power of the Father; and yet for the demonstration of the endurance that is owed, he surrendered himself to the will of the Father.

Thy kingdom also COME, pertains to the same as Thy will be done, in us, that is. For when does God not reign? In whose hand is the heart of all kings. But whatever we wish for ourselves, we augur it toward him, and reckon it to him, what we expect from him. And so if the manifestation of the Lord's kingdom pertains to the will of God and to our own suspension, how do some ask for a certain prolonged age of the world, when the kingdom of God, which we pray may come, tends toward the consummation of the age? We wish to reign sooner, and not to serve longer. Even if it had not been prescribed in the prayer, we would have spontaneously uttered that voice, hastening to the embrace of our hope. The souls of the martyrs cry out to the Lord with indignation beneath the altar: How long dost thou not avenge, O Lord, our blood upon the inhabitants of the earth? For their vengeance is surely directed from the end of the age.

Nay, how quickly come, O Lord, thy kingdom. The desire of Christians, the confusion of the nations, the exultation of the angels, for the sake of which we struggle, or rather for the sake of which we pray. For the sake of which we struggle, or rather for the sake of which we pray.

But how elegantly has divine wisdom ordered the arrangement of the prayer! So that after heavenly things, that is after the name of God, the will of God, and the kingdom of God, it also made room in the petition for earthly necessities? For the Lord had also declared: Seek first the kingdom, and then these things also shall be added to you. Although we should understand Give us this day our daily bread in a spiritual sense rather. 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, who descended from heaven. Then also because his body is reckoned in the bread.

This is my body. Thus by asking for daily bread, we ask for perpetuity in Christ, and inseparability from his body. But also because this expression is admitted in a carnal sense, it cannot occur without a spiritual discipline either. For he commands that bread be asked for, which alone is necessary for the faithful; for the nations seek after the rest. Thus he also drives this home with examples, and reiterates it with parables, when he says: Does a father take bread from his children and give it to dogs? Likewise: Does he give a stone to a son asking for bread? For he shows what sons may expect from a father. But also that nocturnal knocker was asking for bread. And fittingly he added: Give us today, as one who had previously said: Take no thought for tomorrow what you shall eat. To which matter he also accommodated the parable of that man who, with his crops coming in, thought of enlarging his barns and of long stretches of security; he dies that very night.

It was fitting that, having observed the generosity of God, we should also entreat his clemency; for what good will food do, if we are truly reckoned before him as a bull for sacrifice? The Lord knew that he alone was without sin. He therefore teaches us to ask that Our debts be forgiven us. It is an exomologesis, a petition for pardon; because he who asks for pardon confesses a fault. Thus also repentance is shown to be acceptable to God, because he wills it rather than the death of a sinner. Now debt in the Scriptures is a figure of sin, which is likewise owed to judgment, and exacted by it, and does not escape the justice of the exaction, unless the exaction be remitted, as the lord remitted the debt to that servant. For to this the example of the whole parable looks.

For also the fact that the same servant, freed by his lord, does not likewise spare his own debtor, and on that account, being reported to the lord, is handed over to the torturer to pay the last farthing, that is, even the smallest sin, applies to this, that we also profess to forgive our debtors. Already also elsewhere from the form of the prayer: Forgive, he says, and you shall be forgiven. And when Peter had asked whether a brother should be forgiven seven times: Nay, he said, seventy times seven, so as to reform the law for the better, because in Genesis vengeance was reckoned seven times for Cain, but seventy times seven for Lamech.

He added to the fullness of so complete a prayer, that we should supplicate not only for the remission of sins, but also for their being turned away altogether, saying: Lead us not into temptation, that is, suffer us not to be led into it, by him of course who tempts. Far be it, however, that the Lord should seem to tempt, as though He either were ignorant of the faith of any, or were eager to overthrow it. That weakness and malice belong to the devil. For even Abraham He had commanded to sacrifice his son, not for the sake of testing his faith, but of proving it, so that through him He might make an example for His own precept, by which He was soon to command that not even dear pledges should be held dearer than God. He Himself, having been tempted by the devil, showed him to be the author and artificer of temptation. This passage He confirms by what follows, saying: Pray that ye enter not into temptation.

So greatly were they tempted who deserted the Lord, they who had given themselves to sleep rather than to prayer. To this the closing clause responds, interpreting what it means: Lead us not into temptation. For this is: But deliver us from evil.

In the brief compass of how few words, how many utterances of the prophets, of the Gospels, of the apostles, how many discourses of the Lord, parables, examples, precepts are touched upon? How many duties are at once discharged? The honor of God in the Father, the testimony of faith in the Name, the offering of obedience in the will, the commemoration of hope in the kingdom, the petition for life in the bread, the confession of debts in the supplication, the solicitude about temptations in the request for protection. What wonder? God alone could teach how He wished to be prayed to. The religion of prayer, therefore, ordained by Him, and animated by His own Spirit even then when it was borne forth from the divine mouth, ascends to heaven by its own privilege, commending to the Father what the Son has taught.

Since, however, the Lord, as the foreknower of human necessities, said separately, after delivering the discipline of prayer: Ask, and ye shall receive, and there are things which are to be asked for according to the circumstances of each person, the lawful and appointed prayer being set first as a foundation, there is a right to add petitions for additional desires, a right to overflow with requests beyond it, yet with remembrance of the precepts, lest we be as far from the ears of God as we are far from His precepts.

The remembrance of precepts paves the way for prayers to heaven, of which the chief is that we should not approach the altar of God before we resolve whatever discord or offence we have contracted with our brethren. For what is it to depart to the peace of God without peace? To depart to the remission of debts while retaining them? How shall he appease the Father who is angry with his brother, since all anger has been forbidden us from the beginning? For even Joseph, dismissing his brothers to bring their father, said: And see that ye be not angry on the way: he was admonishing us, of course. For our discipline is also called a way. So that, being set upon the way of prayer, we should not proceed to the Father in anger.

Furthermore the Lord, openly enlarging the law, places anger against a brother above murder, and does not permit it to be discharged even by an evil word; and even if one must be angry, not beyond the setting of the sun, as the Apostle admonishes. How rash a thing 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 anger.

Not from anger only, but from every disturbance of mind whatsoever, must the attention of prayer be free, sent forth from such a spirit as is the Spirit to whom it is sent. For a defiled spirit cannot be recognized by the Holy Spirit, nor a sad one by a joyful, nor a fettered one by a free. No one receives an adversary; no one admits any but his equal.

But what reason is there to approach prayer with hands indeed washed, yet with the spirit defiled? When even the hands themselves require spiritual cleanliness, that they may be lifted up pure from falsehood, from murder, from cruelty, from idolatry, and from the other stains which, conceived in the spirit, are wrought by the work of the hands. These are the true cleanliness, not those which most people superstitiously observe, taking water at every prayer, even after washing the whole body. When I was scrupulously inquiring into this and seeking a reason, I found it to be a commemoration of the betrayal of the Lord. We worship the Lord; we did not betray Him. Nay, we ought even to oppose the example of the betrayer, and therefore not wash our hands, unless it be that we wash away the defilement of our human conduct for the sake of conscience.

Otherwise, hands are clean enough which we have once washed together with the whole body in Christ. Israel may wash all its members daily, yet it is never clean. Certainly its hands are always unclean with the blood of the prophets, and stained forever with the blood of the Lord Himself. And therefore, conscious of the guilt inherited from their fathers, they dare not even 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, conformed to the Lord's passion, and in praying we confess Christ.

But since we have touched upon one instance of empty observance, it will not be irksome to note the others also, in which vanity is deservedly to be reproached; inasmuch as they are done without the authority of any precept, either of the Lord or of the apostles. For things of this kind are reckoned not to religion but to superstition, being affected, and forced, and belonging rather to curious than to rational duty; certainly to be restrained at least for this reason, that they put us on a level with the Gentiles. Such is the practice of some who offer prayer with their cloaks laid aside; for so the nations approach their idols. Which practice, if it were necessary, the Apostles, who give instruction concerning the habit of prayer, would have included; unless anyone thinks that Paul left his cloak at prayer with Carpus. God, forsooth, does not hear those who are cloaked, who heard the three holy men praying in the furnace of the Babylonian king with their sarabaras and their tiaras.

Likewise, the custom of certain persons of sitting down after prayer has been completed I do not see the reason for, unless it be that if that Hermas, whose writing is commonly entitled The Shepherd, had not sat down upon the bed after completing his prayer, but had done something else, we should claim that also as an observance. Certainly it is not written simply even now: When I had worshipped, and had sat down upon the bed, as a rule of discipline, but as part of the order of the narrative. Otherwise, one must worship nowhere except where there is a bed. Nay, he would act contrary to Scripture who should sit in a chair or on a bench. Furthermore, since the Gentiles do likewise, sitting down after worshipping their little images, it deserves to be reproved in us for this reason also, that it is practiced before idols. To this is added the charge of irreverence, intelligible even to the Gentiles themselves, if they had any sense.

For it is irreverent to sit down in the sight of, and facing, one whom you revere and venerate most highly; how much more is this most irreligious act done in the sight of the living God, with the angel of prayer still standing by, unless we reproach God that our prayer has wearied us.

But when we worship with modesty and humility, we shall the more commend our prayers to God, not raising even our hands too high, but lifting them temperately and becomingly, and not lifting up our face in boldness either. For that publican who prayed humbled and cast down not only in prayer but also in countenance, went away more justified than the most shameless Pharisee. The sounds of the voice also ought to be subdued. For how great a pair of lungs would be needed, if we were heard for our loudness? But God is the hearer not of the voice but of the heart, just as He is the beholder of it. The demon of the Pythian oracle says: I understand the mute, and hear the one who does not speak. Do the ears of God await sound? How then could the prayer of Jonah from the belly of the whale make its way through the entrails of so great a beast, from the very depths, through so great a mass of sea, to heaven?

What more will those gain who pray more loudly, except that they disturb their neighbors? Nay, by betraying their petitions, what less do they do than if they pray in public?

Another custom has now prevailed: those who are fasting, after prayer has been offered 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, ascending more commendably, has made them, as partakers of our act, bold enough to transact their own peace with a brother? What prayer is complete if divorced from the holy kiss? Whom does peace hinder in the performance of his duty to the Lord? What kind of sacrifice is it from which one departs without peace? Whatever the act of devotion may be, it will not be more important than the observance of the precept by which we are commanded to conceal our fasts. For by the withholding of the kiss we are recognized as fasting. But even if there is some reason for it, yet lest you be guilty of transgressing this precept, you can, if perhaps at home among those from whom the fast cannot be entirely concealed, defer the peace.

But wherever else you can conceal your act of devotion, you ought to remember the precept: and so you will satisfy discipline abroad and custom at home. Likewise on the day of Pascha, on which the fast is common and as it were public, we rightly lay aside the kiss, caring nothing about concealing what we do together with all.

Similarly, on the days of stations, most people think they should not be present at the prayers of the sacrifices, because the station would be dissolved by receiving the body of the Lord. Does the Eucharist then dissolve a service devoted to God, or does it rather bind it more to God? Will not your station be more solemn if you have also stood at the altar of God? When the body of the Lord has been received and reserved, both are safe: both participation in the sacrifice and the performance of the duty. If the station takes its name from a military example (for we are also the militia of God), certainly no joy or sorrow that befalls the camp dissolves the stations of soldiers. For joy will administer discipline more willingly, sorrow more anxiously.

Concerning the attire, however, of women in particular, the variety of observance has caused us, men of no standing whatsoever, after the most holy Apostle, to treat the matter again, and that not shamelessly, if we treat it in accordance with the Apostle. Concerning modesty of dress and adornment, there is an open prescription even from Peter, who with the same mouth, because with the same spirit as Paul, restrains the glory of garments, and the pride of gold, and the elaborate allurement of hair.

But what is observed indiscriminately throughout the churches, as though it were uncertain, must be reconsidered: whether virgins ought to be veiled or not. For those who grant virgins exemption of the head seem to rely on this, that the Apostle designated not virgins by name, but women, as those who are to be veiled; and not the sex, so as to say females, but a degree of the sex, by saying women. For if he had named the sex, by saying females, he would have defined absolutely concerning every woman. Or when he names one degree of the sex, he separates the other by silence. For he could, they say, either have named virgins specially, or females generally as a compendium.

Those who concede this ought to reconsider the status of the word itself, what woman means from the very first letters of the holy commentaries; for they will find it to be the name of the sex, not of a degree of the sex. For Eve, not yet having known a man, was named by God woman and female: female, as the sex in general; woman, as a degree of the sex in particular. And so even then, Eve still unmarried, was designated by the word woman, which word was thus made common also to a virgin. Nor is it any wonder if the Apostle, moved by the same Spirit by which all divine Scripture, and that Genesis in particular, was composed, used the same word by putting woman; which, by the example of Eve unmarried, is fitting also for a virgin.

The rest, moreover, does not sound otherwise; for by this very fact, that he did not name virgins, as he does in another place where he teaches about marriage, he sufficiently declares that the statement is made concerning every woman and the whole sex, and that no distinction is made, since he does not name the virgin at all. For he who elsewhere remembers to distinguish, where namely a difference distinguishes (and he distinguishes both kinds by designating them with their own terms) where he does not distinguish, since he does not name both, he wishes no difference to be understood. What of the fact that in the Greek tongue, in which the Apostle wrote his letters, it is customary to call women both females, that is gynaikas, women, and theleias, females? Therefore if that word is used in place of the name of the sex, which in translation stands for what is "female," he named the sex by saying gynaika, woman. But in the sex a virgin also is included.

Moreover the pronouncement is plain: Every, he says, woman praying and prophesying with head uncovered dishonoureth her head. What is every woman, but every age, every rank, every condition? By saying every he excepts nothing of woman; just as neither does he of man nor of veiling; 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 sex under the name of woman even the virgin is commanded to be veiled. Equally in both sexes let the younger age follow the discipline of the elder: or let male virgins also be veiled, if female virgins are not veiled, since neither are those expressly bound by name. Let man and beardless youth be different things, if woman and virgin are different things. Surely he says they ought to be veiled on account of the Angels, because the Angels on account of the daughters of men fell away from God.

Who therefore will contend that only women, that is those already married and dead to virginity, are objects of desire—unless it be that virgins too are not permitted to be outstanding in beauty and to find admirers? Nay, we see that it was not virgins alone whom they desired, since Scripture says daughters of men, for it could have named wives of men, or women indifferently. Also what it says, And they took them for wives, makes the point in that those are taken for wives who are of course available. But concerning those who were not available it would have spoken otherwise. Therefore they are available both by widowhood and by virginity: so much so that by naming the sex, it generally mingled daughters and the species within the genus. Likewise when he says that nature itself teaches that women ought to be veiled, since it has assigned hair as a covering and adornment for women; is not the same covering and the same honour of the head ascribed to virgins as well?

If it is shameful for a woman to be shorn, it is equally so for a virgin. In those therefore upon whom one and the same condition of the head is reckoned, one and the same discipline of the head is required, extending also to those virgins whom childhood protects; for from the first she was named female. Thus finally Israel also observes. But if it did not observe, our law, enlarged and supplemented, would defend for itself the addition. Let it be excused for imposing the veil upon virgins as well. Now let the age which is ignorant of its own sex hold the privilege of simplicity. For both Eve and Adam, when it befell them to know, straightway covered what they had recognised. Certainly in those in whom childhood has changed, as nature, so also ought age to be generous in discipline. For both in members and in duties they are surrendered to womanhood.

No one is a virgin from the time she can marry, because age has already in her married its own husband, that is to say, its season; but some have vowed themselves to God. Already from that point she transforms even her hair, and turns her whole manner of dress toward that of women. Let her therefore affirm the whole, and present the whole of a virgin: what she conceals on account of God, let her plainly overshadow. It concerns us that what she exercises as the grace of God, she commend to the conscience of God alone, lest what we hope for from God we receive as recompense from man. Why do you bare before God what you cover before men? Will you be more modest in public than in the Church? If it is the grace of God and you have received it, why do you glory, he says, as though you had not received it? Why do you judge others by your own display? Or do you invite others to good by your own glory?

And yet you yourself are in danger of losing it, if you glory; and you compel others into the same dangers. That which is taken up out of love of glory is easily chosen. Veil yourself, virgin, if you are a virgin; for you ought to blush. If you are a virgin, be unwilling to endure the eyes of many. Let no one marvel at your face; let no one perceive your falsehood. You lie well that you are a married woman, if you veil your head. Nay, you do not seem to lie; for you have married—you have given your flesh to Him. Act according to your husband's discipline. If he commands other men's wives to be veiled, his own certainly much more so. But let no one think that the institution of a predecessor should move him. Many surrender their own prudence and its constancy to another's custom, lest they be compelled to be veiled.

Certainly those who do so voluntarily ought not to be hindered, who cannot even deny that they are virgins, content to misuse in reputation the security of their own conscience before God. Concerning those however who are betrothed to bridegrooms, I can steadfastly pronounce and testify beyond my own measure, that they ought to be veiled from that day on which they have trembled at the first bodily contact of a man through kiss and right hand. For in these all things have already been wed beforehand: age through ripeness, and flesh through age, and spirit through consciousness, and modesty through the experience of a kiss, and hope through expectation, and mind through will. And sufficient example for us is Rebecca, who, when her bridegroom was pointed out to her, was veiled by the mere knowledge of him in the act of marrying.

Concerning the bending of the knee also, prayer suffers a variety of observance through a very few who abstain from kneeling on the Sabbath. Which dissension, since it is especially pleading its cause before the Churches, the Lord will grant his grace, that they either yield, or use their own opinion without scandal to others. We however, as we have received, ought on the Lord's day of the Resurrection alone to refrain not only from this but from every attitude of anxiety and from duties, deferring even business, lest we give any place to the devil. The same likewise throughout the whole space of Pentecost, during which we are marked out by the same solemnity of exultation. But on every other day, who would doubt to prostrate himself before God at least at the first prayer, by which we enter upon the light? On fasts however and on stations no prayer is to be celebrated without kneeling and the rest of the manner of humility.

For we do not only pray, but also make supplication and give satisfaction to God our Lord. Concerning the times of prayer nothing at all is prescribed, except plainly to pray at every time and in every place.

But how in every place, when we are forbidden in public? In every, he says, place which opportunity or even necessity might bring. For it is not reckoned as done against the precept by the Apostles, who prayed and sang to God in prison with the guards listening, as with Paul, who made the Eucharist before all on the ship.

Concerning time however, the external observance even of certain hours will not be idle. I speak of those common hours which mark the intervals of the day, the third, the sixth, the ninth, which are found to be more solemn in the Scriptures. The Holy Spirit was first poured out upon the assembled disciples at the third hour. Peter, on the day when he experienced the vision of all things in common in that vessel, had gone up to the upper rooms at the sixth hour for the purpose of praying. The same with John was going to the temple at the ninth hour, where he restored the paralytic to his own health.

Although these things stand simply without the precept of any observance, yet it is good to establish some presumption which both binds the reminder to pray and as it were by law extorts such a duty from occupations at times, so that, as we read was observed also by Daniel, certainly from the discipline of Israel, we may adore at least three times a day, as debtors to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Excepting of course the lawful prayers which are owed without any reminder at the entrance of light and of night. But also it befits the faithful not to take food before, and not to go to the bath before, interposing prayer. For the refreshments and nourishments of the spirit are to be held prior to those of the flesh, and heavenly things prior to earthly.

Do not dismiss a brother who has entered your house without prayer. You have seen a brother, he says, you have seen your Lord: especially if he be a stranger, lest he perhaps be an angel. But neither should he himself, apart from brethren, make earthly refreshments prior to heavenly ones. For straightway your faith will be judged. Or how will you say, according to the precept, peace to this house, unless you also render mutual peace to those who are in the house?

Those more diligent in prayer are accustomed to append Alleluia in their prayers, and psalms of this kind, to the closing verses of which those who are present together respond. And it is altogether an excellent institution, everything that is fitting for setting forth and honouring God, to bring a prayer full and rich as it were as the best sacrifice.

For this is the spiritual sacrifice which has abolished the former sacrifices. To what purpose, he says, is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? I am full of whole burnt offerings of rams; and the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and of goats I do not want. For who required these things at your hands? What therefore God has required, the Gospel teaches. The hour will come, he says, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For God is spirit: and therefore he seeks such worshippers. We are the true worshippers and the true priests, who praying in spirit sacrifice in spirit the prayer proper to God and acceptable, which he has indeed required, which he has provided for himself. This prayer, devoted from the whole heart, nourished by faith, tended by truth, whole in innocence, clean in chastity, crowned with love, we ought to bring with the pomp of good works amid psalms and hymns to the altar of God, obtaining for us all things from God.

For what has God denied to prayer coming in spirit and in truth, which he himself requires? We read, and hear, and believe, how great are the proofs of its efficacy. The old prayer indeed delivered from fires, and from beasts, and from hunger, and yet it had not received its form from Christ. But how much more fully does the prayer of Christians avail, which now does not station the Angel of dew in the midst of fires, nor stop the mouths of lions, nor transfer the rustics' dinner to the hungry, nor avert by delegated grace any sense of suffering; but it equips the patient, and the feeling, and the suffering with endurance, it amplifies grace with virtue, so that faith may know what it obtains from the Lord, understanding what it suffers for the name of God. But also in former times prayer inflicted plagues, routed the armies of enemies, withheld the beneficial rains. Now however the prayer of righteousness averts all the wrath of God, keeps watch for enemies, makes supplication for persecutors.

It is a wonder if it knows how to extort heavenly waters, which was able also to obtain fires. Prayer alone is that which conquers God. But Christ has taught it to know how to work nothing evil. He has conferred upon it all power from good. Therefore it knows nothing but how to call back the souls of the departed from the very path of death, to restore the weak, to heal the sick, to cleanse the possessed, to open the bars of the prison, to loose the bonds of the innocent. Likewise it washes away sins, repels temptations, extinguishes persecutions, consoles the faint-hearted, delights the magnanimous, escorts travellers, calms waves, strikes robbers with stupor, nourishes the poor, governs the rich, raises up the fallen, holds up those who are falling, sustains those who stand. Prayer is the wall of faith, our arms and weapons against the enemy who watches us on every side. Therefore let us never go 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 the trumpet of the Angel. The Angels also were all praying. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray, and bend their knees, and going forth from their stalls and dens, look up to heaven not idly with their mouths, stirring the air with their breath in their own manner. But also the birds now rising are lifted up toward heaven, and spread out the cross of their wings in place of hands, and say something which seems to be prayer. What more then concerning the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed, to whom be honour and power unto ages of ages.